[4][5][6] Barrack has for decades been a close friend of and fundraiser for U.S. President Donald Trump, representing him in television news appearances.
[20] In 1969, Barrack earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southern California (USC), where he participated on their varsity rugby team.
Shortly after, he helped open diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Haiti, then ruled by Jean-Claude Duvalier, at the request of investor Lonnie Dunn.
[11] In 1982, Barrack served as deputy undersecretary of the United States Department of the Interior under James G. Watt in the Reagan administration.
[10][13][18] The Secret Service would board its horses at Barrack's ranch when President Ronald Reagan was at his nearby Rancho del Cielo.
[11] Barrack achieved 50% profits in his first two years by focusing on distressed properties, including the federal Resolution Trust Corporation.
[11] Colony American Homes was criticized for treating tenants poorly during the Great Recession, raising rents, evicting people in large numbers and failing to maintain properties.
[20][27] Barrack had to pay €22 million to settle tax charges related to the 2012 sale of his resort on Costa Smeralda to the Qatari sovereign wealth fund.
On March 1, 2018, management delivered 2017 full year financials which were significantly below previous guidance highlighting the difficulty in its fundraising business.
[34] In 2017, Barrack sold a $70 million stake in One California Plaza to the Abu Dhabi crown prince's investment fund.
[20] During the first 18 months of the Trump administration, Colony NorthStar raised 24% of its $7 billion in investment from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Saudi Arabia.
[20] Barrack used Cayman Islands entities to invest pension fund money in distressed real estate and send money towards the Colony parent company, according to an organization chart that surfaced in the Paradise Papers documents leaked from the Appleby law firm[35] Barrack is a trustee at the University of Southern California.
[13][37][38] French president Nicolas Sarkozy awarded him France's Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.
[20] On July 13, Barrack conveyed to Otaiba that Trump had removed from the Republican party platform the plank calling for the release of the 28 pages of redacted information from the 9/11 Commission Report.
[20] Barrack served as chairman of the committee overseeing the 2017 Trump inauguration, for which he raised over $100 million, doubling the previous record.
[20] In a 2017 article in The Washington Post, Barrack commented on Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and proposals to ban immigrants from certain Muslim countries and put up a border wall with Mexico.
According to a New York Times report published in July 2019, Barrack also exchanged emails with Malik, sharing with him a draft of Trump's energy policy speech to seek approval on the 'pro-gulf region language'.
[46] In 2021, Barrack denied involvement in Trump's pardon of Robert Zangrillo, a developer and investor who was charged in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal for his alleged role in getting his daughter accepted into USC.
[50][51] On July 20, 2021, Barrack and his business protege Matthew Grimes were indicted as an agent working at the direction of a foreign power, obstructing justice, and making false statements to law enforcement.
[55] The indictment was broadened in May 2022 to include alleging Barrack sought hundreds of millions of dollars in investments from the United Arab Emirates while illegally lobbying the Trump administration on its behalf.