Free Speech

Eugene Volokh | 12.4.2024 7:03 PM

From U.S. v. Abouammo, decided today by Ninth Circuit Judges Daniel Bress and Kenneth Lee and District Judge Yvette Kane (M.D. Pa.):

Ahmad Abouammo, an employee at the company then known as Twitter, allegedly provided confidential information about dissident Saudi Twitter users to a close associate of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In return, Abouammo received a lavish wristwatch and hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from his Saudi contact. For his role in this arrangement and his efforts to cover it up, a jury convicted Abouammo for acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government or official, 18 U.S.C. § 951, conspiracy to commit wire and honest services fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1349, wire and honest services fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346, international money laundering, 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i), and falsification of records to obstruct a federal investigation, 18 U.S.C. § 1519.

The court affirms Abouammo's conviction, concluding that there was enough evidence that he was acting on behalf of a foreign government official; that the statute of limitations hadn't run on the fraud and money laundering charges; and that there was no venue problem with the falsification of records charge. (Judge Lee concurred to say more as to venue.) Those discussions are long and technical, and you can read them in the full opinion. But here's the court's summary of the facts:

In 2013, Twitter hired Abouammo, a U.S. citizen, as a Media Partnerships Manager for the Middle East and North Africa region. In this role, Abouammo was to help onboard influential content creators to Twitter and serve as a liaison to persons of influence in his geographic territory. At this time, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) had fifty percent of Twitter's users in the region, and it was identified as a key prospect for growing Twitter's business.

In June 2014, a group of Saudi entrepreneurs visited Twitter's offices in San Francisco. Abouammo arranged a tour for the group. During the visit, Abouammo met Bader Binasaker, a close associate and "right-hand-man" of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ("MbS"). MbS is a son of now-King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. In March 2013, MbS's father was the Crown Prince, the second most powerful position in the Kingdom, and MbS was named Head of the Private Office of the Crown Prince. In January 2015, MbS's father became King, appointing MbS as Minister of Defense and Head of his Royal Court. In April 2015, King Salman named MbS Deputy Crown Prince.

Binasaker was a close advisor to MbS. Binasaker was the General Supervisor of the Prince Salman Youth Center (PSYC). In 2011, MbS appointed Binasaker to be the Secretary General of the Mohammed bin Salman Foundation, a charitable organization that went by the........

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