Bombshell Report on Trump’s ‘Secret Deal With UAE’s ‘Spy Sheikh’ Rocks Political World: ‘Unprecedented and Mind-Boggling’

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

The Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell report over the weekend on what it dubbed an “unprecedented” deal between a foreign country and an incoming U.S. president, in this case, the United Arab Emirates and Donald Trump.

The WSJ scoop, titled “‘Spy Sheikh’ Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company,” detailed UAE Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s half-a-billion-dollar purchase of 49% of Trump’s cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial – just four days before Trump became president for a second time.

“The deal with World Liberty Financial, which hasn’t previously been reported, was signed by Eric Trump, the president’s son. At least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with the family of Steve Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder who weeks earlier had been named U.S. envoy to the Middle East, the documents said,” added the report, noting that Trump’s chief Middle East negotiator also had a major stake in the deal.

The WSJ also explained why Tahnoon, dubbed the “Spy Sheikh” as he is also the UAE’s national security adviser and brother of the president, would make such a deal. Tahnoon manages a fund of over $1.3 trillion in assets, including significant investments in AI. The WSJ adds:

Under the Biden administration, Tahnoon’s efforts to get AI hardware had been largely stymied over fears that the sensitive technology could be diverted to China. Of particular concern was one of Tahnoon’s own companies, the AI firm G42, which had stoked alarm among intelligence officials and lawmakers over its close ties to the sanctioned tech giant Huawei and other Chinese firms. The company said it severed ties with China in late 2023, but concerns persisted.

Early in Trump’s second term, following his massive investment, Tahnoon met with Trump and Witkoff several times in the White House and was soon granted “access to around 500,000 of the most advanced AI chips a year—enough to build one of the world’s biggest AI data center clusters.”

Rebecca Ballhaus, a WSJ investigative reporter who has one of the five bylines on the report, highlighted another stunning detail of Tahnoon’s investment. “At the time the Abu Dhabi royal invested in World Liberty, the company had no products. It had raised $82 million by selling a token called WLFI. But the investment didn’t give the buyer rights to future WLFI token sales—leaving the Tahnoon-backed entity out of what was then the company’s only source of revenue,” noted Ballhaus – further raising the question of what exactly Tahnoon got for his $500 million.

The WSJ report quickly raised eyebrows across the political world as pundits and observers sounded the alarm on the prospect of U.S. foreign policy being for sale under the Trump administration.

“In any other time or presidency, this story. reported by @WSJ, would be an earthquake of a scandal,” observed David Axelrod, adding:

The size, scope and implications of it are unprecedented and mind-boggling.
But will this Congress, which brayed endlessly about the “Biden crime family,” probe it?
Not a chance.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) shared the report and wrote, “Trump reversed decades of national security objections to selling advanced AI chips to the UAE. National security experts were alarmed. But there was a secret. Before the deal, UAE had sent $187M to the Trumps and $31M to the Witkoffs inthe  secret payments. Mind blowing corruption.”

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