George Nader, Key Cooperating Witness in Mueller Probe, Is Charged with Transporting Child Pornography and Sex Trafficking
George Nader, who was a key witness in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, was hit with new federal charges of sex trafficking for allegedly “engaging in sexual acts” with a 14-year-old boy he transported from Europe.
An indictment unsealed Friday morning in Eastern District of Virginia also charges Nader with counts of child pornography and obscenity. The charges come on top of separate child-porn charges leveled by the same prosecutors last month.
Nader pleaded not guilty to all charges during a court appearance Friday.
Nader, a 60-year-old Lebanese-American businessman with deep political and financial ties to the United Arab Emirates, was a key cooperator in Mueller’s probe of foreign influence in the 2016 election. Nader met several times with individuals associated with the Trump campaign throughout the election and into the early days of the administration. He spoke with officials and advisers on matters ranging from a pitch by a foreign firm for the campaign to use social-media manipulation to regime-change in Iran. (He met with Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign advisors about the plan, which included a proposal to use fake avatars to garner support for Trump, but Trump officials deny they ever considered it.)
He also helped broker a key meeting between Erik Prince, the former Blackwater CEO, and Kirill Dmitriev,
the head of one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds, in the Seychelles
in January 2017. That meeting came under intense scrutiny by Mueller’s
team and was described in its report as one of the ways the Russians
tried to influence the incoming Trump administration.
Federal
prosecutors in Virginia argued last month in court that Nader should be
held in jail before trial, based in part on his prior criminal history.
That history includes a 2003 conviction in the Czech Republic on charges
of abusing minors, including a charge of transporting of a minor boy to
the U.S. for sexual purposes. Federal prosecutors said Nader has had
“hands-on contact with more than a dozen minor boys.” Nader’s lawyers
called the U.S. government’s argument weak because he was later
acquitted of the Czech sex-trafficking charge.
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