OAN’s Neil W. McCabe
6:50 PM – Saturday, May 20, 2023
[Bucharest, Romania] House Republicans have identified several payments from Romanian tycoon Gabriel Popoviciu to President Joe Biden and family members through a cutout.
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Adrian Zuckerman, President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Romania, told One America News about the corrupt land deal that ended up with Popoviciu as a fugitive from justice and the tycoon as the landlord for the US Embassy and the capital of Bucharest.
Zuckerman said the featured speaker at the dedication for the new embassy in Bucharest was the president’s late son Beau Biden.
“A number of years ago, I would say, oh, more or less 14, 15 years ago, I don’t know when he began working on it. He secured a very substantial tract of land, which is now the location of the US Embassy, as well as a very large upscale mall and some other residential structures. Off the top of my head, it’s several hundred acres,” said Zuckerman, who worked for many years as a New York City attorney.
“Popoviciu got in trouble over that,” he said.
“The land was bequeathed to the Agriculture School of the University of Bucharest to be used exclusively for agricultural type work by the university,” he said.
“Popoviciu entered into an arrangement with somebody at the university who transferred the land to one of his entities at below market and in violation of the restrictive covenants on the land,” said the former ambassador, who continues to split his time between Romania and the United States.
“As a result, that individual, to the best of my knowledge, went to jail,” he said. “He may still be in jail. I’m not personally familiar, and Popoviciu was convicted as well. I believe he was sentenced to a seven-year term in jail, and he fled to London where, as far as I know, he still is, and he fought extradition back to Romania from London.”
In June 2021, a British court rejected Romania’s extradition request.
Zuckerman, a longtime friend of President Donald Trump, said although the British government refused Romania’s extradition request, he is confident Popoviciu received a fair trial.
“When I was ambassador here, I and our embassy legal team made up of Justice Department people as well as FBI, I and others, we all were confident that, in fact, the trial was fair and we believe the result was correct,” he said.
“We actually requested that Popoviciu be returned to Romania to serve his term. We have confidence in the Romanian government and the steps it took in this particular manner,” Zuckerman said.
The former ambassador said another issue that has come up is the Chinese’s growing influence in Romania, which he confronted when he was the top US official in the country.
“There’s substantial influence here from the Chinese, from the Russians. That presence has been here for many years,” he said.
“The Chinese have many business interests here. We were very active in limiting Huawei’s influence here. We were also very active in urging Romania, along with a number of other European states, which did so to pass the 5G law, clean networks, clean pathways,” he said.
“Romania did pass the 5G law, limiting the Chinese and Huawei’s expansion. Romania’s now considering banning TikTok from government employees’ government-issued cell phone units.”
Neil W. McCabe is a national political correspondent based in Tallahassee, Florida. Before his current assignment, Neil covered the White House and Capitol Hill for OAN. He is a Bronze Star veteran of the Iraq War and continues to serve as a senior public affairs NCO in the Army Reserve. Follow him at Twitter: @neilwmccabe2 GETTR & TruthSocial: @ReporterMcCabe
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