George Nader's Criminal Past

News  |  Mar 15, 2018

UPDATE: Politico reports that Nader also "was convicted on a federal child pornography charge" in the United States.

Nader received a six-month sentence from a federal court in Northern Virginia in 1991 on a felony charge of transporting sexually explicit materials in foreign commerce, according to records from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton also imposed a $2,000 fine on Nader, the records show.

Nader's lawyer, Sandeep Savla, again says someone is digging up her client's past in an effort to silence him in the Russia investigation. 

“This is nothing more than an orchestrated, disgusting scheme by those who are trying to intimidate Mr. Nader into silence. It won’t work,” Savla said. “Mr. Nader will continue to answer truthfully questions put to him by the special counsel.”

Prison records indicate that Nader served his sentence on the 1991 charge in a halfway house in Baltimore and completed it in June 1992.

Mueller witness was convicted on child porn charge (Politico


George Nader, the Lebanese-American businessman, advisor to the United Arab Emirates, and frequent White House visitor who is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia investigation, is a convicted child molester. 

Associated Press

George Nader was convicted by Prague's Municipal Court of 10 cases of sexually abusing minors and sentenced to a one-year prison term in May 2003, court spokeswoman Marketa Puci told The Associated Press on Wednesday. She said the crimes occurred between 1999 and 2002. She said Nader served time in a Prague prison, though it isn't clear how much. He was then ordered expelled. 

Puci said Nader was convicted of "moral corruption of minors, sexual abuse and impairing morals," after abusing underage boys.

(...)

Nader's record of sexual abuse in Prague appears unrelated to his role in Mueller's probe in the United States; it is unclear whether Mueller's investigators knew about it. One of Nader's lawyers, Sandeep Savla, suggested that information about his record was being leaked to stop him from cooperating. 

"This is nothing more than an orchestrated, disgusting scheme by those who are trying to intimidate Mr. Nader into silence. It won't work," he said. "Mr. Nader will continue to answer truthfully questions put to him by the special counsel."

Mueller reportedly is interested in Nader's role in two meetings in particular. 

Nader joined a meeting at New York's Trump Tower in December 2016 that brought together presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, chief strategist Steve Bannon — fired by Trump last August — and Mohammed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates.

A second meeting occurred a month later in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Seychelles and involved Nader, bin Zayed, former Blackwater boss Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian banker close to President Vladimir Putin.

The Atlantic reported on Nader's past about a week ago, featuring an earlier indictment in the United States. Nader was arrested and charged, but his case was dismissed on procedural grounds the night before trial. 

George Nader was indicted in 1985 on charges of importing to the United States obscene material, including photos of nude boys “engaged in a variety of sexual acts,” according to publicly available court records. Nader pleaded not guilty, and the charges against him were ultimately dismissed several months after evidence seized from Nader’s home was thrown out on procedural grounds. “Mr. Nader vigorously denies the allegations now, as he did then,” a lawyer representing Nader said.

(...)

Nader often visited the White House in the months after Trump was inaugurated, Axios reported earlier this year. On January 17, he was en route to Trump’s Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago, to celebrate the anniversary of the inauguration when he was served a grand-jury subpoena at Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C.

Full story: A key witness cooperating with Mueller was convicted of 10 counts of sexually abusing young boys (AP)

Why Was George Nader Allowed Into the White House? (The Atlantic)