"It's Not a Joke!"
Trump friend Tom Barrack on Matt Gaetz's nomination
In the nick of time, Tom Barrack is back!
Just as journalists, anchors, and most everyone else was having a collective coronary attack at the news of Matt Gaetz’s nomination as Attorney General, Trump’s long-time friend, the billionaire investor Tom Barrack, no stranger to these pages, sauntered back into the public arena after too long an absence. In his inimitable way, he somehow calmed the roiling water and brought people’s temperatures down.
I’d forgotten until I watched him give a command performance on both CNBC’s Squawk Box and with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg, that Barrack’s unique gift is that when he talks, time seems to stand still. He has a gift for making the preposterous sound reasonable. You can understand why, my sources tell me, he’s pretty much the only person who was welcome in both the UAE and Qatar, when the former was blockading the latter. You can quickly see why it’s useful even for Trump, who, as we know, doesn’t like to be upstaged, to have him out there.
You may recall that back in the fall of 2022, I spent day after day in a courtroom in Brooklyn, covering Barrack’s criminal trial. Barrack was charged by the Eastern District of New York on 9 counts of espionage for the UAE. He took the stand in his own defense - usually considered a risky move by defense lawyers - but in this case, he had the jury at “Hello”. As he told his life story, I’ve never seen a jury so visibly charmed. He was acquitted of all charges.
But the experience, understandably took a toll. How could it not? He’d lost two years of his life fighting, worrying, as he puts it, he might spend the rest of his life in Singh-Singh due to an indictment that, was, he believes politically-driven. While he recovered, he’s not been on TV or in the headlines. He’s stayed out of the fray.
But now, he’s back, publicly supporting Trump, he says precisely because of what he went through. He has some understanding, of what Trump personally has suffered because of his many legal woes. That’s not something we think about because Trump doesn’t show vulnerability.
But Barrack did on TV. Remarkably, he’s not angry or bitter. He says he doesn’t want retribution. He doesn’t even blame Merrick Garland for what happened to him. “The system works,” he told Schatzker. But not for everyone. “Fortunately I had the resources to be able to mount a defense,” he said. But “nobody knows what it does to your life.”
So, now he’s defending Trump’s decision to appoint Gaetz. “It’s not a joke,” he said, answering the question that is on many people’s minds. (I am told Trump told Gaetz he had the job in what seemed like a split second decision on the plane ride from Florida to DC).
But Barrack said not to underestimate Trump or be fooled by what appears to be rashness. He’s had four years to think about who to appoint to what job.
I’m not sure I completely buy all this. Not that it matters.
The main point is: having sat in that Brooklyn courthouse day after day, I am very glad to see Tom Barrack is back where he belongs.
On a housekeeping note: Today’s newsletter is to all of my subscribers. Obviously I’d like for as many people as possible to read what I write as cheaply as possible for as long as possible.
But journalism, as I wrote yesterday, is a business. It’s certainly not a priesthood, but it’s also not a hobby. Yes, I often amuse myself (and I hope, you) here, because it’s impossible to break serious news every day - but this is a job and it has a market value. I do try to bring you something each day that you can’t glean elsewhere.
On that note: My bosses at Substack tell me I don’t hustle enough! In fact, they tell me I don’t hustle at all.
They even tell me that my conversion rate from free subscriptions to paid subscriptions is so pathetic, that if substack was a class, I would be at the bottom.
In case you are wondering why you’re reading this tale of incompetence and woe, the good news is that, apparently I have a large - OK, I’ll brag, very large - number of subscribers, and I’m told that proportionally a very high number of you actually open the emails and read the content. So, Thank You!
The problem with my conversion rate, ironically, stems from the fact that I am well-known for my work in legacy media. Younger writers, just starting out here obviously don’t face that issue. (I bravely tried to meet some of my younger peers to get some tips a few nights ago at a dinner on New York’s Upper East Side. I say “bravely” because the crowd-size was maybe 150, the noise volume was 500 and the average age must have been 28. I’d not taken ten steps before somebody gesticulated frenetically and a glass of red wine cascaded down my scarf, my shirt, and my blue suede jacket. Further, when I got home I realized I couldn’t get my sticky name-tag OFF my blue suede jacket. I hadn’t computed that suede is the wrong material on which to stick…something sticky. So, the downside of the experience was A) that I felt old and B) I have a hefty dry-cleaning bill).
But the upside was I met one of the young geniuses at Substack who is much more successful than me at marketing: his name is George Kailas, and he’s a brilliant nerd who left the hedge fund world to reinvent the wheel at his start-up Prospero.ai, a research platform that aims to make hedge-fund level analytics available to the lay-investor without charging a fee. (Hence he has a newsletter on substack). I think what he does is fascinating and I’m in the process of letting him teach me about stock-picking. Possibly, you’ll be hearing more about that.
But back to the point of this. Yes, I have been incredibly lucky with my career. Luckier than most. I’ve spent my working life chasing down stories and people that fascinate me. I’ve entered worlds that feel completely strange at first, and I’ve tried to figure out how, to the best of my ability, to bring you, the reader, into the same places with a compelling narrative.
And yes, old-school publishers have paid me to do this. And, historically, that has been separate from what I do here. Which is why I had to stop writing here for months this year, in order to fulfill my book contract.
But my goal is to not have to do that again.
When I started this newsletter in 2021, right after I’d made Chasing Ghislaine, I wanted to ultimately blend the work I do here with the deeper-dive stuff. I wanted to not just bring you trial coverage but also to take you inside interviews and money-hunts and all the things that go on into the daily existence of long-form reporting.
Of course it’s not possible for you to see into everything I do, mainly because I cannot reveal my confidential sources.
But there is a lot I can let you into. For example, I can let you in on my decision-making for whatever the next book will be. (No surprise I am mulling another Trump presidency book. It’s too early to make any decisions as to the angle, but I’m fact-finding.)
At the end of next week I’m headed to Palm Beach, Florida, the home of Mar-a-Lago. I will be going dark for a couple of days while I am down there, talking to confidential sources. But when I’m back, I’ll be able to give you a flavor of the mood, the scene and, hopefully, the next chapter in the Trump/Elon bromance.
But earlier in the week, I will be interviewing someone here on-record and on-video, who will be very helpful in guiding my thinking. He’s an old friend, Anthony Scaramucci. “The Mooch” - the man who was Trump’s press secretary for ten days and who, more recently, has started, with Katty Kay, the US version of a very successful British podcast series called The Rest is Politics.
Anthony has kindly agreed to be my first guest on what will be a regular interview slot here.
The rub is that I’m going to make this feature for my paid subscribers only. So, too with another regular feature I will be starting: Live Chats in which I will break down a subject that I have particular knowledge of.
I hate, hate not being able to give everything away for free to all of you, and I completely understand many of you may not be able to afford a paid subscription, and I promise that you will still get loads of free content.
But I hope you will also understand that although I have so much fun doing this everyday, fundamentally it’s a serious business.
So, if you have the means to convert to a paid subscription and want to continue supporting my independent reporting, you can do it below.
Meanwhile, I hope you have a great weekend and to see you next week!
