President Trump at an Evangelicals for Trump rally in Miami, Florida, Jan. 3. Photo: Adam DelGiudice/Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media via Getty Images
Trump fundraiser Imaad Zuberi was charged Tuesday with obstructing a federal investigation into whether foreign nationals unlawfully donated to the president's inaugural ceremony, AP reports.
Catch up quick: Prosecutors say Zuberi deleted emails and backdated a $50,000 check to obstruct the investigation. The California investor contributed $900,000 to the president's inaugural committee in the months after his 2016 election and has also made large donations to Democrats, AP notes, including former President Obama's inaugural committee.
- The criminal complaint stated that the donation “was in fact funded using money obtained from other sources,” including a possible inaugural donor the AP identified as a Turkish-American businessman linked to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's regime.
- "The new charge was filed in the Southern District of New York as a criminal information — which probably indicates that Zuberi intends to plead guilty to it," the Washington Post reports.
Flashback: Zuberi pleaded guilty in a separate case in October for "falsifying records to conceal his work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. government officials," per a Justice Department memo from that time.
Go deeper: Trump campaign, RNC say they raised record-breaking $125 million in Q3