The sudden arrival of one Elliott Broidy, the deputy finance director of the Republican National Committee, into our news cycle has added another layer of grift and sleaze to the populist revolution against economic anxiety that was catapulted into office in November of 2016. From The New York Times:

An investor and defense contractor, Mr. Broidy became a top fund-raiser for Mr. Trump’s campaign when most elite Republican donors were keeping their distance, and Mr. Trump in turn overlooked the lingering whiff of scandal from Mr. Broidy's 2009 guilty plea in a pension fund bribery case. After Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Broidy quickly capitalized, marketing his Trump connections to politicians and governments around the world, including some with unsavory records, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Broidy suggested to clients and prospective customers of his Virginia-based defense contracting company, Circinus, that he could broker meetings with Mr. Trump, his administration and congressional allies. Mr. Broidy’s ability to leverage his political connections to boost his business illuminates how Mr. Trump’s unorthodox approach to governing has spawned a new breed of access peddling in the swamp he vowed to drain.

Let us pause for a moment to note that this guy had already pled guilty to a felony charge before he was welcomed aboard the Trump Train. (Broidy, it should be noted, ultimately cooperated with prosecutors and paid $18 million in restitution. In 2012, the court allowed him to trade his earlier guilty plea on a felony charge to a guilty plea on a misdemeanor.) We continue:

Mr. Broidy offered tickets to V.I.P. inauguration events, including a candlelight dinner attended by Mr. Trump, to a Congolese strongman accused of funding a lavish lifestyle with public resources. He helped arrange a meeting with Republican senators and offered a trip to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private Florida resort, for an Angolan politician. And he arranged an invitation to a party at Mr. Trump’s Washington hotel for a Romanian parliamentarian facing corruption charges, who posted a photograph with the president on Facebook.

Congolese strongmen? Angolan politicians? Romanian parliamentarians? Graham Greene died too soon.

As with so many other political conventions, Mr. Trump has upended the traditional system of access to the president, among the most prized chits in Washington. [Ed. Note: And people say the Times has no sense of humor.] That is partly because of lax vetting that has allowed largely unfettered access to Mr. Trump and his White House by loyalists, friends and hangers-on with their own policy agendas or business interests.

Alas for Mr. Broidy, however, one of his sleazier running buddies has found his way to Robert Mueller’s office.

One of his business partners, George Nader, is cooperating with the special counsel, whose investigators have asked about Mr. Nader’s contacts with top Trump administration officials as well as his possible role in funneling money from the U.A.E. to Mr. Trump’s political efforts, according to people familiar with the inquiry. Mr. Nader helped Circinus gain access to U.A.E.’s crown prince, while also using Mr. Broidy as a conduit to shape Trump administration policy toward the Persian Gulf on behalf of the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, both American allies. Mr. Broidy, in turn, appears to have helped Mr. Nader get his photograph taken with Mr. Trump at a fund-raiser, over the unspecified objections of the Secret Service. Mr. Nader has been convicted on charges related to child pornography and sexual abuse of minors.

Well, that’s about as deep into the swamp as you can get. The knives, meanwhile, are plainly out.

Hundreds of pages of Mr. Broidy’s emails, proposals and contracts were provided to The Times by an anonymous group critical of Mr. Broidy’s advocacy of American foreign policies in the Middle East. Mr. Broidy’s representatives say they have proof that the documents were stolen by hackers working for Qatar in retaliation for his efforts to rally opposition in Washington to Qatar, a regional nemesis of the Saudis and the Emiratis. The Qataris dismiss this charge. The documents reveal that Mr. Broidy, a vice chairman of the finance committee for Mr. Trump’s inauguration, arranged invitations to parties celebrating the event for foreign leaders with whom Circinus worked to sign contracts that could have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Broidy in some cases presented the invitations in a manner that suggested they were linked to their countries’ willingness to do business with Circinus.

Martin Longman does a fine job taking this story to other corners of the globe. To the Congolese strongman and the Romanian parliamentarian, Longman (via the Wall Street Journal) adds a Malaysian bagman.

In emails dated during the past year, Elliott Broidy, a venture capitalist and a longtime Republican donor, and his wife, Robin Rosenzweig, an attorney, discuss setting up a consulting contract with Jho Low, the Malaysian businessman at the center of the 1Malaysia Development Bhd. scandal, which brought scrutiny to the country’s prime minister, Najib Razak. The messages include draft agreements between Ms. Rosenzweig’s California law firm and representatives of Mr. Low about the possible terms of their business engagement. In one draft, there is a proposal that includes a $75 million fee if the Justice Department quickly drops its investigation.

It’s almost hard to believe that this president* can’t find himself a good lawyer.



Editor's Note: This story was updated on April 2, 2018 to note that while Broidy initially pled guilty to a felony charge, the court ultimately permitted him to trade that plea for a guilty plea on a misdemeanor charge.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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