Donald Trump's billionaire buddy real estate financier Tom Barrack said that his friendship with the incredibly divisive former President has had a terrible impact on his business during his criminal trial on Monday.
Barrack, who was chair of Trump's inaugural committee, testified in his own defense and, when questioned by his attorney, had one word for how his relationship with Trump impacted his global investment business:
"Disastrous."
But he wasn't done there. When his attorney asked him:
"Would it have been better to support someone else?"
Barrack responded:
"In hindsight, unquestionably."
Barrack said that he didn't think Trump would continue with the awful and offensive rhetoric, instead expecting him to grow more reasonable after the election.
"I thought he would transition, this rhetoric. [...] The style was something that I and others didn’t appreciate. I thought he would just change."
Trump didn't transition his rhetoric though. If anything, it got worse.
Barrack, who had previously called Trump "smart, instinctively brilliant and more resilient than anybody I ever knew.", testified that Trump's continued crusade of crassness was extremely detrimental to his publicly traded company, Colony Capital.
"Owners of public shares vote with their feet. It was a nightmare."
Twitter users definitely felt some schadenfreude when seeing Barrack's trial.
Some just wholeheartedly agreed with Barrack's assessment that Trump was a disaster.
According to a Justice Department release from last year, Barrack is on trial for alleged illegal lobbying on behalf of the United Arab Emirates and putting U.S. national security at risk.
"Barrack is alleged to have abused his access to government officials to illegally advance the interests of foreign governments. The FBI stands in concert with our external partners to ensure all who seek to wield illegal influence are charged for their crimes."
Barrack's case is a rare example of the ultra rich facing the possibility of real consequences for their actions, possibly including prison time.
