Convicted Democratic fund-raiser had secret ties to U.S. intelligence

Just The News: Imaad Zuberi hobnobbed for two decades among America’s political elite, raising millions for Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, texting with kings, princes, presidents and prime ministers and jet-setting with Republican senators like Lindsey Graham and John McCain.

Then Zuberi resisted pressure to cooperate in the investigation of then-President Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, and the California millionaire’s world came crashing down. Late last year, he pleaded guilty to what federal prosecutors said was a “mercenary” scheme to funnel large sums of foreign money into U.S. campaign coffers so Zuberi could gain political influence and build his global business empire.

When Zuberi was sentenced last month to 12 years in prison and more than $18 million in fines — one of the harshest penalties ever meted out for a donor fraud case — it seemed like an open-and-shut case of political corruption. To the news media, it was a made-for-TV tale of greed and graft felling a man whose charity and good nature otherwise endeared him to many from Hollywood to Washington. more