Latest news with #Zuberi
New York Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Trump commutes sentence of major political donor in latest round of clemency
President Donald Trump on Wednesday commuted the 12-year sentence of a major political donor who was serving time for a number of offenses, including obstructing an investigation into Trump's 2017 inaugural committee, the White House confirmed with Fox News Digital. Imaad Zuberi, 54, was a major Democrat supporter before he backed Trump following his 2016 election victory, The New York Times reported. Advertisement Before pivoting to Trump on election night, he served as a bundler for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, including stints on both of their campaign finance committees. Zuberi donated more than $1.1 million to committees associated with Trump and the Republican Party months after the 2016 election, the Times reported. The donations secured him invitations to a pair of black-tie dinners celebrating Trump's inauguration. In 2020, he pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal investigation into the source of a $900,000 donation he made through his company to Trump's inaugural committee in late December 2016, the report states. Advertisement Imaad Zuberi wore a gray suit as he exited the federal courthouse with his attorney in Los Angeles, on Friday, Nov. 22, 2019. AP Zuberi 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. Zuberi allegedly directed millions of dollars from the Sri Lankan contract to himself and his wife for personal purposes, shortchanging lobbyists, public relations and law firms, and certain subcontractors who were part of the lobbying effort. His commutation was one of several on Wednesday, as well as a few pardons. Advertisement Zuberi reportedly donated more than $1.1 million to committees associated with Trump and the Republican Party months after the 2016 election. AP Larry Hoover, who is serving time in a federal supermax prison, also had his sentence commuted. Hoover, the co-founder of the Chicago gang Gangster Disciples, was originally imprisoned for a 1973 murder and later convicted in 1998 for operating a criminal enterprise. Trump also pardoned former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, who was convicted in two federal criminal cases, including one that contributed to his resignation.
The Hill
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump commutes sentence for donor Imaad Zuberi
President Trump has commuted the sentence of top political donor Imaad Zuberi, who had been sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2021 after giving illegal campaign contributions to former President Biden and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). A White House official confirmed Trump commuted his sentence to The Hill's sister network NewsNation on Wednesday. Zuberi had pleaded guilty in 2019 and 2020 to tax evasion, lobbying top U.S. officials while working as a foreign agent, campaign finance violations and obstruction of justice. Alongside the 12-year sentence, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips ordered Zuberi to pay close to $16 million in restitution and a nearly $2 million fine. 'I'm deeply sorry and, of course, humiliated,' Zuberi previously told Phillips. 'I have no excuse for what I've done.' Zuberi has also been accused of putting together meetings with U.S. and foreign politicians as well as being behind a straw donor plot. 'Everyone wants to come to Washington to meet people,' Zuberi said in a decade-old email in which he was attempting to put together a meeting between the president of Guinea and a congressman, according to the AP. 'We get request(s) for meeting(s) from all scumbag of the world, warlords, kings, queens, presidents for life, military dictators, clan chiefs, tribal chiefs and etc.' The New York Times previously reported that Zuberi donated over $1.1 million in the three months following Trump's first election to committees linked with the president and the GOP after previously backing former President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her 2016 bid for the presidency.
Montreal Gazette
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Montreal Gazette
‘A few dozen' Uyghur refugees are now in Canada as part of lagging refugee program, MP confirms
By 'A few dozen' Uyghur refugees have now been resettled in Canada, the MP behind a motion promising to resettle 10,000 of them confirmed to The Gazette on Saturday. While the motion, which passed Parliament unanimously in 2023, called to resettle all 10,000 refugees by the end of 2025, Ottawa had only managed to resettle one refugee prior to this latest group of arrivals. MP Sameer Zuberi wouldn't specify how many Uyghur refugees have been resettled, or could he say when exactly they began arriving, telling The Gazette only they'd arrived in the past few weeks and he'd met with some of them. Uyghurs, who are native to the Xinjiang region of China, have suffered repression at the hands of the Chinese government, with an estimated one million people detained in hundreds of facilities across the region, according to Human Rights Watch. Considered a genocide by the House of Commons, Chinese state repression has allegedly included enslavement, sexual violence, forced sterilization, mass surveillance and the repression of the Uyghur language and Islamic faith. In April, Zuberi told The Gazette he was frustrated at the resettlement program's slow pace. He pointed to the civil service as the potential source of the hold up, saying 'they're the only ones who are at this point not moving on it.' He reiterated that call for accountability Saturday. 'At the end of the day, the civil service is the vehicle by which the government's operations happen.' 'I'd like to see the civil service move faster on this and all the government move faster on this,' he said. Though Zuberi admitted immigration authorities were nowhere near their goal of resettling 10,000 Uyghur refugees by the end of 2025, he said he wasn't ruling it out as a possibility. 'I believe that with political will we will achieve it.'
Montreal Gazette
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Montreal Gazette
The Liberals sweep the four West Island ridings — again
Canadian Politics By The West Island has gone all red once again. All four Liberal incumbents had dominant wins in the west of the island of Montreal, traditionally a place that supports the Liberals, both federally and provincially. 'I think fundamentally western Montreal, the West Island, has a deep connection to Liberal values that includes bilingualism and respect for minority rights,' said Francis Scarpaleggia, who was elected for an eighth consecutive time as MP for Lac-Saint-Louis, which includes Senneville, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Baie-D'Urfé, Kirkland, Beaconsfield, the western part of Pierrefonds and Pointe-Claire. 'The fact those values are so strong in the West Island is because we're made up of minorities here, whether it's English Montrealers or francophones in a majority English city. And the Liberal party is sensitive to those issues. Those issues are in the DNA of the West Island. We're attuned to harmony amongst different groups.' The other Liberal winners in the west were Anju Dhillon in Dorval-Lachine-LaSalle, Sameer Zuberi in Pierrefonds-Dollard and Emmanuella Lambropoulos in Saint-Laurent. Scarpaleggia received 63 per cent of the vote in Lac-Saint-Louis. The closest contender in the riding was the Conservative candidate Matthew Rusniak, who garnered 27 per cent of the vote. Scarpaleggia has represented the Lac-Saint-Louis riding since 2004 and had won seven consecutive elections prior to Monday's vote. He is the chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development in the House of Commons. Scarpaleggia said that voters made it clear they were very concerned with the impact of U.S. president Donald Trump's tariffs and his bellicose attitude toward Canada. 'Their number-one concern was the Canada-U.S. relationship, bar none,' said Scarpaleggia. 'It was a concern across the country, which explains the reversal of fortune of our party and the fact that we have an experienced knowledgeable leader at the top of the party. The Trump factor ran through every day of the campaign. He's omnipresent. He makes sure attention is drawn to him on any given day. It's by design that he is such a centre of attention.' Last fall, the Liberals were trailing way below the Conservatives in polling across the country. But Scarpaleggia admitted he was disappointed that the Liberals did not manage to make it to a majority government. 'I was hoping we'd get past the 172 (seat) mark because it would provide us with a more firm say on things and now we're back in a minority situation where we'll have to work in a different way with the other parties,' said Scarpaleggia. 'We're used to it. This will be my sixth minority out of eight elections. So we know how to manage a minority.' In the last federal election, in 2021, Scarpaleggia received 32,477 votes or 56.3 per cent. Zuberi received 60 per cent of the vote in Pierrefonds-Dollard. Zuberi has been the MP for Pierrefonds-Dollard since 2019. In 2021, he nabbed 29,296 votes or 56 per cent of the vote. 'I'm feeling really confident, I'm happy people have chosen the Liberals to lead, they've shown confidence in Mark Carney, who has a proven track record,' said Zuberi. 'I think Canadians are picking the right leader for our country. Cost of living is a key concern and also what Donald Trump is doing south of the border. These were the main things we were hearing at the doors. We've been working hard throughout the years and residents see that.' Dhillon garnered 58 per cent of the vote in Dorval-Lachine-Lasalle. Second in that race was the Conservative candidate Alioune Sarr at 22 per cent. Dhillon has been the MP for Dorval-Lachine-Lasalle since 2015 and had previously won three elections. In 2021, she received 25,233 votes or 52.4 per cent of the vote. She was the first person of South Asian descent to be elected as an MP from the province of Quebec. Lambropoulos won in Saint-Laurent with 59 per cent of the overall vote. Her closest competitor was Conservative candidate Richard Serour at 28 per cent. Lambropoulos has been the MP for Saint-Laurent since 2017. In the last election she received 22,056 votes or 59.1 per cent of the vote.
CBC
25-03-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Montreal Liberal candidate says campaign volunteers targeted with Islamophobic slurs
Sameer Zuberi, the Liberal candidate running for re-election in the riding of Pierrefonds—Dollard in Montreal's West Island, says two of his campaign volunteers were targeted with Islamophobic slurs. In an interview with CBC Tuesday, Zuberi said a mother and her 15 year-old daughter were hanging campaign posters in the riding Monday evening when a man drove up to them and rolled down the window of his car. "He was honking and they thought that he was, you know, supportive," Zuberi said. "Instead, he shouted at them, said he's going to tear down those posters and started shouting Islamophobic slurs with F-bombs," Zuberi said. Zuberi said the man then drove off. The mother and daughter were shaken by the incident. He said they filed a police complaint at his urging. Montreal police were not able to immediately confirm if they were investigating. Zuberi believes they were targeted because they were working for him. His father was born in Pakistan and he's Muslim. "They were not wearing any visible attire that would identify them as Muslim," Zuberi said. "I was very disturbed. You know, these are volunteers who are giving their time," he said. Not the first time candidate targeted During the 2021 campaign several of Zuberi's campaign posters were vandalized with racist slurs. Zuberi said he hesitated about speaking out about this latest incident, but ultimately decided to post about it on social media. "I don't want to be the guy who's only known for getting the racial attacks during a campaign," he said. "There's so much more to offer other than just that, but this behaviour is deeply problematic and it's not proper in our democracy," he said. The Canadian Muslim Forum also condemned the incident. "There is a general sense — that is very sad and devastating — this sense of normalization of hate, Islamophobia and discrimination," forum president Samer Majzoub told CBC in an interview. "It is a bitter reality. But this is nothing new," he said. Zuberi added: "For people to have different opinions and to debate them robustly, even sometimes uncomfortably, that's just fine. But there are limits to that, right?" The Liberal candidate believes social media has played a role in enabling hateful speech. There are dozens of hateful and racist replies to Zuberi's post about the incident on social media platform X. "I think just as citizens and as residents, we need to have a conversation about how we enter conversations," Zuberi said. "What is it that is appropriate? And what is it that that goes beyond the bounds?" he said. Craig Sauvé, the NDP candidate in Lasalle—Émard—Verdun, posted a message of support on X. "My full solidarity with you and your campaign team. Racist attacks are unacceptable and Islamophobia has no place in Canada," Sauvé posted.
