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By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
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EDNY MEDIA ROOM, Oct 22 – Thomas Barrack and Matthew Grimes, indicted for illegal lobbying for the United Arab Emirates, were arraigned on July 26, 2021 before U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York Magistrate Judge Sanket Bulsara. Inner City Press live tweeted it here (and podcast here)

On October 21, the defense called as a witness Brady Cassis, an associate at Paul Hasting in DC. He was present and took laptop notes at the June 20, 2019 DOJ interview of Barrack. But the US immediately opposed admission of the notes that he took. Judge Brian M. Cogan sent the jurors to the jury room in order to hear argument.

At 2:22 pm, Judge Cogan said he would be admitting the notes, and allowing cross-examination on the issues. Then it was said, We are not getting to Mr. Barrack's testimony today.

On October 22, Barrack through counsel wrote: "Dear Judge Cogan: We respectfully submit this letter to alert the Court of exhibits upon which Mr. Barrack will rely in response to the government’s venue argument, as articulated for the first time during oral arguments regarding Defendants’ Rule 29 motions on the afternoon of October 20. During oral argument, it became apparent for the first time that the government’s entire venue theory is dependent on a novel application of the “contiguous waters doctrine,” which is both factually and legally erroneous. We intend to address this more fully in our forthcoming briefing on Rule 29, but we wanted to immediately alert the Court that we have identified a very small set of new casein-chief exhibits that squarely refute the government’s “proof” of venue. These materials are precisely the kind of “straggler” documents the Court indicated could trickle in throughout trial; documents that--until now--have been irrelevant to Mr. Barrack’s defense. These documents have now become critical to show Mr. Barrack’s location on specific days. Following the government’s articulation of its venue argument, counsel for Mr. Barrack reviewed the trial record to identify dates on which the government alleged that Mr. Barrack committed a supposed “act of agency” while in the areas the government will allege constitute the Eastern District of New York (“EDNY”). We were able to conclusively identify where Mr. Barrack was on specific days and times. Our review established that Mr. Barrack was not actually in EDNY at the time of any of the alleged acts of agency. For example, counsel discovered documents establishing that, while Mr. Barrack was in EDNY during part of the day on July 1, 2016 (a day on which the government alleges he sent Mr. Al Malik an email related to the alleged agency agreement), Mr. Barrack was actually in the Southern District of New York when he sent the relevant messages. The Court’s instruction on case-in-chief exhibits is clear. However-" full letter on Patreon here.

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Order on Patreon here.

US filing on Patreon here.

On FARA, full order on Patreon here.

Analysis: Because of the possibility of (success) appeal to any conviction under Section 951, on a claim that the jurors confused it with FARA, the attempt is made to keep FARA out of testimony as much as possible. But what about the jury instructions? Watch this site.

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