President Trump commuted the sentence of Imaad Zuberi, a major political donor who had been sentenced to 12 years in prison for the obstruction of a federal investigation into a Trump inaugural committee donation, falsifying records and a failure to disclose and pay tax on US$5.65 million received from the Sri Lankan government to lobby in Washington to improve its image, The Tamil Guardian reported over the weekend.

The donor, Imaad Zuberi, 54, had been a major supporter of Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, before shifting his support to Trump after his 2016 victory.

Charges related to his lobbying work in Washington for the government of Sri Lanka, whose image he was trying to repair in Washington amid concerns about the country’s treatment of Tamils and human rights issues. He had received the bulk of the money, over a five-month period, in 2014, in particular a lobbying firm owned by Zuberi received US$2 million from the Sri Lankan government and was tasked with influencing the US government policy on Sri Lanka under the Obama administration, Zuberi himself also a large donor to the former President’s campaign. In total the Sri Lankan government has spent at least $US100 million on US lobbying firms in order to improve the country’s international image. Zuberi had also received unregistered lobbying money from the Qatari and Turkish governments and a Ukrainian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin – as revealed by court documents disclosed by the Associated Press.

Zuberi falsified records with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act to conceal his lobbying for Sri Lanka and diverted most of the money to benefit himself and his wife. Of the estimated US$ 6.5 million paid by Sri Lanka to Zuberi, US$ 5.65 million is thought to have been spent on personal uses.

Zuberi was sentenced in 2021, during the proceeding he was represented by David Warrington, who is now the White House counsel. In addition to the prison term, he was ordered to pay nearly $16 million in restitution and $1.75 million in fines.

Prosecutors depicted Zuberi as “purely a mercenary, funnelling money to whomever he believed would do his bidding” and acting as a gateway for foreign governments to influence U.S. politicians. “This case represents an egregious example of corrupt foreign influence peddling,” the prosecution wrote.

A key aspect of the case, however, has played out in secret court filings and hearings: Zuberi was a longtime US intelligence source for the US government, according to legal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the businessman’s defense.

Before sentencing Zuberi, US District Judge Virginia Phillips held a closed-door hearing where she considered a sealed document in which Zuberi’s team laid out his account of more than a decade of clandestine help he had provided to the government. Judge Phillips ultimately sided with the government’s request for a lengthy prison sentence.

Zuberi’s lawyers have argued that some of the conduct he has been charged with was linked to CIA officials who worked with Zuberi. In one instance, according to the documents they prepared, a former CIA handler of Zuberi sought and got a job on the project involving Sri Lanka that was later the basis for criminal charges against Zuberi.

After securing a role in the project, the former handler tried to persuade the Sri Lankans to buy a maritime-surveillance system that could keep watch on a swath of the Indian Ocean, according to two people familiar with the effort. At the time the US government was concerned about Chinese submarine forays. The former handler told consultants on the project that he had worked for the State Department, those people said, but a spokesperson for the Department said it has no record of his employment there.

The Sri Lankan government has previously implicated a DUP MP, Ian Paisley Jr serving under then Prime Minister Theresa May, in a lobbying scandal. He accepted two all-inclusive holidays worth £100,000 from the Sri Lankan government. The trip was funded by the Sri Lankan Ministry of External Affairs and hoped it would help secure trade deals for the state. Ian Paisley Jr, who failed to disclose the trips in the commons register of interests was reported to have had a helicopter provided for him and his family to be taken around the Island during his trips.