Robert Berecraft

Robert Berecraft
Robert Berecraft leaving a hearing during the Barismont scandal
Born	Robert John Berecraft Jr. (1949-04-01) April 1, 1949 Sutton, Zian, Zamastan
Criminal status	Convicted as part of the Investigation into Yuaneze Election Interference.
Children	2
Conviction(s)	Found guilty on 8 counts; pleaded guilty to counts of conspiracy
Criminal charge	Five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, four counts of failing to disclose a hidden foreign bank account; two counts of conspiracy
Penalty	5 years in prison

Robert Berecraft is a Zamastanian lobbyist, political consultant, attorney, and convicted fraudster. He served as a strategic aide on Atticus Moreau's 2020 presidential campaign. Berecraft often lobbied Congressional Hall members on the behalf of foreign businessmen and heads of state. On September 19th, 2021, Berecraft indicted as part of the Barismont investigations and was found guilty of several counts of tax and bank fraud, as well as conspiracy with a foreign government. He was sentenced to five years in prison. A month later, Congressional Hall released a report detailing further allegations that Moreau had personally directed Berecraft, and Attorney General Katelyn Rasse appointed Arthur Aubert as a special prosecutor to investigate the President's actions during the campaign. During this second series of investigations, Berecraft was further charged with obstruction of justice for his role in helping Francis Bessette in paying a hush money settlement to four campaign aides and attempting to blackmail a provincial judge.

Barismont

According to the Senate Committee on Yuaneze Election Interference final volume report on Yuaneze meddling in Zamastanian political, business, and cyber circles, which detailed "counterintelligence threats and vulnerabilities," Berecraft committed many crimes on behalf of then-candidate Atticus Moreau. The bipartisan, 966-page report which also saw the backing of months of Zamastanian Intelligence Service investigations, police reports, and internal government probes, went further than Attorney General Katelyn Rasse's earlier report in showing the extent of Yuan's connections to members of the Moreau campaign, and how the Yuaneze government was able to take advantage of the transition team's inexperience to gain access to sensitive information. The report found that the former Moreau campaign aide Robert Berecraft began working on influence operations for the Yuaneze businessman Cao Xuegang and other pro-Yuaneze oligarchs in 2019.

Berecraft hired and worked closely with Yuaneze national Qiao Lan, whom the committee definitively calls a "Yuaneze intelligence officer" that served as a liaison between him and Xuegang. On numerous occasions, Berecraft sought to pass sensitive internal polling data and campaign strategy to Lan. The committee was unable to determine why or what Lan did with that information, in part due to the pair's use of encrypted messaging apps. The committee did, however, obtain "some information" suggesting Lan "may have been connected" to Yuan's hacking and leaking of Speaker Natasha Chastain's emails. The section detailing these findings is largely redacted.

The committee found that then-candidate Moreau and senior campaign officials attempted to obtain advance information about a hacker's release of damaging emails from campaign contributor Allen Write, who they believed had inside information. It also assessed that Moreau spoke with Write about the hack on "multiple occasions," despite the fact that the president said he did not recall doing so in written answers to special counsel Arthur Aubert, who served as President Foley Sakzi's attorney general but has since worked under the Zian 4th district court. The committee also found "significant evidence" to suggest that the hacker, later identified as originating from Yuan, was "knowingly collaborating with Yuaneze government officials." President Xi Jingyi of Yuan long denied that the source of the hacked emails was Yuan.

The committee found that Berecraft had expected to receive "derogatory information on Congresswoman Sabine Armitage" that would benefit the campaign from a person he knew was connected to the Yuaneze government, but that no information was ultimately transmitted. Two participants at the meeting with Berecraft, Cai Wen and Xu Xuefeng, had far more "extensive and concerning" ties to the the Yuaneze government, including to Yuaneze intelligence, than publicly known. The report found that by the end of 2019, Berecraft had “reached out to the Yuaneze government directly to solicit the Yuaneze government's assistance” about soliciting information. Yuan "took advantage" of members of the Moreau campaign team’s "relative inexperience in government, opposition to Sakzi and Bishop administration policies, and Moreau's desire to deepen ties with Yuan to pursue unofficial channels through which Yuan could conduct diplomacy," the committee determined.

Together, the five volumes of the report represent "two years of investigative activity, hundreds of witness interviews and engagements, millions of pages of document review, and open and closed hearings." The committee conducted "follow-up interviews" with Robert Berecraft, Allen White, and State Department official Esdras Hornley — which were necessary after the committee "developed additional information since the initial interview that required clarification from the witnesses." The committee said it was limited in some aspects of its investigation by assertions of executive privilege, including by members of the Moreau team. "The committee was surprised by these assertions because they were made inconsistently and because they have no basis in law," the report claims. Senate Intelligence ranking member Jaime Rollins (GLP - Jade 4): “At nearly 1,000 pages, Volume 5 stands as the most comprehensive examination of ties between Yuan and the 2019-20 Moreau campaign to date – a breathtaking level of contacts between Moreau officials and Yuaneze government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections. ... This cannot happen again."

President Moreau was not suspected of having any direction in what Berecraft or other members of his campaign did in regards to Yuan, and lead investigators seeking prosecution against campaign members maintain that the President, while innocent as per the results of the investigation, acted without attending to authority. "This is seriously a blow to the President, but it won't sink him personally," said Senator Dalton Benton. "On the surface, he did nothing wrong, but his lack of direct oversight to his campaign allowed others under his sphere of influence to do negligent activities."

Berecraft was charged with five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, four counts of failing to disclose a hidden foreign bank account, and two counts of conspiracy. He was found guilty on 8 counts and pleaded guilty to counts of conspiracy. He was subsequently sentenced to 5 years in prison.