Gal Luft, a dual citizen of the United States and Israel, is charged with paying a former Donald Trump adviser in 2016 on behalf of Chinese businessmen without declaring himself to be a foreign agent.
According to the prosecution, Mr. Luft encouraged the unnamed former government worker to promote Chinese-friendly policies.
Additionally, they assert that he arranged meetings between Iranian and Chinese energy company representatives to talk about oil deals that would defy US sanctions.
By acting as a middleman to find both buyers and sellers for “certain weapons and other materials,” they further claimed that Mr. Luft had “conspired with others and attempted to broker illicit arms transactions with, among others, certain Chinese individuals and entities.” This was a violation of the US Arms Control Act.
Prosecutors allege that he tried to arrange for Chinese companies to sell anti-tank weapons, grenade launchers, and mortar rounds to Libya. He also allegedly pushed for the purchase of bombs and rockets by the United Arab Emirates and the acquisition of unmanned aerial vehicles by Kenya.
The 57-year-old Mr. Luft was detained in Cyprus in February on US charges, but he escaped after being released on bail and is not currently in US custody.
Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, claimed that Mr. Luft “engaged in multiple, serious criminal schemes” in a statement.
“He acted through a former high-ranking U.S. government official to try to promote Chinese policies, subverting foreign agent registration laws in the United States; he acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil; and he told law enforcement numerous lies about his crimes,” Mr. Williams said.
“As the charges unsealed today demonstrate, our Office will continue to work tirelessly with our law enforcement partners to identify and hold accountable those who covertly attempt to carry out harmful foreign influence campaigns here in the United States,” the statement reads.
Mr. Luft had “the defendant engaged in multiple schemes to evade sanctions and laws intended to protect our national security,” according to Christie Curtis, acting assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office.
She continued, “The FBI is steadfast in defending our country by upholding laws intended to foster transparency of foreign influence within the United States.
Though the founder of the now-indicted think tank maintains that there is no foundation for the accusations, he has claimed that the Biden Administration is targeting him because he is one of the purported whistleblowers who Republicans have held up as having proof that President Joe Biden and his family are dishonest.
Mr. Luft claims in an odd video, first published by the New York Post, that his arrest in Cyprus was an attempt to prevent him from testifying before the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee regarding alleged payments the Biden family allegedly received from people with ties to Chinese intelligence.
The wanted man also asserted that the FBI was never given the evidence he provided to support his claims in March 2019.
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“I am now being hunted by the very same people that I informed about a possible security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, and I may have to live on the run for the rest of my life on the run,” he said. I cautioned the government regarding a possible threat to the validity of the 2020 elections. Who is the true criminal in this tale, you might wonder?
In addition, Mr. Luft claimed that he skipped bail after being arrested because he didn’t think he could get a fair trial in New York.
There is “nothing more corrupt than the lengths MAGA Republicans will go to preserve and expand their own power, including consorting with other corrupt actors, even alleged spies for the Chinese Communist Party,” according to Kyle Herrig, executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project, in a statement about the Mr. Luft case.
Do Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, and James Comer lack even the slightest sense of shame? Evidently so. In the beginning, the case against President Biden was based solely on conspiracies, but in recent weeks, their claims have fallen even further apart,” he said. “Today’s charges add to six months of misery and failure for MAGA Republicans whose political stunts have failed to unearth a single piece of evidence linking President Biden to any kind of wrongdoing at all,” reads a statement from the group.