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WASHINGTON—Special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe is looking more closely into Middle Eastern involvement during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, as it is now exploring the role of an Israeli entrepreneur with ties to a Gulf monarchy, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Mueller has been conducting interviews about the work of Joel Zamel, an Australia-born Israeli businessman with experience in social media and intelligence gathering. Mr. Zamel is the founder of several private consulting firms—including a crowdsourced analysis firm called Wikistrat as well as the Psy Group, a secretive private intelligence firm with the motto “shape reality.”
A subpoena concerning Mr. Zamel’s work, but not issued to Mr. Zamel, was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Zamel met with Donald Trump Jr. , Mr. Trump’s eldest son, at Trump Tower in the months before the 2016 election along with George Nader, a top adviser to the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, to discuss an offer to help boost the campaign. Erik Prince, a U.S. defense contractor who specializes in the Middle East and had close ties to the campaign, also attended the meeting, which was first reported by the New York Times on Saturday.
Following Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Nader made a payment to Mr. Zamel of $2 million, which a person familiar with the payment described as unrelated to the campaign.
Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for the younger Mr. Trump, confirmed the meeting in a statement. “Prior to the 2016 election, Donald Trump Jr. recalls a meeting with Eric Prince [sic], George Nader, and another individual who may be Joel Zamel. They pitched Mr. Trump Jr. on a social media platform or marketing strategy,” he said. The younger Mr. Trump “was not interested and that was the end of it.”
Mr. Zamel has met with the special counsel’s team and was asked about his business relationship with Mr. Nader, the Journal has previously reported. His attorney has previously said he is not a target of the investigation. Mr. Nader is also cooperating with the investigation; his lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Marc Mukasey, an attorney for Mr. Zamel, said in a statement that his client “offered nothing to the Trump campaign, received nothing from the Trump campaign, delivered nothing to the Trump campaign and was not solicited by, or asked to do anything for, the Trump campaign.” He said reports that Mr. Zamel had engaged in “social media manipulation” were incorrect and that his client’s companies “harvest publicly available information for lawful use.”
Mr. Mukasey said investigators have told him his client is not a target of the probe. “This is much ado about nothing,” he said.
Donald Trump Jr. attended the White House Easter Egg Roll in Washington on April 2. Mr. Trump had a meeting with Mr. Zamel and others at Trump Tower in New York in the months before the 2016 presidential election. PHOTO:LEAH MILLIS/REUTERS
The work of two of Mr. Zamel’s companies—Wikistrat and the Psy Group—has increasingly drawn the interest of the special counsel as part of the continuing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Little is known publicly about the work of the Psy Group. According to a person familiar with the firm’s operations, it did mainly private intelligence gathering work. One of its main rivals was Black Cube—another Israeli firm which has achieved notoriety after it used by Harvey Weinstein to counter probes into his alleged sexual abuse.
Several people linked to the firm are veteran Israeli intelligence officials, with experience in areas that include in psychological operations. According to the firm’s marketing materialsreviewed by the Journal, Psy-Group offered clients an array of services—including “honey traps,” a term used by spy agencies for an intelligence-gathering tactic using romantic or sexual relationships to extract information.
In the same marketing materials, the firm also boasted of its “strong operating capabilities within the ‘Deep Web’ and Darknet (often referred to as the ‘Dark Side’ of the Internet.)”
“As a meeting place and a market for a variety of illegal activities (hacking, counterfeiting, terrorism), the Darknet requires special skills to access, navigate and operate within while maintaining full legal compliance,” the firm wrote.
Mr. Zamel’s other company, Wikistrat, uses a network of experts to analyze geopolitical problems and was contracted to conduct war-game scenarios on Islamist political movements in Yemen for the U.A.E., the Journal previously reported.
Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. both entered the Yemeni civil war in early 2015, aiming to combat an Islamist insurgency. That conflict is continuing. Mr. Zamel is also close to top Emirati officials, according to people familiar with the matter.
‘This is much ado about nothing.’
—Marc Mukasey, an attorney for Joel Zamel
Wikistrat’s efforts for the Gulf state later transformed into what one person close to the company referred to as “intelligence lite”—using local on-the-ground sources to anticipate threats. Mr. Zamel in recent years had built a close relationship with top Emirati national security officials and has held business meetings in the U.A.E., according to people familiar with the matter.
The company was based in Israel but rented U.S.-office space in Washington, D.C., to give it the appearance of being an American firm, according to people familiar with Wikistrat’s operations. Most of its employees were in Tel Aviv or worked remotely, these people said.
The meeting with Mr. Zamel wasn’t the younger Mr. Trump’s first encounter with foreign interests who said they were interested in helping his father’s campaign. In June 2016, he and other campaign aides—including Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort —met with a Russian lawyer linked to the Kremlin, after being promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton that he was told had been gathered by the Russian government as part of an effort to help the Trump campaign.
In a September 2017 statement about the meeting, the younger Mr. Trump said it “provided no meaningful information and turned out not to be about what had been represented.”
The special counsel is also investigating another meeting involving Mr. Prince and Mr. Nader in the Seychelles weeks before the inauguration. There, Mr. Prince met with Kirill Dmitriev, who is close with Russian President Vladimir Putin and runs an investment fund created by the Russian government. Mr. Prince told a congressional panel last year that the meeting was a chance encounter.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/muelle...raeli-entrepreneur-with-u-a-e-ties-1526763816
Mr. Mueller has been conducting interviews about the work of Joel Zamel, an Australia-born Israeli businessman with experience in social media and intelligence gathering. Mr. Zamel is the founder of several private consulting firms—including a crowdsourced analysis firm called Wikistrat as well as the Psy Group, a secretive private intelligence firm with the motto “shape reality.”
A subpoena concerning Mr. Zamel’s work, but not issued to Mr. Zamel, was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Zamel met with Donald Trump Jr. , Mr. Trump’s eldest son, at Trump Tower in the months before the 2016 election along with George Nader, a top adviser to the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, to discuss an offer to help boost the campaign. Erik Prince, a U.S. defense contractor who specializes in the Middle East and had close ties to the campaign, also attended the meeting, which was first reported by the New York Times on Saturday.
Following Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Nader made a payment to Mr. Zamel of $2 million, which a person familiar with the payment described as unrelated to the campaign.
Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for the younger Mr. Trump, confirmed the meeting in a statement. “Prior to the 2016 election, Donald Trump Jr. recalls a meeting with Eric Prince [sic], George Nader, and another individual who may be Joel Zamel. They pitched Mr. Trump Jr. on a social media platform or marketing strategy,” he said. The younger Mr. Trump “was not interested and that was the end of it.”
Mr. Zamel has met with the special counsel’s team and was asked about his business relationship with Mr. Nader, the Journal has previously reported. His attorney has previously said he is not a target of the investigation. Mr. Nader is also cooperating with the investigation; his lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Marc Mukasey, an attorney for Mr. Zamel, said in a statement that his client “offered nothing to the Trump campaign, received nothing from the Trump campaign, delivered nothing to the Trump campaign and was not solicited by, or asked to do anything for, the Trump campaign.” He said reports that Mr. Zamel had engaged in “social media manipulation” were incorrect and that his client’s companies “harvest publicly available information for lawful use.”
Mr. Mukasey said investigators have told him his client is not a target of the probe. “This is much ado about nothing,” he said.
Donald Trump Jr. attended the White House Easter Egg Roll in Washington on April 2. Mr. Trump had a meeting with Mr. Zamel and others at Trump Tower in New York in the months before the 2016 presidential election. PHOTO:LEAH MILLIS/REUTERS
The work of two of Mr. Zamel’s companies—Wikistrat and the Psy Group—has increasingly drawn the interest of the special counsel as part of the continuing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Little is known publicly about the work of the Psy Group. According to a person familiar with the firm’s operations, it did mainly private intelligence gathering work. One of its main rivals was Black Cube—another Israeli firm which has achieved notoriety after it used by Harvey Weinstein to counter probes into his alleged sexual abuse.
Several people linked to the firm are veteran Israeli intelligence officials, with experience in areas that include in psychological operations. According to the firm’s marketing materialsreviewed by the Journal, Psy-Group offered clients an array of services—including “honey traps,” a term used by spy agencies for an intelligence-gathering tactic using romantic or sexual relationships to extract information.
In the same marketing materials, the firm also boasted of its “strong operating capabilities within the ‘Deep Web’ and Darknet (often referred to as the ‘Dark Side’ of the Internet.)”
“As a meeting place and a market for a variety of illegal activities (hacking, counterfeiting, terrorism), the Darknet requires special skills to access, navigate and operate within while maintaining full legal compliance,” the firm wrote.
Mr. Zamel’s other company, Wikistrat, uses a network of experts to analyze geopolitical problems and was contracted to conduct war-game scenarios on Islamist political movements in Yemen for the U.A.E., the Journal previously reported.
Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. both entered the Yemeni civil war in early 2015, aiming to combat an Islamist insurgency. That conflict is continuing. Mr. Zamel is also close to top Emirati officials, according to people familiar with the matter.
‘This is much ado about nothing.’
—Marc Mukasey, an attorney for Joel Zamel
Wikistrat’s efforts for the Gulf state later transformed into what one person close to the company referred to as “intelligence lite”—using local on-the-ground sources to anticipate threats. Mr. Zamel in recent years had built a close relationship with top Emirati national security officials and has held business meetings in the U.A.E., according to people familiar with the matter.
The company was based in Israel but rented U.S.-office space in Washington, D.C., to give it the appearance of being an American firm, according to people familiar with Wikistrat’s operations. Most of its employees were in Tel Aviv or worked remotely, these people said.
The meeting with Mr. Zamel wasn’t the younger Mr. Trump’s first encounter with foreign interests who said they were interested in helping his father’s campaign. In June 2016, he and other campaign aides—including Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort —met with a Russian lawyer linked to the Kremlin, after being promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton that he was told had been gathered by the Russian government as part of an effort to help the Trump campaign.
In a September 2017 statement about the meeting, the younger Mr. Trump said it “provided no meaningful information and turned out not to be about what had been represented.”
The special counsel is also investigating another meeting involving Mr. Prince and Mr. Nader in the Seychelles weeks before the inauguration. There, Mr. Prince met with Kirill Dmitriev, who is close with Russian President Vladimir Putin and runs an investment fund created by the Russian government. Mr. Prince told a congressional panel last year that the meeting was a chance encounter.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/muelle...raeli-entrepreneur-with-u-a-e-ties-1526763816
