Rex Tillerson, former secretary of state, testifies in corruption trial against Trump ally | Rex Tillerson
Rex Tillerson, who served in a turbulent period as Secretary of State under former US President Donald Trump, was called Monday as a government witness at the trial of a Trump ally accused of leaking intelligence to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Tillerson testified that he barely knew the defendant, Tom Barrack, one-time chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee, or anything about his relationship with the United Arab Emirates.
Instead, he explained how he would meet with Trump regularly to discuss foreign policy, stressing that the sensitive talks would be confidential.
“You certainly don’t want outside parties to have access to that information and use it to their advantage,” Tillerson told a jury in New York.
Prosecutors have alleged that Barrack provided inside information about how Trump administration officials viewed a UAE-led blockade of neighboring Qatar.
Tillerson testified that he had advised Trump not to cooperate with the United Arab Emirates on the matter, saying, “We needed to let them figure it out on their own.”
Tillerson also described a meeting with Barrack in which he “called my office and expressed interest in an ambassadorship,” he said. But Trump didn’t embrace the idea “so that was the end of it,” he said.
Under cross-examination, Tillerson acknowledged his disagreements with Trump, but refrained from criticizing the former president.
He said they sometimes played “good cop-bad cop” in their public statements about adversaries like South Korea.
The former Exxon Mobil executive is the highest-profile witness so far in the federal trial of Barrack, a billionaire private equity executive and Trump confidant who has been accused of secretly working as a foreign agent for the United Arab Emirates.
Barrack, 75, has pleaded not guilty to that charge, along with obstruction of justice and making false statements.
In 2018, Trump dumped Tillerson via Twitter, abruptly ending the service of a Cabinet secretary who had reportedly called the Republican president an “idiot” but refused to resign, deepening the disarray within the Trump administration.
Trump and Tillerson clashed on several foreign policy issues.
Barrack used “unique access” to Trump to manipulate him to advance UAE interests, prosecutors allege, including helping arrange a 2017 Oval Office meeting between Trump and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
UAE officials allegedly cooperated with Barrack at the same time, rewarding him by investing millions of dollars in his business operations.