Thomas J. Barrack Jr., who is charged with illegally lobbying then-President Donald J. Trump, suggested that the delay in his prosecution was politically motivated.
Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a real-estate investor and close friend of former President Donald J. Trump, asked a federal judge to dismiss the foreign lobbying and obstruction of justice charges against him on Monday, contending that the Justice Department delayed prosecuting him until after Mr. Trump left office.
The argument, laid out in a court filing, marks Mr. Barrack’s first substantive response to an indictment unsealed last July in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, which accused him of using his access to Mr. Trump to advance the foreign policy aims of the United Arab Emirates and then misleading federal agents about his activities.
Mr. Barrack, 74, was arrested on July 20 in Los Angeles. He pleaded not guilty and was freed on a $250 million bond, over objections from federal prosecutors who argued he was a flight risk.
He is set to go to trial in September alongside his business associate, Matthew Grimes, who was charged in the same indictment but only with the lobbying counts. Prosecutors also charged Rashid al-Malik Alshahhi, an Emirati businessman who left the country after federal agents interviewed him in 2018 and who remains at large.
In addition to raising “the specter that the government intentionally delayed bringing this case for political reasons or tactical advantage,” his lawyers also argued in their filing that the lobbying and obstruction charges against Mr. Barrack were not supported by facts.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, which is bringing the case, declined to comment.
The case against Mr. Barrack centers on his role as an informal adviser to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. Prosecutors said Mr. Barrack, a financier with strong ties to the Middle East, used his influence to promote the Emirates’ agenda, while soliciting direction, feedback and talking points from senior Emirati officials.
Once Mr. Trump was elected, they said, Mr. Barrack invited senior Emirati officials to give him a “wish list” of foreign policy moves they wanted Washington to take during Mr. Trump’s term, prosecutors said.
In their court filing Monday, Mr. Barrack’s lawyers took issue with the lobbying and conspiracy charges against him, which contend that he failed to register with the U.S. attorney general’s office as an agent of the U.A.E. The indictment includes Mr. Barrack’s communications and public statements but, according to the court filing, “conspicuously omits any facts that he undertook these activities because he agreed to be directed or controlled by the U.A.E.”
Mr. Barrack also objected to the five counts against him that relate to his communications with law enforcement. In June 2019 — several months after F.B.I. agents served subpoenas on Mr. Barrack’s company and associates — Mr. Barrack sat down with agents for a voluntary interview, during which, prosecutors say, he lied about his contacts and activities involving the Emiratis.
Mr. Barrack’s lawyers said investigators did not record the interview but instead made handwritten notes that obscured Mr. Barrack’s statements.
The indictment describes events that took place between 2016 and 2019. “Why the government waited more than two years, and until after a change in administration, is a question only it can answer,” Mr. Barrack’s lawyers said.
In his final days in office, Mr. Trump issued executive pardons and commutations to dozens of people, including supporters and former aides facing federal indictments and serving sentences for convicted crimes.
The filing adds that the “lengthy delay” has meant Mr. Barrack could not preserve evidence, including records of conversations with Trump administration officials.
“Such communications would disprove the government’s theory that Mr. Barrack acted as a secret agent of the U.A.E. to betray the United States and instead demonstrate his activities were undertaken with the knowledge of the Trump campaign and administration,” the filing says.
His lawyers noted that Mr. Barrack, while seeking an official position with the Trump administration, submitted extensive information to the government about his overseas contacts, and that starting in late 2017 he voluntarily met with investigators for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, during the inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The inquiry by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn into Mr. Barrack’s ties with foreign leaders grew out of that investigation. After Mr. Barrack’s June 2019 meeting with the F.B.I., his lawyers said, he heard nothing from the government about the matter until two years later, when, they said, a dozen armed agents burst into a Los Angeles office where Mr. Barrack was attending a business meeting and took him into custody.
