Alex Bruesewitz, a senior outside adviser to President Donald Trump, has been accused by a former business partner of accepting lavish gifts from foreign individuals and pursuing commercial arrangements that could have offered access to US officials.
The allegations were made by Derek Utley, who co-founded the digital firm X Strategies with Mr Bruesewitz in 2017, in a court filing responding to a lawsuit brought by the company.
X Strategies sued Mr Utley in September, alleging that he embezzled millions of dollars from the firm and gambled away its money. Mr Utley denies those claims, describing the case as a “marketing ploy masquerading as a federal lawsuit”.
His countersuit alleges that he was dismissed without cause after seeking medical leave. The company has said he submitted “fake medical records” to obtain six months of paid leave before being fired.
Mr Utley’s filing claims that Mr Bruesewitz pursued business and financial relationships with foreign individuals, investors and government representatives linked to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Syria, while concealing them.
It alleges that Mr Bruesewitz received about $500,000 from people associated with Qatar under an undisclosed business or consultancy arrangement. The filing says the relationships developed through X Strategies were commercially valuable to foreign interests seeking introductions to American political figures and access to government institutions.
The filing does not directly accuse Mr Bruesewitz of exchanging political access for payments, and it provides no supporting documentation for the allegations.
It also claims that Mr Bruesewitz sought to charge an annual advisory fee of $1 million to a Copenhagen-based investment firm with holdings in the US and Europe. The proposed services allegedly included helping the firm gain access to American government officials, federal agencies and financial institutions.
Mr Utley’s lawyers said the circumstances raised questions about possible obligations under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, which requires public disclosure by people involved in lobbying or other activities on behalf of foreign interests.
In a separate allegation, Mr Utley claims that Mr Bruesewitz told him his honeymoon accommodation in the Maldives had been paid for by “two Syrian billionaires”. He allegedly said they had arranged access to a suite that normally cost $15,000 a night.
Bradford Cohen, Mr Bruesewitz’s lawyer, rejected the claims and said they would be defamatory if made outside the court proceedings.
“We’re asserting that everything in his factual allegations is either untrue, exaggerated, or completely fabricated,” Mr Cohen said. “Desperate men resort to desperate things, and this screams of desperation.”
Mr Bruesewitz helped shape the digital strategy for Mr Trump’s 2024 campaign, and X Strategies runs the Trump War Room and Team Trump accounts on X. He remains an adviser to conservative figures in the President’s orbit.
He has previously urged conservative influencers to disclose relationships with foreign governments seeking to influence the Trump administration. In a June interview with Tucker Carlson, Mr Bruesewitz said: “I do not take any foreign money. I don’t take any money from the Gulf countries. I don’t take any money from India. I don’t take any money from Russia, China. No foreign countries.”
Mr Utley did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the White House also did not comment.
