George Nader, witness to 2 secret Trump transition meetings, faced child porn charges in 1985

George Nader, the international businessman of mystery who is now cooperating with special prosecutor Robert Mueller, was indicted in 1985 on obscenity charges involving child pornography.

Nader is a political operative who was seen frequently at the White House during the early days of the administration of President Donald Trump.

The material George Nader was accused in 1985 of trafficking included photographs of naked boys “engaged in a variety of sexual acts,” reports The Atlantic, citing publicly available court documents.

The charges against Nader were dismissed when key evidence against him was tossed out on procedural grounds.

On January 17, 2018, he was en route to Trump’s Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago, to celebrate the anniversary of the inauguration when he was served a subpoena for Robert Mueller's grand-jury probe, while Nader was at Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C.

Natasha Bertrand at The Atlantic writes that one source described wanting to warn their former boss, a top Arab official, to “keep his kids away from Nader.”

Snip from the Atlantic article:

A political operative who frequented the White House in the early days of President Trump’s administration, George Nader, was indicted in 1985 on charges of importing to the United States obscene material, including photos of nude boys “engaged in a variety of sexual acts,” according to publicly available court records. Nader pleaded not guilty, and the charges against him were ultimately dismissed several months after evidence seized from Nader’s home was thrown out on procedural grounds. “Mr. Nader vigorously denies the allegations now, as he did then,” a lawyer representing Nader said.

Nevertheless, the indictment raises questions about what the White House knew, if anything, about Nader’s past while senior officials were meeting with him. The Trump administration is already under fire for failures to vet members of the president’s inner circle. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nader’s name has surfaced in recent days with reports that he is a cooperating witness in Robert Mueller’s investigation.

And earlier this week, the New York Times reported that George Nader once worked with Blackwater, the mercenary firm run by Erik Prince linked to atrocities in Iraq. Prince is the brother of Trump Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman who advises Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the effective ruler of the Emirates, also attended a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles that Mr. Mueller’s investigators have examined. The meeting, convened by the crown prince, brought together a Russian investor close to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and an informal adviser to Mr. Trump’s team during the presidential transition, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Nader’s cooperation in the special counsel’s investigation could prompt new legal risks for the Trump administration, and Mr. Nader’s presence at the Seychelles meeting appears to connect him to the primary focus of Mr. Mueller’s investigation: examining Russian interference during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Mr. Nader represented the crown prince in the three-way conversation in the Seychelles, at a hotel overlooking in the Indian Ocean, in the days before Mr. Trump took office. At the meeting, Emirati officials believed Mr. Prince was speaking for the Trump transition team, and a Russian fund manager, Kirill Dmitriev, represented Mr. Putin, according to several people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Nader, who grew close later to several advisers in the Trump White House, had once worked as a consultant to Blackwater, a private security firm now known as Academi. Mr. Nader introduced his former employer to the Russian.

(…) Since then, Mr. Nader has been questioned numerous times about meetings in New York during the transition, the Seychelles meeting and meetings in the White House with two of Mr. Trump’s senior advisers, Jared Kushner and Stephen K. Bannon, who has since left the administration.