Fugees star Pras Michel testifies in multimillion-dollar international fraud trial
Washington — Hip-hop star and Fugees member Pras Michel picked up a different kind of microphone as he took the witness stand in Washington, D.C.'s federal courthouse to defend himself in a multimillion-dollar international fraud trial.
"Mic check 1, 2. Mic check 1, 2," he aptly said at the start of his testimony.
"After consulting with my attorneys and the universe, I have decided to testify," Michel told the court Tuesday before answering questions from his defense team and prosecutors alike about the approximately $800,000 he said he paid to friends so they could donate to a political campaign.
Prosecutors allege the Grammy-winning artist immersed himself in American politics at the behest of a wealthy Malaysian financier to gain access, peddle influence, and make money. He was indicted in 2019 on federal charges that Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, paid him millions to help launder money Low had allegedly embezzled from a state-owned investment fund in his home country.
Michel, who has pleaded not guilty, is accused of using Low's money to make illegal contributions to former President Barack Obama's 2012 presidential campaign, and pursuing a back channel with Trump administration officials to persuade them to both abandon a federal fraud investigation into Low's business dealings, and send a Chinese dissident who is in the U.S. back to China to face criminal charges. Prosecutors do not allege Obama campaign officials were aware of the purported illegal payments.
But taking the stand on Tuesday, Michel said he viewed Low's payment's to him as "free money," and accepted approximately $20 million over the course of nine months to help Low secure a photo-op with Obama, both before and after the 2012 presidential campaign.
Beginning in the spring of 2012, the rapper testified, Low approached him about getting then-President Obama to take a picture with the Malaysian financier – currently a co-defendant in the case, and who remains abroad. He was willing to pay lots of money for it, Michel said.
Low first paid Michel $1 million to consider the proposition and start planning, Michel said Tuesday. But by the end of the campaign season, Michel fell short and consistently required more money to get the job done.
Low ultimately got his photo with Obama — taken after the 2012 presidential election at the White House — but it was what transpired between Low's initial request and the camera flashes that prosecutors say was the first illegal component of his alleged relationship with Low.
The indictment alleges Michel funneled money from Low to straw donors in order to surreptitiously fund Obama's re-election campaign, and work around campaign finance laws. The Obama campaign was "duped" and "deceived," prosecutors said during opening arguments earlier this month, after Michel allegedly helped Low disguise the donations as legitimate contributions that had come from the U.S.
Michel said Tuesday that he unsuccessfully tried to get the Malaysian businessman access to various 2012 campaign fundraisers across the country, including one in Miami in which Michel and Low's father took pictures with Obama. Low, Michel said, was not allowed at the meetings at the campaign's request due to his financial dealings.
Months later, according to court records and testimony, wealthy Democratic donor Frank White hosted a fundraiser at his Washington, D.C., home, and pressed Michel to fill a table with friends, each worth about $40,000 in donations.
During his testimony on Tuesday, Michel said he paid his friends money so they could donate to Obama's campaign and attend the dinner, at one point telling the jury he was paid approximately $20 million to secure the photo for Low, and about 10% of that money went towards paying his friends so they could attend the fundraiser.
Michel testified under oath that no one told him such payments toward political donations could have been unlawful or violations of campaign finance laws.
"I thought I could just give my friends money," he explained from the witness stand, adding some didn't spend the funds on political donations as expected.
During cross-examination, prosecutors elicited from Michel that he was aware of other election money laws, like those that prevented Low, a foreign national, from donating to Obama's campaign, and another that put a limit on how much Michel himself could donate. Still, he contended he was unaware his money moves could have been illegal.
The Fugees star said the funds he gave to his friends to donate were "my money," not Low's, adding once Low paid him to secure the photo, he was free to do what was needed to get the job done.
During the at-times contentious cross-examination, Michel and prosecutors argued over whether the funds in question belonged explicitly to Michel, as the defendant argued, or were still connected to Low's international funds.
Michel testified he was "betrayed" and led astray by his outside advisers, confidants, and employees, who he claims did not advise him correctly on how to handle financial and legal matters in the U.S.
In one such instance, several years after the 2012 election, Michel said he had "heard through friends that they were getting visits from the FBI" about the campaign contributions. After consulting a lawyer, Michel said he was advised to send a letter to the individuals he paid to donate to Obama's campaign and assert the money in question was not a gift, but a loan that needed to be repaid. Prosecutors say these letters — which also suggested legal action could follow — were threats to witnesses in the investigation. The idea was "stupid," Michel admitted Tuesday, adding he regretted he followed the advice of his counsel in that matter.
Michel's testimony on Tuesday also touched on his alleged efforts to push Trump administration officials to drop their investigations into Low and extradite a Chinese national living in the U.S. to China to face criminal charges.
Under cross-examination, Michel said "I took it upon myself" to go to the FBI about the dissident, Miles Guo, to work to connect interested parties with the U.S. government. Guo, a Steve Bannon associate, had since been indicted on fraud charges of his own.
Prosecutors say Michel, Low and their partners, including Republican lobbyist Elliott Broidy, met with leaders in the Chinese government and came up with what would ultimately be an unsuccessful plan to pay Broidy millions of dollars to use his political contacts to push Low's agenda. Broidy's plan included sending talking points to officials and pressuring Trump administration officials to put meetings on then-President Trump's calendar.
Broidy pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to serve as an unregistered foreign agent, and Trump pardoned him shortly before leaving office in 2021.
Michel testified Tuesday that "no one I spoke to ever mentioned" the federal laws that required him to register as a foreign agent if doing work on China's behalf, and that he would have done so if advised.
Still, government prosecutors elicited that the defendant was present at a gathering between Boidy and the Malaysian prime minister on the night before the prime minister was set to meet with Trump. Michel told the jury he had stopped by to "say hello" and nothing more.
Michel's defense team — led by celebrity attorney David Kenner — has argued the rapper believed he had acted in the best interest of the U.S. at the time and did not act as a foreign agent of China. They have made numerous attempts to dismiss the charges on various grounds of selective and illicit prosecution and, as Michel's testimony on Tuesday demonstrated, continue to maintain their client was unaware of the laws he is accused of breaking.
One former Trump official at the center of the alleged pressure campaign was then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who also took the stand as a defense witness on Tuesday.
Sessions, who said Tuesday he did not "recall" ever meeting Michel, told the jury under oath about various high-level meetings about potentially extraditing Guo to China, some involving other federal agencies. Those efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, and Sessions said he rebuffed attempts to get him to meet with Chinese security officials about the matter. Sessions said he viewed various meetings as "appropriate."
Prosecutors from the Justice Department — which Sessions once led as the nation's top law enforcement officer — declined to question him under cross-examination.
Low, according to the Justice Department, allegedly misappropriated over $500 million from the sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) with wire transfers to shell companies he and others owned, and some of the proceeds were used for the production of actor Leonardo DiCaprio's hit film "The Wolf of Wall Street."
DiCaprio testified in Michel's trial earlier this month.
