California investor Imaad Zuberi has pleaded guilty to a number of charges and fines for his involvement in a scam to provide illegal campaign contributions to various presidential nominees.
What We Know:
- On Thursday, a Federal Judge in California found 50-year-old Imaad Zuberi guilty of tax evasion in 2019, falsifying foreign agent registration records and funneling nearly $1 million into illegal campaign contributions. The venture capitalist was sentenced to 12 years in prison. On top of that, he will be fined $1.75 million and ordered to pay $15.7 million in restitution.
- According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Zuberi donated roughly $1 million to former President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee in December of 2016. According to NBC News, Zuberi’s made several prior donations to elected politicians, including donations to former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2015, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in 2014, California Attorney General Kamala Harris in 2015, and former President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2011.
- Between 2012 and 2016, federal prosecutors claim that Zuberi hired lobbyists and public relations professionals in an effort to interfere with U.S. foreign policies to open business opportunities for his international clients.
“The violations were part of a larger surreptitious effort to route foreign money into U.S. elections and to use it to corrupt U.S.policy-making processes, […] the court should reject Zuberi’s characterization that illegal foreign interference and by funneling money to influence US policymaking and elections was the way America works,” the court filing read.
- Zuberi has been accused of injecting foreign money into U.S. politics by soliciting foreign governments, House members, and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Prosecutors claim Zuberi even received a $1 million payment from the Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash in 2015. Firtash has been tied to the Trump administration as well as the Russian mob.
Tracy Wilkinson, acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, commented on the ruling saying, “Today’s sentence, which also accounts for Mr. Zuberi’s attempt to obstruct an investigation into his felonious conduct, underscores the importance of our ongoing efforts to maintain transparency in U.S. elections and policy-making processes.”
