Trump Commutes Sentence of Major Donor to his 2017 Inauguration
President Trump on Wednesday commuted the sentence of a California venture capitalist and major political donor who had been sentenced to 12 years in prison for violating lobbying, campaign finance and tax laws, and obstructing an investigation into Mr. Trump's 2017 inaugural committee.
The donor, Imaad Zuberi, 54, had been a major supporter of Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, before shifting his support to Mr. Trump after his 2016 victory.
In the three months after the 2016 presidential election, Mr. Zuberi donated more than $1.1 million to committees associated with Mr. Trump and the Republican Party, scoring coveted invitations to a pair of black-tie dinners celebrating Mr. Trump's inauguration. In the process, he posted photos of himself with the president, as well as Mr. Trump's first chief of staff, Reince Priebus and various cabinet nominees.
In 2020, Mr. Zuberi pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal investigation into the source of a $900,000 donation he made through his company to Mr. Trump's inaugural committee in late December 2016.
In 2019, Mr. Zuberi pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign donations during the Obama administration, including some funded by foreign sources, as part of a scheme to gain access to American politicians for foreign clients.
He also pleaded guilty to falsifying records filed with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act to conceal his lobbying work on behalf of Sri Lanka to help burnish the country's reputation in Washington amid human rights concerns. And he pleaded guilty to failing to report and pay taxes on $5.65 million he was paid for the Sri Lankan lobbying campaign, much of which, prosecutors say, he diverted for personal use.
During some of the criminal proceedings, Mr. Zuberi was represented by David Warrington, who is now Mr. Trump's White House counsel.
The White House did not immediately respond to a question about whether Mr. Warrington recused himself from deliberations about the commutation.
Part of Mr. Zuberi's defense involved arguing that some of the activity with which he was charged stemmed from his work as a longtime intelligence source for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Zuberi was sentenced in 2021. In addition to the prison term, he was ordered to pay nearly $16 million in restitution and $1.75 million in fines. He had been held at a low-security federal correctional institution in California and was scheduled to be released in 2030, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.
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