Who Is Tom Barrack? Trump's Wealthy Ally Turned Ambassador to Türkiye Whose Name Appeared All Over the Epstein Files

Tom Barrack has spent four decades orbiting Donald Trump, and the billionaire's diplomatic star is climbing again even as his name surfaces hundreds of times across the Justice Department's Epstein files.

On 31 May 2026, Trump announced that Barrack, already serving as US ambassador to Türkiye, would take on a wider brief as special presidential envoy to Syria and Iraq. The financier has been a Trump confidant since the 1980s and chaired the 2017 Presidential Inaugural Committee.

His path has also run through a federal foreign-agent prosecution, a courtroom acquittal, and renewed questions about a long friendship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

From Colony Capital to Trump's Inner Circle

Thomas Joseph Barrack Jr, 78, built his fortune in property and private equity as the founder and former chairman of Colony Capital, an investment firm with sprawling holdings across the hotel and casino sectors.

He bought Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch in 2008, a deal that cemented his reputation as a dealmaker comfortable among celebrities and royalty. At its height, Colony managed tens of billions of dollars in assets across several continents. He has known Trump since the 1980s, and the two men circulated in the same world of property, money and media long before politics pulled them closer together.

Barrack emerged as a leading fundraiser for Trump's 2016 White House bid, then chaired the committee that staged the inauguration. He advised the new president informally, especially on the Middle East, drawing on decades of Gulf business ties and his Lebanese roots. Their relationship cooled at points, partly over scrutiny of the inaugural fund, yet Barrack returned to the fold for Trump's second term and accepted the post in Ankara.

A Foreign-Agent Trial That Ended in Acquittal

In July 2021, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn unsealed a seven-count indictment accusing Barrack of acting as an unregistered agent of the United Arab Emirates. The Justice Department alleged that he leveraged his access to Trump to push Emirati interests into campaign speeches and administration policy between 2016 and 2018, and it added charges of obstruction of justice and lying to FBI agents during a 2019 interview.

Prosecutors claimed UAE-linked sovereign wealth funds steered around £290 million ($374 million) into Colony projects, a figure his defence dismissed as a tiny fraction of the firm's balance sheet.

Barrack had already drawn scrutiny from Special Counsel Robert Mueller over his foreign entanglements, and he denied the new charges outright. He took the stand in his own defence at trial. In November 2022, a New York jury acquitted him on every count after three days of deliberation, handing the department a stinging defeat and clearing his path back to public life.

What the Epstein Files Reveal About Barrack

The Epstein chapter resurfaced in early 2026, when the Justice Department released more than three million documents tied to its investigations. An NBC News review found Barrack named hundreds of times, placing him among several current Trump officials who appear in the trove.

The level of contact varied widely across those named, from a single email to years of back-and-forth, according to the review. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein's crimes.

A CBS News analysis of more than 100 texts and emails showed the two stayed in regular contact through at least 2017, years after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor. In September 2009, shortly after Epstein left prison, Barrack wrote, 'Thinking about u hope u r good and life is calm again.'

A later note from Epstein read, 'I am always there for you,' to which Barrack replied, 'And me for u!!!'. The files also capture Epstein introducing Barrack to the investor Peter Thiel in 2016, and repeatedly nudging him towards encrypted messaging apps that the government release does not capture.

A Diplomat at the Centre of Middle East Policy

Barrack won Senate confirmation as ambassador to Türkiye in 2025 and swiftly became Washington's point man on a region in upheaval. His remit grew after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's government in late 2024 left Syria in a fragile transition, and Trump's latest decision folds Iraq into his portfolio as well.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called him a central interlocutor on Syria and a trusted hand on Iraq, a sign that Barrack will help steer US policy through the continuing conflict with Iran.

Türkiye sits at the crossroads of the war in Syria and the broader region, which makes the embassy in Ankara one of the most consequential American postings in the Middle East.

From Gulf boardrooms to a federal courtroom to the Epstein files, Barrack's reinvention as Trump's Middle East envoy is a study in how durable proximity to power can be.