broidy

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MERRI OK

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SEE GEORGE NADER

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FBI

10 2020

acoSTA TOLD EPS IS ALLIED INTEL AGY; DERS AND EPS TALK --> MOSSAD WD CALL FOR DEBRIEF; EPS CLOSE TO BARAK AND TRAINED AS SPY UNDER HIM; BARAK THOT BB CRIM; EPS COOPEDTED MOSSAD AGENT;

DRUKOVA DAY ONE VENTURES STEAL TECH

CHABAD PUTIN JEW OLIG; RABBI SCHEERSOM; KSH STAKE IN CADRE NOT DISCL; JK MOVED RUSS $; CHABAD LAUNDER

CRAIG HOROWITZ ARTL 2004; KEN KURSON KNOWS;

KISSENGAR CHS KUSH INTRO TO CUI TUANAKAI CHIN AMB; ANBANG NEGOT 666 5TH AVE

M COHEN BEV HILL HSE UNDER MKT

RENDA REX TILLERSON NY POST SMEARS // STATE DEPT

LEON BLACK BWTR ARMS HU TRFFICK; CEO APOLLO 50M TO EPS 184M LOAN TO JK // 666

ELLIOT BROIDY PLED LAUNDER; PLAYBOY MODEL; JOEL MOWBRAY --> JEW; REP ED ROYCE, WIFE LOBBYIST;

GAWKER DISINFO 2016? --> ZERO HEDGE

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Nonetheless, there is no denying that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was overjoyed at Trump’s election – if not before the fact, then certainly after. According to reports published in November and December of last year, Mueller is investigating lobbying efforts made in December 2016, before Trump’s inauguration, by former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and presidential adviser Jared Kushner against the Obama administration’s intention to refrain from vetoing UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. Flynn’s indictment included an admission that he had lied to the FBI about his approach to Russia’s U.S. Ambassador Sergei Kislyak to delay the Security Council vote.

And while no direct link has been established, there was certainly a confluence of views and interests in the recently uncoveredefforts by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia to assist Trump’s campaign. According to the New York Times, in the August 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, the UAE representative, George Nader, told Donald Trump Jr. and other participants that Obama had left a “power vacuum” in the Middle East. The report also states that Nader had concocted a secret plan to destabilize the Iranian regime, an objective now being pursued, despite their denials, by both Israel and the United States.

The question of whether the Israeli involvement was merely coincidental or an indication of something more sinister could become clearer if and when Mueller presents his findings. In the meantime, here is a necessarily incomplete catalog of the numerous Israeli connections to some of the people named so far in Mueller’s probe:

George Nader

George Nader, the convicted pedophile who worked on behalf of UAE, is a Lebanese businessman who has worked for decades in the shadows of Middle East diplomacy. He has often been accused in the Arab press of being an agent for the Mossad. In the 1980s, Nader reportedly mediated between Israel and Lebanon. At the same time, he established the journal Middle East Insight, which often arranged meetings in Washington between Israelis and Arabs. In July, 1996, Nader hosted Netanyahu shortly after his first election as prime minister. This video shows both on the same stage.

Two years later, Nader forged even closer ties with Netanyahu and his bureau: he served as Ronald Lauder’s assistant in the cosmetic tycoon’s failed efforts to secure a peace deal between Netanyahu and Syria’s president at the time, Hafez Assad. Netanyahu’s advisers have acknowledged their contacts with Nader, who is said to have been especially close to Dore Gold, the prime minister’s aide and former UN ambassador.

Elliott Broidy

Nader’s partner in representing the UAE – and in pressing Trump to take a hard line on Qatar – was Elliott Broidy, the Los Angeles venture capitalist and GOP fundraiser. Broidy made headlines in recent weeks for his lucrative lobbying efforts on behalf of the UAE, which included two personal meetings with Trump, as well as for his alleged role in Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s payment of $1.6 million to former Playboy Playmate Shera Bechard. Many commentators assume that it was Trump who actually had an affair with Bechard and got her pregnant, with Broidy volunteering to serve as his cover.

Broidy also has a long history with Israel in general and Netanyahu in particular. Together with Sheldon Adelson, he is a prominent member of the board of directors of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has taken hawkish positions on the Iran nuclear deal and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Fifteen years ago, Broidy set up Markstone Capital Group which operated in Israel, investing in Israeli companies and attracting Israeli investors. In 2003, then-Finance Minister Netanyahu took credit for convincing the New York State pension fund to invest $250 million in Markstone. It later emerged that Broidy’s bribes to former New York State Comptroller and now-convicted felon Alan Hevesi also played a role in the pension fund’s largesse. By the time Broidy pled guilty to a misdemeanor after cooperating with Hevesi’s investigators in 2012, Markstone’s Israeli branch had essentially collapsed, taking with it the many Israelis’ investments.

In January 2017, Nader took part in a meeting in Seychelles, which is also being probed by Mueller. In attendance were Erik Prince, Trump confidante, brother of Education Secretary Betsy Devos and founder of the security company Blackwater, as well as Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian government’s sovereign wealth fund Russia Direct Investment Fund. Dmitriev’s fund has in recent months been negotiating with Israeli government ministers on a $100 million project to open Israeli-run dairies in Russia....

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2025 JUL? BRENNAN

Another $250,000 was refunded to Robin Rosenzweig, the wife of Trump fundraiser and former inaugural co-chair Elliott Broidy. Broidy pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws as part of a covert campaign on behalf of foreign interests following a Justice Department investigation into his allegedly offering foreign actors access to the Trump administration.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-pardon-bribe

U.S. Department of Justice over the summer investigated one of the Trump campaign's top fundraisers, and lawyer for the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for his possible involvement in an alleged scheme to offer bribes in exchange for clemency to be granted for a tax crimes convict, according to The New York Times.

On Tuesday, Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia unsealed court documents outlining an investigation into a bribery scheme involvingTrump fundraiser, Elliott Broidy, and Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell. Although the documents confirm the existence of the investigation, the publication reports that the documents had been heavily redacted.

It has been reported that Sanford Diller — a billionaire real estate developer in San Francisco — reportedly asked Broidy and Lowell for assistance in securing clemency for a Berkeley psychologist named Hugh L. Baras, who was facing time in federal prison following his conviction of .tax evasion and improperly claiming Social Security benefits. If clemency were granted to Baras, Diller allegedly agreed to make "a substantial political contribution" to an unspecified recipient in exchange for the pardon."

To secure the agreement, someone reportedly appealed to the White House Counsel's Office to confirm that the "clemency petition reached the targeted officials." However, after Diller passed away in February of 2018, the full exchange was never carried out. According to Reid H. Weingarten, Lowell's friend and lawyer, claims no bribes were ever paid.

"This is much ado about precious little," Mr. Weingarten said. "They investigated and concluded that nothing was amiss. In addition, prosecutors did not have the slightest issue with Abbe."

An attorney for Broidy also insists that although his client only played a minor role in the situation, he is guilty of no wrongdoing.

"Mr. Broidy was asked by Mr. Diller to refer him to a D.C. lawyer who could assist on a clemency petition," said the lawyer, William A. Burck. "Mr. Broidy sent him to Abbe Lowell. That's not lobbying, and Mr. Broidy is not under investigation and has not been accused by anyone of any wrongdoing whatsoever."

The court filings were unsealed following a decision by Judge Howell to give prosecutors access to email records to further investigate the alleged scheme. After reviewing a small number of the emails, Judge Howell determined that she did not believe the email correspondence was a violation of attorney-client privilege.

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Broidy told Trump about a recent trip he’d taken to the United Arab Emirates, the small but wealthy Persian Gulf nation, on behalf of a defense-contracting company he owned. Broidy raved about the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s de facto leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, known as MBZ, whom he had met with while in the Emirates.He said that MBZ and Mohammed bin Salman, the young crown prince of Saudi Arabia, were creating an all-Muslim counterterrorism force made up of 5,000 Arab soldiers to fight against the Taliban and ISIS. With the help of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Broidy said, his company would assist the UAE and Saudi Arabia to train and assist those pan-Arab fighters.

Trump loved the idea. As far as he knew, Broidy had business interests in the Middle East and had briefed the president as a courtesy. What Trump didn’t know — and Broidy didn’t disclose, according to his detailed notes about the meeting obtained by Rolling Stone — was that Broidy was also waging a secretive, multimillion-dollar PR and influence campaign in Washington, D.C., to persuade the Trump administration to punish Qatar, an enemy of the UAE and Saudi Arabia — but an ally of the U.S.

Broidy’s operation came with code names (Trump was “Chairman,” MBZ “Friend,” Qatar the “snake”), convoluted money trails and a shadowy liaison to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The liaison urged Broidy to make the most of his time with Trump (his “priceless asset”) and reiterated MBZ’s wishes in an email sent to Broidy a few days before the Oval Office meeting. “Again, take advantage of it to tell him that Friend would like to come asap to meet you [Trump] SOONEST out of official site,” the go-between wrote in a long email. The two crown princes “are counting on you to relate it blunt and straight as it is!?.?.?.?Tomorrow is a Pivotal and could turn out to be a Historical and milestone meeting!”

Broidy did as he was told, telling Trump that MBZ stood ready to travel to the U.S. for a meeting but would prefer a more private setting than the Oval Office. Broidy recommended New York or New Jersey. When Trump asked Broidy for his thoughts about Qatar, Broidy slammed the Qataris as financial supporters of terrorism and included them with North Korea and Iran in a new “axis of evil.”

Trump smiled and nodded. He had reason to champion Broidy’s cause. Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia had long been loyal customers of his. The Saudis “buy all sorts of my stuff,” Trump said in 2015, and a massive Trump-branded golf course had recently opened in Dubai, in the UAE. The meeting was nearing its end, but the president had one last question for Broidy:What did he think of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson? Tillerson, the former Exxon-Mobil CEO, had shown support for the Qataris. In private, Broidy had seethed at Tillerson, calling him “a tower of Jello.” Broidy told Trump that Tillerson was “performing poorly” and should be fired at a “politically convenient time.”

Broidy then met with H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, to push for the private, informal meeting with Trump that MBZ wanted. The sun was starting to set when Broidy left the White House, confident he’d delivered his message. The crown princes were thrilled. Not long after, the liaison emailed him, “You have become a HERO here and at KSA [Kingdom of Saudi -Arabia], to say the least.”

DEPENDING ON where you stood, Trump’s election posed either an existential threat to the American experiment or the business opportunity of a lifetime. The thousands of lawyers, former congressional staffers and retired lawmakers who ply their trade as lobbyists had spent two years preparing for a Clinton administration. “If you went around town and told these lobbying firms you supported Trump, it was like a hate crime,” says Tom Davis, a former lobbyist and onetime Virginia congressman. “Trump threw out the book. He brought in a whole new crowd. The players changed, and the rules changed.”

Overnight, Trump’s small circle of friends and loyalists became extremely valuable. They could speak Trump’s language, explain him, influence him. Or at least that’s what they told the blue-chip corporations and foreign governments scrambling to find someone to help them navigate the new administration. “There’s, like, five people who bet on the long shot and won,” a seasoned GOP operative told me. “The day after the election, those five people all think they’re the biggest fucking swinging dicks in the universe. I’m the guy who can make all your dreams come true now.”

That’s where Elliott Broidy came in. Broidy set out to cash in on his connections to the new administration with breathtaking speed and audacity. In the aftermath of Trump’s win, Broidy, who landed a coveted spot as a vice-chair for Trump’s inauguration committee, used his ties to the president-elect to pitch his defense-contracting company, Circinus LLC, to foreign leaders. He invited two senior Angolan officials to Trump’s inauguration festivities while attaching a proposed contract with Broidy’s firm. He helped secure a brief audience for the Romanians with Trump at a dinner where Broidy was seated next to the president-elect. For a starting rate of $350,000 a month,Broidy offered to help a lawyer based in Moscow remove U.S. sanctions on two Russian companies.(The lawyer recalls Broidy’s proposal but not the suggested fees included in Broidy’s memo, and he says the plan did not go forward.) And in another instance, Broidy and his wife, a lawyer and former entertainment executive, hatched a plan to earn $75 million if they could get the Justice Department to drop an investigation into the multibillion-dollar fraud involving Malaysia’s prime minister and its state investment fund.

The real prize for Broidy, however, was two of the richest countries in the world: Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Contracts with their defense ministries for his security company could be worth hundreds of millions, if not billions. For years, Broidy had tried to win business with the Emirati and Saudi royal families. But that was before Trump came along. “President Trump campaigned on a promise to drain the swamp,” Paul Seamus Ryan, a vice president at Common Cause, tells Rolling Stone. “Instead, he brought a group of swamp creatures with him.”

This story is based on more than 40 interviews, hundreds of pages of legal records as well as private emails and other documents of Broidy’s, which reveal his efforts to shape the Trump administration’s Middle East policy and score foreign contracts for his company. Before publication of this story, a lawyer for Broidy sent a letter to Rolling Stone alleging that “paid agents” of Qatar stole the emails from Broidy as retribution for the “exercise of his First Amendment rights to highlight Qatar’s support for global terrorist organizations.” The lawyer contended that some of the documents were doctored or forged by the alleged hackers. Taken together with Rolling Stone’s reporting, the documents give a rare inside view of how the Trump-era swamp works — and Broidy’s place in it.

ONSTAGE, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, joined by members of the new First Family, swayed together to a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” It was January 20th, 2017, a night of parties celebrating the swearing in of the 45th president. At first glance, Trump’s inauguration resembled those that had come before it — the black-tie balls, the speeches and shout-outs to the supporters in attendance. But gaze out into the audience and you saw a motley cast of right-wing conspiracy theorists, overseas real-estate developers and a few Russian oligarchs. By day, they hung out in the lobby of the Trump International Hotel a few blocks from the White House, transforming it into a real-life Mos Eisley cantina, the scene of nonstop scheming and schmoozing by the strange new denizens of Trumpworld.

Larry Mizel, Elliott Broidy, Senator Jeff SessionsChairman's Global Dinner in Washington DC, USA - 17 Jan 2017

Broidy (center) with then Sen. Jeff Sessions and CEO Larry Mizel. After the election, men like Broidy who had backed Trump were very valuable in D.C. “There’s five people out there who bet on a long shot and won,” says one longtime GOP operative. “They could make all your dreams come true now.” Photo credit: Clint Spaulding/WWD/REX/Shutterstock

One person who was in attendance was a Lebanese-American businessman named George Nader. Short and stout, with thinning gray hair, Nader, like Broidy, had once been a player in Washington, and now, years later, the two men met for the first time, at the inauguration. The encounter would prove pivotal.

Nader had run a small but respected magazine in the 1990s called Middle East Insight, and people in the foreign-policy community knew him as a consummate wheeler-dealer, a mediator-for-hire who was always bringing different Middle Eastern delegations — the Israelis, the Syrians, Yasser Arafat — to Washington for conferences and negotiations.

Nader vanished from D.C. in the early 2000s; it later emerged that he’d been convicted in the Czech Republic for sexually abusing minors. He resurfaced in Iraq, working with Erik Prince, the founder of the controversial defense contractor Blackwater. Later, he served as a consultant to two Emirati investment firms and as an adviser to MBZ.

For Nader and MBZ, the Trump presidency was an opportunity for the UAE to assert itself as a greater player in the Middle East. It was also a chance for the Emiratis and Saudis to go on the attack against two of their fiercest rivals, Iran and Qatar. A small monarchy located on a peninsula roughly the size of Connecticut, Qatar has the highest per-capita income in the world, thanks to its vast natural-gas fields shared with Iran.Qatar, some say, is more of a company than a country. The ruling al-Thani family plays an outsize and often provocative — critics say destabilizing — role in the Middle East, funding pro-democracy conferences and using their TV network, Al-Jazeera, to shape public opinion in the region. Qatar’s critics accuse the al-Thanis of allowing terrorists to live in their country and use their financial system.

For years, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had wanted nothing more than to cripple Qatar. In an allegedly leaked email from 2017, the UAE’s ambassador to the U.S. wrote that conquering Qatar would “solve everyone’s problems. Literally,” and that Saudi King Abdullah had considered “doing something in Qatar” before he died in 2015. (Representatives for the Saudi and UAE embassies in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.) Qatar enjoyed a strong relationship with the U.S., hosting one of the most important American air bases in the world, at al-Udeid.

But now, in the chaos of the new administration, the Saudis and Emiratis sought to turn the U.S. against Qatar — and Broidy would convince them that he could make it happen. “The Gulf nations view their wealth as an extension of their power,” says Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee. “When they’ve got a president of questionable ethics and one driven by money, it’s an attractive target.”

Nader and MBZ understood that there were ways to get to Trump that wouldn’t have worked with previous administrations. Trump liked to say that his primary consultant was himself; he trusted few people beyond his own family. Former campaign staffers, Mar-a-Lago members and business partners filled the vacuum where academics, diplomats and other experts would usually be found. The challenge was finding the right acolyte with enough juice to get your message in front of the easily distractible Trump.

For Nader, that man was Elliott Broidy.What they talked about the night of the inauguration isn’t clear. (A lawyer for Nader disputed the reporting about Nader’s pedophilia conviction and claimed that the emails between him and Broidy were “altered or fabricated” but did not give any examples.) But by the time the evening’s festivities were finished, the two men had the makings of a plan.

SOON AFTER the inauguration, a message appeared in Broidy’s inbox from his new friend. “Hi,” Nader wrote. “Here is my private email.” It was one of the first of hundreds of messages Broidy and Nader would exchange over the following year.

Broidy began his work for Nader by designing an extensive PR and influence offensive.The strategy, documents show, involved linking Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood, the political and social group with millions of followers often accused of fomenting terrorism. In a memo to Nader dated March 15th, 2017, Broidy wrote that theBrotherhood had “infiltrated the Democratic Party” and “almost elected their champion, Keith Ellison, national chairman.” (Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress and now Minnesota’s attorney general, has never championed the group.) In another memo, Broidy accused Qatar of funding and hosting members of Hamas and the Taliban. (The State Department’s 2017 terrorism report highlighted Qatar’s participation with the U.S. to combat terrorism financingwhile noting thatterrorist financiers within Qatar are still able to exploit its informal financial system.)

Broidy sought to manufacture a groundswell of activity to demonstrate to Democrats and Republicans that Qatar was not an ally and that the Trump administration should take punitive action in the form of sanctions against Qatari individuals or a foreign-terrorist designation for the entire Muslim Brotherhood. If all went as planned, there would be no public evidence of Broidy and Nader’s efforts behind this covert operation. These activities are common in Washington: For decades, foreign governments have retained pricey law firms and political consulting firms to represent their interests. What made this one so striking was that Broidy and Nader operated outside the usual world of K Street firms and consulting shops.

Broidy had every reason to carry out his plan in secret. The last time he climbed to the top of American politics it ended in disgrace. Raised in Los Angeles in a middle-class Jewish family, he got a degree in accounting at the University of Southern California while running a laundromat on the side. Later he kept the books for the Bell family that had founded the Taco Bell chain and started his own investment firm, quickly becoming rich. Broidy had given modestly to both Democrats and Republicans running for office, but after 9/11 he grew increasingly hawkish and was an obsessive defender of Israel. He became a leader in a small, tightknit group of Jewish Republicans in Southern California who contributed substantial sums of money to Republican and conservative causes.

Our Man in Washington: George Nader and Broidy worked together to align the U.S. with Saudi and UAE interests. When Nader, who was convicted of sexual abuse in Europe, wanted a photo with Trump, Broidy misspelled his name as Vader to White House chief-of-staff to help Nader get past security.

George Nader (above with Trump) and Broidy worked together to align the U.S. with Saudi and UAE interests.

“Mr. L.A.” was how one Republican fundraiser who attended events at Broidy’s house described him. He and his wife, Robin, threw high-dollar political fundraisers and charitable events at Rosewood, their Georgian-style mansion in the hills of Bel-Air that held a near-mythical place in Republican circles; George W. Bush supposedly once said of the place, “This is nicer than the White House.”

Then it all came crashing down. In December 2009, Andrew Cuomo, then the New York attorney general, announced that Broidy had pleaded guilty to bribing officials in the New York state comptroller’s office in exchange for a $250 million investment in a fund he had started called Markstone Capital. Broidy admitted to paying for lavish trips and gifts for state officials and their families and providing $300,000 for a movie called Chooch, produced by the brother of an employee in the comptroller’s office. “This is an old-fashioned payoff of state officials,” Cuomo said at the time. (The felony charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor in exchange for Broidy’s cooperation with the AG’s office.) Overnight, Mr. L.A. became a pariah. Candidates returned his donations. He resigned from Markstone. He and his wife moved out of their mansion and sold off a portion of their wine collection.

For the next few years, Broidy toiled in obscurity. He produced a low-budget movie and hired a PR firm to churn out feel-good releases (“Elliott Broidy Voices Support for Homeless Youth as Los Angeles Area Cities Continue Debates Over the Issue”) about his efforts to combat homelessness and support cancer research.

In the 2016 presidential race, Trump wasn’t his first (or second or third) choice: He’d initially supported Lindsey Graham, whom he’d known from the Bush years, switching to Marco Rubio, then to Ted Cruz. At first, Broidy didn’t think much of Trump: He allegedly told someone close to him Trump was an “idiot” who couldn’t even pronounce the names of countries correctly. But when the RNC and Trump campaign, whose lead fundraiser was Broidy’s friend Steve Mnuchin, came calling in 2016, desperate to find anyone who could raise money, Broidy threw himself into a campaign other Republicans couldn’t stomach. And it surely seemed like a lost cause to the people Broidy was soliciting — until the night of November 8th, 2016.

BY THE END of March 2017, Broidy had finalized a detailed and bulleted strategy with the goal of engineering a major crackdown on Qatar in Congress and the Trump administration. The plan, which he sent to Nader, called for enlisting (and bankrolling) think tanks specializing in foreign policy to educate the public on the dangers of Qatar and the Brotherhood. Broidy proposed using newspapers, magazines, YouTube and social media to spread the message. He suggested working with dark-money nonprofit groups that can run more overt political ads and have more leeway to push lawmakers for congressional resolutions, hearings and other official actions to gin up opposition against the two targets. He also designed a star-studded conference intended to move lawmakers, the administration and American public opinion in the direction of isolating and punishing Qatar.

Nader asked Broidy to send him an invoice for an initial $2.5 million. Whether that was a down payment or the full cost isn’t clear. If Broidy succeeded and proved his worth to Nader and the Emirati and Saudi princes, he hoped the payoff would come in the form of lucrative contracts for his company.

Broidy relied on a few key figures in Washington to help carry out his plan. One was Rep. Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Broidy had helped Royce’s wife get a job at the State Department. A onetime Saudi critic, Royce figured prominently into Broidy’s work. Broidy told Nader that he “caused” Royce to enter into the Congressional Record a fawning FoxNews.com op-ed by a Saudi general that hailed Trump for ushering in a new era in U.S.-Saudi relations.

Royce also headlined a May 2017 conference on Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood that, at least on paper, was organized by two think tanks, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy and the Hudson Institute. But emails and other planning documents show that Broidy had a hand in the planning. With dozens of journalists in the audience at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, Royce announced an upcoming piece of legislation that would accuse Qatar of funding Hamas and open up the possibility of sanctions. “This is the first such bill to do so!” Broidy told Nader in an email. (Royce did not respond to requests for comment.)

Broidy’s conference came amid a crescendo of op-eds, news stories and other critical statements about Qatar in the spring and summer of 2017. As one former foreign lobbyist told me, small actions that create the perception of closer ties or tensions between a foreign nation and the U.S. are nearly as valuable as actual policy. That can take the form of a public event, a critical editorial or a letter from one member of Congress to his or her colleagues.

The lobbyist tells the story of a 2015 hearing about U.S.-Hungary relations hosted by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., the then-chair of a subcommittee focusing on Eastern Europe. Few people attended the hearing, and it received almost zero coverage in the U.S., but it created a “deluge of coverage” in Hungary and was used by the country’s autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orban, to show that he had champions in the U.S. “The smallest or inconsequential action by a member of Congress, such as a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter, can be put out in the foreign press and used by governments to justify their policies and politics,” the lobbyist says.

One glaring difference between what the lobbyist did for Hungary and Broidy’s efforts was that the lobbyist disclosed his work. Under the law, Americans who try to influence American policy or public opinion on behalf of a foreign government must register under what’s known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law enacted in 1938 to combat the spread of Nazi propaganda. Until very recently,FARA was treated like “a stop sign in the desert,” as one foreign lobbyist told me. Broidy, however, never registered as a lobbyist or reported his activities under FARA; Chris Clark, a lawyer for Broidy, has noted that Nader is a U.S. citizen and said there is “no evidence” that either Nader or a foreign entity directed Broidy’s actions. “Elliott Broidy has never agreed to work for, been retained or compensated by, nor taken direction from any foreign government directly or indirectly for any interaction with the United States government, ever,” Clark tells Rolling Stone. “Any implication to the contrary is a lie.”

Joshua Rosenstein, a lawyer who specializes in FARA, tells Rolling Stone that FARA is an intentionally broad law that encompasses not just lobbying but any work that someone intends to or believes will influence the American public about the politics or policies of a foreign government. “The facts and exchange of emails and documents would give me significant pause if I were advising a client about proceeding under similar circumstances,” Rosenstein says, “and the Department of Justice would be justified in taking a close look at this.” (Clark, Broidy’s lawyer, says Rosenstein’s comment is “ill-informed” and based on “extremely limited knowledge.”)

Broidy’s behind-the-scenes efforts were having an impact. Trump had chosen to take his first foreign trip to Riyadh, where he participated in a strange glowing-orb ceremony with the Saudi king and vowed to work with the Saudis and the UAE to support a new counterterrorism center in the Middle East. He slammed the Iran nuclear treaty negotiated by Obama, mulled a foreign-terrorist designation for the Muslim Brotherhood and was increasingly critical of Qatar, echoing Broidy’s own talking points. “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology,” Trump tweeted in June 2017. “Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!”

A day earlier, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt had cut diplomatic ties and imposed a blockade on Qatar, closing their borders to the Qataris, a serious blow for a country surrounded by water on three sides that exported natural gas and imported most everything else — and a major escalation in the conflict.

Meanwhile, Trump’s criticism of Qatar heated up and he appeared to be firmly on the side of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In late June, after just five months in office, he kicked off his 2020 re-election effort with a $35,000-a-head fundraiser at his D.C. hotel, reportedly hauling in $10 million. From the stage, Trump singled out a handful of people in the crowd, including Broidy, who was back on the RNC’s finance team. “Everybody knows Elliott,” Trump said. “Thanks, Elliott.” Later, he took a direct shot at Qatar. “We always say Qa-tar. It’s Qa-tar, they prefer. I prefer that they don’t fund terrorists.”

BROIDY’S WORK had initially caught the Qataris flat-footed. But they soon responded by launching a lobbying counteroffensive in Washington, hiring former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, several former Trump staffers and a slew of others at a rate of several hundred thousand dollars a month. One of those lobbyists was Nick Muzin, who had worked on Trump’s campaign and had extensive ties to the Orthodox Jewish community. Just as Broidy had tapped Christian and Jewish groups, including the American Israel Political Action Committee and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to criticize Qatar, Muzin went to work convincing Jewish and evangelical leaders that Qatar was a friend and ally.

He and his business partner, a kosher-restaurant owner named Joey Allaham, arranged for people close to Trump, including law professor Alan Dershowitz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, to visit Qatar, and steered large sums of Qatari money to groups like the Zionist Organization of America. (After Qatar was revealed as the source, ZOA said it would return the money.) What made this so unusual was that this wasn’t a fight between liberals and conservatives; instead, two conservative Jews were battling it out on opposite sides of a Middle East proxy war.

According to sources, the fleet of lobbyists working for Qatar met weekly at its D.C. embassy, a five-story building that blends in with the surrounding consulting companies. One name often came up at those meetings: Elliott Broidy. The Qataris had allegedly drawn up an enemies list, and Broidy was on it. Qatar is “going after you,” Muzin later told an associate of Broidy’s.

For his part, Broidy’s plan was right on track. He used his success to sell Nader and the crown princes on the need to hire Circinus. Contained in Broidy’s leaked emails is a memo he wrote for Nader — and seemingly intended for Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump’s trip to Riyadh, Broidy wrote, was a “smashing success” and a “major turning point” in U.S.-Saudi relations. He then listed the ways Circinus could assist the Saudi government. “My Goals, Circinus’ goals and the goals of KSA are completely aligned,” he wrote. According to materials Broidy sent to Nader, he had brought on General McChrystal as the chairman of Circinus’ “special-operations division.” Other documents listed former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as part of Broidy’s team.

As the Qataris ramped up their D.C. presence, Broidy redoubled his efforts to, as he wrote Nader, “crush the snake!” He helped organize another conference on Qatar that attracted bigger names than the first, including Panetta and Gen. David Petraeus as well as former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. (Bannon, emails show, earned $100,000 for the appearance. He declined to comment.)

In an email titled “Strictly Confidential” sent to Nader on November 10th, 2017, Broidy outlined 11 different efforts underway to pressure the Trump administration into action. A handful of Republican and Democratic lawmakers would soon sign on to letters to U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin (“a close friend of mine,” Broidy claimed) that were critical of Qatar. Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., Broidy wrote, would introduce legislation allowing victims of attacks by Hamas to sue Qatar. (Broidy would join DeSantis’ fundraising team when he successfully ran for Florida governor.) Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., had agreed to “educate” his fellow senators about the wisdom of relocating the U.S. air command center out of al-Udeid. (Cotton also received donations from both Elliott and Robin Broidy.)

When Broidy needed help publicizing a classified State Department agreement signed with Qatar, he said he turned to “my friend” Rep. Robert Pittenger, a three-term GOP congressman from North Carolina. According to Broidy’s memo, he and his team “convinced” Pittenger to read the document in a secure classified-information facility at the State Department, get the document moved to Capitol Hill and arrange a “viewing party” so that other members of Congress could read it and speak out about it. (Pittenger received the maximum donation from Broidy.)

Pittenger tells Rolling Stone that Broidy’s description of their relationship is not true. Pittenger, who lost his seat in 2018, says he can’t recall meeting Broidy. He decided to view the classified Qatar agreement at the State Department on his own, he says, and Broidy seems to have taken credit for things he’d already done. “He’s a guy that blows a bunch of smoke,” Pittenger says. “There’s a lot of flaky people in Washington, and they love to promote themselves, and unfortunately he seems to fit in that category.”

Similarly, McChrystal tells Rolling Stone that Broidy exaggerated their relationshipwhen he listed him as the chairman of Circinus’ special-operations division. McChrystal says he spent a few days in the UAE as part of a small team Broidy had assembled to compete for business in the region. He says Broidy asked him to accept a long-term role with Circinus and he declined. “I never thought I was the chairman of any part of the firm, although he was clear in his desire that I do so,” McChrystal writes in an email. “After that trip I did no more work with him.”

A spokesman for Panetta tells Rolling Stone in a statement that Panetta “was never involved in any of Mr. Broidy’s companies. Those claims are false.”

Nader told Broidy he wanted to get his picture taken with Trump. According to the leaked emails, when Nader had previously tried to get a photo with Trump at an event, he was turned away by the Secret Service over “something in his background.” On October 10th, 2017, Broidy and his wife drafted an email intended for John Kelly, the president’s chief of staff, to vouch for Nader, whom Broidy referred to as “George Vader” so that Nader could get his photo with Trump. Some emails sent and received by Broidy also use the name Vader; another mentions Nader’s real name multiple times. Ultimately, Nader got in. A few months later, Broidy sent him his photo with Trump.

By late 2017, Broidy was deep in negotiations with Emirati officials to sign contracts with Circinus potentially worth $120 million, according to an email Broidy sent to his lawyer. A month later, Broidy emailed Nader to say that the first payment from the UAE had gone through: $36 million. Nader got the news as he was getting ready to travel to Florida to join Broidy at Mar-a-Lago for a celebration of the one-year anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. “Terrific! First among many to go!” Nader replied. At Dulles Airport, according to the Associated Press, FBI agents working for Robert Mueller intercepted Nader.

[RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - MAY 21: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY MANDATORY CREDIT - "BANDAR ALGALOUD / SAUDI ROYAL COUNCIL / HANDOUT" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----)US President Donald Trump, US First lady Melania Trump (2nd R), Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud (2nd L) and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (L) put their hands on an illuminated globe during the inauguration ceremony of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May 21, 2017. (Photo by Bandar Algaloud / Saudi Royal Council / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)]

Trump’s first overseas visit as president was to Saudi Arabia. “The Gulf nations view their wealth as an extension of their power,” says Rep. Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee. “When they’ve got a president of questionable ethics and one driven by money, it’s an attractive target.” Photo credit: Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Council/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

ON FEBRUARY 27th, 2018, two political operatives sat across from each other at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. One was Nick Muzin, the Qatari lobbyist. The other was Joel Mowbray, a conservative-journalist-turned-consultant who has worked for Broidy. Muzin had come to ask for Mowbray’s help to end the blockade against Qatar. When Mowbray declined, Muzin allegedly divulged a startling fact: The New York Times was investigating the connections among Broidy, Nader and the Middle East. Mowbray was surprised. He didn’t know about any story, and no one at the Times had contacted him or Broidy. From there, things completely unraveled for Elliott Broidy.

Two days later, The Wall Street Journal ran a story citing “a cache of emails from Mr. Broidy’s and his wife’s email accounts” that revealed the Broidys’ plan to press the Justice Department to end its investigation into Malaysia’s investment-fund scandal. Soon after, the Times broke the story of Broidy and Nader’s campaign for the UAE and Saudi Arabia, citing Broidy’s memo describing his October meeting with Trump, a copy of which was provided by “someone critical of the Emirati influence in Washington.”

Many suspected that Broidy had been hacked and someone was parceling out his emails to news organizations. When Muzin and Mowbray met again a few days later, Muzin denied any role in the hack-and-dump attack targeting Broidy. But he allegedly told Mowbray that there was “a lot more coming” from the Times and that Broidy was “in deep shit.” More stories soon appeared in the Times, AP, McClatchy, BBC and other outlets citing the hacked documents. The stories prompted an outcry among Democrats: Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren called for an investigation into whether Broidy had violated FARA or the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Broidy hired BoiesSchiller Flexner, founded by David Boies, one of the country’s most high-profile litigators, who represented Al Gore in Bush v. Gore and more recently worked for Harvey Weinstein. As for Nader, he’s kept a low profile and is cooperating with the Mueller investigation.

On March 26th, Broidy sued Qatar, Muzin and Muzin’s firm for orchestrating the hack, later adding Allaham as a defendant. (Muzin did not respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Allaham says, “As Joey has said 100 times, he had nothing to do with the hacking of Mr. Broidy’s emails.”)

The complaint described a “hostile intelligence operation” in which Qatari agents duped Broidy’s wife with a fake Google message into giving up her email password, which was then used to access her and Elliott Broidy’s accounts, while also breaking into Broidy’s company servers. In the winter of 2018, someone using the email account LA.Confidential@mail.com disseminated to the media batches of Broidy’s emails, memos, contracts and more. The documents appeared to be organized by the various countries with which Broidy had pursued business deals — Malaysia, Romania, Angola, Republic of Congo, and of course the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Broidy and his lawyers have verified that his email was hacked, blaming Qatar. (A Qatari spokesman has said Broidy’s allegations are “completely fabricated and without merit.”)

Two weeks after Broidy filed his suit, federal agents raided the office of Michael Cohen, the president’s lawyer. The raid set off an embarrassing chain of events, leading Broidy to admit that he’d had an extramarital affair starting in 2013 with a Playboy Playmate named Shera Bechard. In 2017, Broidy had allegedly gotten Bechard pregnant and demanded she get an abortion; he agreed to pay her $1.6 million in exchange for her silence. Just as he had done for Trump’s affairs with porn actress Stormy Daniels and Playmate Karen McDougal, Cohen helped broker Broidy’s agreement with Bechard. Soon Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti was tweeting about a “prominent GOP donor” who had used Cohen to sign a “hush” deal. (Avenatti says he didn’t disclose any confidential information.) Broidy acknowledged to The Wall Street Journal that he was the donor in Avenatti’s tweet and said he would no longer pay Bechard.

Broidy was toxic once again. Members of Congress, including Royce and Pittenger, returned his donations. He resigned from the RNC’s finance team. Then, in July, Bechard sued Broidy, arguing that he had violated their agreement and owed her close to $1 million. Bechard’s complaint contained multiple redactions, but an error by Broidy’s lawyers disclosed Bechard’s allegations that Broidy kept a gun in his car and claimed to have connections “who could make people disappear.” (Broidy called Bechard’s allegations “false, malicious and disgusting” and accused Bechard of trying to blackmail him.)

Broidy’s efforts also caught the attention of federal law-enforcement agencies. In May, FBI agents twice interviewed a former associate of Broidy’s about his efforts to win contracts with Angola and about African nationals paying to attend Trump’s inauguration, the associate tells Rolling Stone. In August, The Washington Post reported that the Justice Department was investigating Broidy’s work involving the Malaysian investment-fund scandal.

By all indications, Broidy is undaunted and has no plans to go quietly, as he did after his 2009 guilty plea. After a judge dismissed his first lawsuit against Qatar and Muzin, Broidy filed a new one on January 24th in D.C. federal court against Muzin, Allaham and a former Qatari agent.

Broidy and his company have made tens of millions for their work, with the prospect of earning more in the years ahead. (Circinus has multiple postings for job openings in Abu Dhabi.) Whatever price he pays for his influence operation may simply be the cost of doing business in Donald Trump’s swamp. But for now, Broidy has taken Trump’s advice for what to do when dealing with scandals: Fight, fight, fight.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/federal-prosecutors-probe-this-big-gop-donor-potentially-selling-foreign-clients-access-to-trump

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Federal prosecutors are investigating whether top Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy sold access to the president’s inaugural team to foreign clients, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Investigators are probing whether Broidy, who was appointed deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee after raising money for Trump during the 2016 campaign, was paid millions by foreign prospective clients for “special access” to Trump’s 2017 inauguration, according to the report. Selling access to foreign donors could violate campaign finance, lobbying and money-laundering laws.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn requested documents from Trump’s inaugural committee in April related to Broidy and current or prospective clients of hisintelligence research firm, Circinus LLC.

Broidy invited several officials from Angola and Romania to attend inaugural events, including a Romanian official facing a corruption trial, the Journal reported. Broidy also introduced Angolan officials to several members of Congress during the trip.

Shortly after the inauguration, the Angolan government agreed to pay Broidy’s company $6 million, according to the report.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn requested documents from Trump’s inaugural committee in April related to Broidy and current or prospective clients of his intelligence research firm, Circinus LLC.

Broidy invited several officials from Angola and Romania to attend inaugural events, including a Romanian official facing a corruption trial, the Journal reported. Broidy also introduced Angolan officials to several members of Congress during the trip.

Shortly after the inauguration, the Angolan government agreed to pay Broidy’s company $6 million, according to the report.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn requested documents from Trump’s inaugural committee in April related to Broidy and current or prospective clients of his intelligence research firm, Circinus LLC.

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Federal prosecutors are investigating whether top Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy sold access to the president’s inaugural team to foreign clients, The Wall Street Journal reports.

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In late 2016, as Donald Trump was readying to move into the White House, Elliott Broidy, then one of the Republican Party’s top fundraisers, was working on a deal to gain control of what a business partner called “billions of dollars in oil & gas, and mining assets” in Angola. And while he was trying to pull together this gigantic venture—as well as mounting another project to provide intelligence services to the Angolan government—Broidy used his clout to hook up top Angolan government officials with members of the US Congress and the Trump administration. It was a swampy endeavor involving old-fashioned political influence, a Beverly Hills activist and realtor, and a Nigerian American businessman who had been a close friend of Michael Jackson.

Broidy is no longer a power player wielding sway in the Republican cosmos. Early this year, he faced a series of media stories that raised questions about his business dealings (which included ventures with the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Romania, and the Republic of Congo) and alleged influence peddling. Those articles were based on emails hacked from his personal accounts. Broidy subsequently sued Qatar, claiming Qatari officials orchestrated the hacks and a smear campaign because Broidy, a vigorous supporter of the Israeli government, was a vocal opponent of Qatar. (In August, a federal judge dismissed the government of Qatar as a defendant in the case.) And in April, news broke that Broidy had in 2017 used Michael Cohen, then Trump’s personal lawyer, to pay $1.6 million in hush money to a Playboy model with whom he had an extramarital affair. Broidy soon resigned as deputy finance chair of the Republican Party. In August, the Washington Post reported he was under federal investigation for possibly selling his influence within the Trump administration to foreign officials for tens of millions of dollars. And recently, federal prosecutors implicated Broidy in a scheme under which millions of dollars ended up in his wife’s law firm in return for Broidy helping a Malaysian financier, who was accused of embezzling billions, end a Justice Department investigation.

This venture involved, Broidy’s business partner wrote in an email, the Angolans “signing over billions of dollars in oil & gas, and mining assets.”

The hacked Broidy emails are an incomplete set of records. The hackers obviously disseminated material to cast the businessman/fundraiser in a negative light. But the emails do depict slices of Broidy’s world in which he attempted to grease deals with ties he forged as a top fundraiser for Trump and the Republican Party. And Broidy’s wheeling and dealing in Angola—a full account of which has not yet been reported—reveal how he mixed commerce and politics.

The story begins with an unlikely hook-up: a prominent Beverly Hills resident named Lisa Korbatov brokering a partnership between Broidy and Dolapo Asiru, a Nigerian American dealmaker. On his LinkedIn page, Asiru describes himself as a “highly regarded international investment banker and diplomat” who “has represented African governments at the United Nations and regularly advises other governments on all aspects of their financial planning, investments and international trade.” In 2001, Asiru was sued by Motown for being connected to a company that the record label complained was infringing on its trademark by using the Jackson5.com domain name. (Asiru says that his attorney “not only demonstrated that the action lacked merit, but achieved a confidential and very satisfactory financial settlement in my favor. On a personal note, that frivolous lawsuit never affected my relationship with Michael Jackson who was one of my close friends.”) In 2008, Asiru attended a state dinner at the George W. Bush White House for the president of Ghana. A columnist for Africa News in 2009 called him “one of Nigeria’s most influential men in America.” Asiru, an American citizen, has donated to Republican political candidates, most notably Mitt Romney.

In the latter months of 2016, Lisa Korbatov, a realtor, member of the Beverly Hills school board, and pro-Israel activist, connected Broidy with Asiru, according to sources familiar with the deal. Actually, they already knew each other.

About a decade earlier, Asiru, who had links to the ruling family of Gabon, and Broidy had been involved in a venture in the coastal African country. But that deal—of which there are scant public details—never materialized. “It imploded,” says a former Broidy associate. (The Gabon venture might have ended in a legal fight. In one of the hacked emails, Asiru, writing to Broidy, refers to “litigation with Gabon.”) And around that time, Broidy’s overall dealmaking hit a major roadblock. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to charges he had handed out $1 million in illegal gifts to New York state officials so they would invest $250 million from the state’s pension fund in Broidy’s investment company. (Three years later, after Broidy had cooperated with prosecutors, a federal judge reduced his felony conviction to a misdemeanor.)

Broidy’s involvement in that crime put a crimp in his relationship with Asiru, and by 2016, they were not on the best terms, according to sources familiar with the men. But Asiru had some business prospects he wanted to share with Broidy, and Korbatov, a social acquaintance of both, brought the pair together again. “Elliot wanted to pitch companies in Africa,” a former Broidy associate recalls. (Korbatov and her husband, Igor Korbatov, met Asiru in 2007, when a trust controlled by her parents bought a Beverly Hills mansion from the family of Omar Bongo, the longtime dictator of Gabon. Asiru was then the “managing member” of the limited liability company that officially owned the property for the Bongo family.)

Korbatov convinced the two men they should once again throw in with each other. On December 7, 2016, Broidy, Asiru, and Korbatov signed a memorandum of agreement related to a joint venture called BCH Development Group. A later amendment to this memorandum noted that Korbatov would get a finder’s fee of 3 percent for any security contract negotiated by the Republic of Angola and Circinus, a security firm Broidy owned. And Asiru would pocket 30 percent.

Asiru and Broidy at this point were working on at least two different ventures in Angola. As 2016 was ending, the hacked emails show, the pair finished up a deal under which Circinus would set up and operate an “Open Source Intelligence Center” for the Angolan government. Much of the paperwork for that project was handled by Circinus executives. The contract was worth $12 million.

Yet at the same time, Broidy and Asiru had their eyes on a bigger prize: They were developing a deal with Grupo Simples, an Angola-based oil services company that in late 2015 had been assigned oil concessions by Angola’s state-owned oil company for possible development. (The company, at that point, had no experience developing oil wells.) This venture involved, Asiru noted in an email to Broidy, the Angolans “signing over billions of dollars in oil & gas, and mining assets” to BCH Development, the company formed pursuant to the agreement between Broidy, Asiru, and Korbatov.

Asiru was Broidy’s go-between with Grupo Simples. In a December 29, 2016, email from Asiru to Broidy—under the subject head, “Framework Agreement Between BCH Development Group and Grupo Simples Oil”—Asiru included a note from Alberto Mendes, the head of the Angola company, requesting that Asiru “urgently send me the due diligence” on BCH Development, including “formation year, directors, basic information.” Asiru pointed out to Broidy that “the Angolans are concerned” about striking a deal with “a newly formed entity (BCH Development Group). We need to show some history to avoid raising any Red Flags.”

Asiru had some ideas how to assuage the concerns of their Angolan partners. He asked Broidy whether they should tell the Angolans that BCH Development Group was formed as an affiliate of the company he and Broidy had used for their earlier dealings in Gabon. This way, Asiru added, they could “show some history.” Asiru also noted they needed “to provide some credible names to add to the board of Advisory for BCH.”

Broidy replied in an email that same day and said Asiru should not “tie BCH Development Group, LLC to any BCH Group entity that relates to Gabon.” Instead, Broidy instructed Asiru to tell the Angolans that BCH Development Group was formed in 2016 and that its directors included Asiru, Broidy, and Korbatov, with only Broidy and Asiru having “signature authority.” Broidy noted it was his understanding that Asiru had already “formed” BCH Development Group in Delaware. Yet a corporation of that name was not created in Delaware until three days later, on January 1, 2017.

Though Korbatov was part of this company, she was unaware Broidy was pursuing this mammoth deal in Angola, according to sources familiar with this episode.

As Broidy and Asiru were working with Angolans on the oil deal and the intelligence center, Broidy used his Republican Party connections to obtain invitations to Trump’s inauguration for two Angolan officials: João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, the defense minister, and André de Oliveira João Sango, the director of external intelligence. In a January 3, 2017, letter to the two men—on BCH Development Group letterhead—Broidy invited Sango and Lourenço to the inauguration, and he also included a copy of the contract for the Circinus project in Angola and asked them to sign and return the paperwork within six days. The letter was drafted by Asiru.

Lourenço and Sango accepted the invitation, and while they were in Washington for the inauguration, Broidy, according to the hacked emails, arranged for them to meet Republican members of Congress, including Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). The meetings were set up by Aryeh Lightstone, a leading Orthodox Jewish rabbi and businessman who owned a stake in a Broidy company called Threat Deterrence Capital LLC. (Lightstone, a well-connected player in GOP circles, is now a senior adviser to Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.) In one email, a Broidy aide informed Lightstone that the meetings would include Broidy, Asiru, Lourenço, and Sango, as well as Alberto Mendes of Grupo Simples and Mario Gomes, another executive from the company. (The email did not explain why the two Angolan oil executives would be present.) Broidy appeared to be blending politics with his Angola business dealings: the intelligence center he was establishing for the government and the big oil endeavor he was pursuing. Reporting on Lightstone’s role in arranging these meetings,ProPublica recently noted, “Some legal experts argue that Lightstone and Broidy should have registered [as foreign agents] with the [US] government for the Angolan meetings, though representatives for both dispute that.” (Lightstone did not respond to an email request for comment.)

In mid-January 2016, Broidy received the first payment from Angola for the intelligence center project. It was for $6 million, but Broidy had been expecting $8 million, per his agreement with the Angolan government. He accepted the lower payment but requested Angola pay the rest of the $12 million fee within 180 days. According to the hacked emails, he would spend the coming months pushing the Angola government to pay up. (For her role, Korbatov pocketed $180,000. The emails do not show how much of a fee, if any, Asiru received.)

In February, Alan Blaine Stone, founder and CEO of Circinus, emailed Broidy that he needed a signed contract related to the firm’s Angola project: “I wanted to let you know that we need something from the Angolans signed even if it just says we’re ‘consulting and advising’ with the US Government; something to put in the records to show that we are on contract in order to justify the influx of funds.” Soon after that, Broidy asked Asiru to send him the signed contract for the company’s files, noting, “You mentioned that it was provided to you some time ago.” (Lawyers for Broidy say he provided the Angolans with no advice or consulting services related to the US government and that the Circinus contract only covered setting up and operating the open-source intelligence center in Angola.)

At this time, Broidy was chasing after yet another venture in Angola. In February 2017, Fran Moore, a former top CIA official who was aboard member of the Broidy-owned Threat Deterrence Capital, sent an email to Broidy noting she wanted to “strengthen” a proposal related to Angola. This project aimed at diminishing the “high-level of corruption” in Angola in order to create a “better investment atmosphere,” according to Juan Zarate, a former deputy national security adviser in the Bush-Cheney White House and now chairman of the Financial Integrity Network, a consulting firm specializing in thwarting money laundering. Zarate tells Mother Jones that Broidy had heard Zarate’s firm wanted to develop business in Africa, reached out to him, and said he could “get a proposal from us in front of the Angolan government.” In an email Zarate sent Broidy, he referred to this endeavor as “an ambitious and important project for the Angolans (and us).”

Asiru, Zarate recalls, was going to make contacts for the Financial Integrity Network in Angola and would earn a finder’s fee, if a contract were signed. Asiru, Zarate says, “was very well-versed in African politics and business. Well-connected. He was a business mover-and-shaker.”

As Broidy was trying to do all this assorted business in Angola, he was using his political bonds to connect Lourenço, the Angolan defense minister, with the Trump White House. In a February 27, 2017, email to Asiru about the anti-corruption project, Broidy reported, “I will be at the White House meeting with VP Pence, CoS Priebus etc. tomorrow and can begin to set the wheels in motion for ameeting for the Defense Minister.”

“I wanted to let you know that we need something from the Angolans signed even if it just says we’re ‘consulting and advising’ with the US Government; something to put in the records to show that we are on contract in order to justify the influx of funds.”

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And Broidy was willing to go all the way to the top. In this email, Broidy noted he would be visiting with “President Trump this weekend at Mira Largo [sic] (Friday) and on [casino owner and GOP fundraiser] Steve Wynn’s Yacht Aquarius on Saturday evening. I can also ask Trump for the meeting.” He noted it might be tough to arrange a meeting for the Angolan defense minister for this weekend, but added, “[W]e can certainly accomplish [it] this month predicated on next deal for BCH and immediate collection of balance.” The message seemed clear: If Angola paid what Broidy believed he was owed and moved ahead with a new project, he would use his political juice to arrange a face-to-face between Lourenço and Trump officials.

In this email, Broidy referred to a conversation he had with Sango, the Angolan intelligence chief, a few weeks earlier at a high-end Washington, DC, restaurant: “The bottom line is that Sango looked me in the eye and promised at the Occidental Grill lunch that the funds would be sent by early February; I asked for January payment. Sango was effusive in his praise and said that I had exceeded all of his expectations. He needs to hear from me that this…treatment of us is unacceptable and that payment needs to be made now. I can also convey things directly that he will appreciate.” Then Broidy referred to the two Grupo Simples officials: “Of course Mario and Alberto can join us on the call.” This suggests that somehow the oil deal Broidy was pursuing with Grupo Simples was connected to his interactions with Angolan government officials.

Days later, Broidy wrote directly to Lourenço and asked if he would be “joining us for the events at Miro Largo.” He told the Angolan defense minister, “Many preparations have been made in advance of your visit, including additional meetings at the Capitol and the Department of Treasury.” He added that Sango “promised me that the balance of the payment due would be received by early February.” He asked Lourenço to send the money immediately.

The available emails do not indicate how the Angolans replied. The anti-corruption plan, though, didn’t get that far and fizzled out, according to Zarate. “Doing what we do is hard,” Zarate says. “It requires a real transformation of culture.”

Lawyers for Broidy maintain that Broidy didn’t discuss any Angola projects with either Trump or Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and they insist Broidy did not trade on his White House connections to receive payments from Angola or to win contracts there. “That message was never conveyed” to the Angolans, a Broidy attorney notes. “What was written down there [in Broidy’s February 27 email to Asiru] never happened.”

In May 2017, Lourenço signed a memo of understanding with Mattis to boost “security cooperation” between Angola and the United States.“The Angolan defense minister met with Mattis on his own, having nothing to do with Elliott,” a Broidy lawyer says.

Come June, Broidy was still after the Angolans to pay the $6 million. And in an August 22, 2017, email exchange with Broidy, Korbatov asked him for help for her effort to stop a mass transit project that would pass beneath Beverly Hills High School, and Broidy informed her he had “a path” to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. “Let me work on it a bit,” he said. In response, Korbatov said she was “nagging” Asiru—a reference, according to sources familiar with this project, to collecting the payment the Angolan government owed Broidy. “He’s waiting for the [Angola] election to finish,” Korbatov reported.

The Angolan presidential election was the following day. Lourenço won the presidency. Days later, Broidy drafted a congratulatory message that noted, “We look forward to continuing to work together [to] support you and your country….Please let me know if I can be helpful to you during your transition and I look forward to speaking with you soon.” Three months later, after Lourenço had assumed office, Broidy wrote him, offering to set up a visit for Lourenço to the United States and “possibly” a meeting with Trump or Vice President Mike Pence. “I am able to assess and advise in this matter,” he pointed out. At the time, Broidy was still looking to collect the $6 million the Angola government owed him.

That money, as of September 2018, still had not come, according to Broidy’s attorneys, yet his company was still performing services under the contract. His lawyers also note that the oil deal with Grupo Simples—which Asiru said could involve “billions”—never happened.(In May 2017, the new head of Sonangol, Angola’s state-owned oil company, put a hold on concessions it had granted earlier. And once Lourenço took office, he took steps to overhaul Sonangol, which had been criticized for a lack of transparency.) Mendes and Gomes of Grupo Simples did not reply to repeated emails requesting comment. Angola’s embassy also did not respond to requests for comment.

Asiru declined to answer questions about his involvement in Broidy’s deals in Angola. “Regrettably, I must decline to comment since I now realize your questions pertain to outreach programs I support that are helpful to African countries,” he wrote in an email to Mother Jones. “All these endeavors are covered by a range of confidentiality arrangements, hence the reason I must decline to make any further comments.” In a subsequent text message, Asiru said, “I continue to work with major multinational corporations, NGOs and government agencies to improve the economic situation in Africa. I am proud of my relationships and my reputation. I have never engaged in, nor ever been accused of, unlawful activities. Elliott has been involved in many businesses, including a few ventures in which I participated. The accusations against Elliott do not involve me. Guilt based on mere association smacks of a sad era that I thought concluded more than 60 years ago.” He added, “Be assured, I’ll respond vigorously to any libel or slander by you or your colleagues to link me in any way with any of Elliott Broidy’s alleged misdeeds. Please govern yourself accordingly.”

Broidy’s attorneys did not respond to a list of additional questions about his Angola dealings submitted by Mother Jones.

After helping the GOP regain the White House, Broidy has become a poster child for Trump-era corruption. He has generated headlines about multiple controversies—personal, political, and business. And there could be more Broidy stories to come. But the Angola episode illustrates how Broidy, having used the Trump campaign and victory to establish himself as a force within the Republican Party, did business—and indicates there is a public interest in learning the full story of how Broidy put his Trump and Republican connections to personal use.

Sessions Turned to Convicted Fundraiser for Advice on U.S. Attorneys

Preparing to restock the Department of Justice at the start of the Trump administration, Jeff Sessions sought out Elliott Broidy for recommendations. The Republican donor’s conviction in a political corruption case years earlier didn’t seem to be a problem.

by Robert Faturechi

pro pub

Federal authorities raided the office of Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy last summer, seeking records related to his dealings with foreign officials and Trump administration associates, according to a sealed search warrant obtained by ProPublica.

Agents were authorized to use the megadonor’s hands and face to unlock any phones that required fingerprint or facial scans.

The Washington Post reported in August that the Justice Department was investigating Broidy. The sealed warrant offers new details of federal authorities’ investigation of allegations that Broidy had attempted to cash in on his Trump White House connections in dealings with foreign officials. It also shows that the government took a more aggressive approach with the Trump ally than was previously known, entering his office and removing records — just as it did with Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

Broidy served as a major Trump campaign fundraiser and was the national deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee until he resigned in April 2018, when it was revealed he had agreed to secretly pay off a former Playboy model in exchange for her silence about their affair.

The search warrant cites three potential crimes that authorities are investigating: conspiracy, money laundering and violations of the law barring covert lobbying on behalf of foreign officials. To obtain a search warrant, authorities have to convince a judge that there’s a probable cause they will find evidence of those specific crimes.

The search warrant also for the first time links Broidy to a globe-trotting Miami Beach party promoter.

The warrant, filed in July 2018, targeted Broidy’s office in Los Angeles. The scope of what authorities were seeking was broad. They planned to seize any evidence related to a list of dozens of people, countries and corporate entities, according to the warrant.

Among the names on the list are Rick Gates, the former Trump campaign official who has pleaded guilty in the Mueller probe; Colfax Law Office, the firm founded by Robin Rosenzweig, Broidy’s wife; and several foreign countries.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment for this story.

Broidy’s attorney as well as a spokesman did not answer a list of detailed questions sent by ProPublica.

Broidy, an investor based in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty in 2009 to charges connected to his role in a major New York state public corruption and bribery case. But after backing Trump for president, he saw his star rise again. After the inauguration, he played a central role in filling administration vacancies, according to reports by ProPublica and others.

However, he once again quickly became mired in controversy, amid allegations of influence peddling and his dealings with the former Playboy model.

The search warrant shows that federal authorities are interested in Broidy’s alleged work for the Malaysian financier Jho Low, who is at the center of a sprawling international scandal known as 1MDB. In November, the Justice Department unveiled a bribery and money laundering case against Low.

In a separate filing in November, the Justice Department alleged that Broidy was paid by Low to lobby Trump administration officials to ease off on U.S. investigations into Low. Broidy is not identified by name in the filings, but he is widely reported to be the person referred to as “Individual No. 1.” Broidy has not been charged with a crime, and it’s unclear what the status of the investigation is.

Pras Michel, a member of the hip-hop group The Fugees and an associate of Low’s, funnelled the money to pay Broidy into the United States, the Justice Department alleged. Asked about the Broidy search warrant, a lawyer for Michel, Barry Pollack, said: “There has been news of this Broidy investigation for many months. Mr. Michel has not been charged with any wrongdoing whatsoever related to Mr. Broidy or anyone else.”

Federal authorities were also seeking records in Broidy’s office related to the United Arab Emirates, UAE adviser George Nader, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and any travel to the Middle East.

Sessions Turned to Convicted Fundraiser for Advice on U.S. Attorneys

Preparing to restock the Department of Justice at the start of the Trump administration, Jeff Sessions sought out Elliott Broidy for recommendations. The Republican donor’s conviction in a political corruption case years earlier didn’t seem to be a problem.

Elliott Broidy’s All-Access Pass — “Trump, Inc.” Podcast

Our podcast investigation is back — and this time we’re looking at more than just the president’s family.

The New York Times reported last year that Broidy worked with Nader to steer the White House toward decisions benefiting the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Documents reviewed by the Times showed that Nader tempted Broidy with the prospect of more than $1 billion in contracts for Broidy’s private security company. Hacked communications showed Nader praised Broidy for “how well you handle Chairman” — a reference to Trump.

Nader became a cooperating witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian influence in the 2016 election, according to multiple news reports.

Broidy’s attorney has in the past responded to the allegations with a statement saying Broidy “has never agreed to work for, been retained by nor been compensated by any foreign government for any interaction with the United States Government, ever. Any implication to the contrary is a lie.”

According to the warrant, federal authorities also sought to seize any records related to China and Guo Wengui, a Chinese businessman and dissident who fled to New York, where he publicly accused the Chinese government of corruption.

The Times reported that Broidy explored plans to use his influence with the White House to force Guo out of the United States, apparently as part of an effort to curry favor with the Chinese and other foreign officials, and ultimately earn a payoff.

The search warrant for Broidy’s office also lists a name and corporation not previously linked to Broidy: “Joel Rouseau” and “Intelligent Resources.” There is a company by that name incorporated in Miami Beach by a Joel Rousseau, who is a friend of Michel’s. The search warrant does not describe Rousseau or Intelligent Resources’ role in the case.

Rousseau’s Instagram account shows him bouncing from Rio to Paris to Ibiza, frequently surrounded by models. “If you want to be successful, you need the beautiful people,” he told Crain’s New York in 2007, which described him as a specialist “in bringing agency models to clubs.” In another series of pictures, he is at an oil site in Haiti with workers he describes as his drilling crew. Rousseau made a foray into politics in 2012 when he donated tens of thousands of dollars to several Democratic Party groups.

Filings in a court case over unpaid taxes describe Rousseau as an “entrepreneur” with income swinging from under $1,000 for 2009 to over $2 million in 2013. He paid a long-standing bill for back taxes and penalties of more than $700,000 in late 2017, the filings show.

The address for Intelligent Resources is a house on Miami Beach’s exclusive Hibiscus Island. The person answering the door at the house last week told a reporter he had rented the house on Airbnb. Rousseau didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Reporting was contributed by Deirdra Funcheon.

3/19 an

Federal authorities raided the office of Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy last summer, seeking records related to his dealings with foreign officials and Trump administration associates, according to a sealed search warrant obtained by ProPublica.

Agents were authorized to use the megadonor’s hands and face to unlock any phones that required fingerprint or facial scans.

The search warrant cites three potential crimes that authorities are investigating: conspiracy, money laundering and violations of the law barring covert lobbying on behalf of foreign officials. To obtain a search warrant, authorities have to convince a judge that there’s a probable cause they will find evidence of those specific crimes.

The search warrant also for the first timelinks Broidy to a globe-trotting Miami Beach party promoter.

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headlines for white-collar crime this year have largely been grabbed by special counsel Robert Mueller, who has uncovered a huge array of financial crimes in President Donald Trump’s inner circle. But though Mueller’s revelations have shocked the American public consciousness, they were probably not the biggest financial scandals of the year.

On Monday, David P. Weber, a law professor and certified fraud examiner who reviewed the Panama Papers and blew the whistle on investigative misconduct as an assistant inspector general for the Securities and Exchange Commission, wrote an op-ed for The Hill outlining some of the most significant corporate scandals of 2018 — and how they prove Congress needs to ensure greater oversight of the financial system.

Weber specifically points to the scandals at 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund accused of a $4.2 billion embezzlement and fraud scheme with help from legal and auditing firms and a Department of Justice lawyer; Operation Car Wash, the gigantic Brazilian money laundering scandal that has implicated hundreds of politicians including multiple presidents; and the ongoing revelations about how European banks involved in the Panama Papers scandal helped oligarchs and tax evaders steal money around the world.

Though these scandals all occurred overseas, Weber notes, they have all in some way landed on U.S. shores by implicating American businessmen and officials.

The 1MDB scandal, for instance, involved three Goldman Sachs bankers, resulting in criminal charges against the U.S. investment banking giant by Malaysian authorities, and according to The Wall Street Journal, a firm linked to the wife of former RNC official Elliott Broidy was allegedly in talks for a $75 million lobbying contract to persuade the Justice Department to back off investigating 1MDB (Broidy and his wife are not mentioned by name in any of the criminal proceedings). In the Operation Car Wash saga, meanwhile a lawsuit alleges that a U.S. law firm improperly held a “strategy session” with a Brazilian prosecutor.

And perhaps most shockingly, in the E.U. banking scandal, multiple legal officials with the federal government, including the former chief of top financial crimes investigation team FinCEN and the former Treasury undersecretary for counterterrorism, are now providing legal counsel to HSBC and Deutsche Bank, two institutions implicated in the scheme.

“When will Congress act to curtain misconduct by professionals?” laments Weber.

In general, white-collar crime has gone underinvestigated for years — which is arguably why Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen and campaign chair Paul Manafort thought they could get away with bank fraud and tax evasion. But there is likely far more misconduct going on below the surface than we know. This year’s scandals reveal the need for a strong, serious enforcement regime, for the integrity of the financial system and the confidence of the public

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foreign money

Secure America Now SAN

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/10/how-a-disgraced-republican-fundraiser-is-exposing-qatars-shadowy-lobbying-offensive/

Formore than a year, Qatar has been locked in a diplomatic feud with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Middle Eastern nations, which blockaded their Persian Gulf neighbor over its close ties to Iran and alleged support for terrorism.This fight has spilled over into Washington, where the small but gas-rich country has mounted an aggressive influence campaign to counter its regional rivals—one that has involved not just an army of high-paid lobbyists but also allegations that Qatar hacked and leaked the emails of a top Republican fundraiser and Emirati ally viewed as an impediment to Qatar’s charm offensive. Newly revealed documents illuminate theshadowy lobbying effort, including the mysterious role of a veteran UN diplomat in Qatar’s secretive campaign to win over American political figures with access to Donald Trump.

Early this year, news organizations began to receive troves of emails hacked from the account of Elliott Broidy, then the deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee. A venture capitalist who heads a defense contracting firm, Broidy is a staunch supporter of Israel and an ardent critic of Qatar, which he has accused of funding terrorist groups. A series of damaging news stories resulted from Broidy’s leaked emails, revealing how he had sought eye-popping payouts from foreign governments while helping the leaders of those nations gain coveted access to Trump and other US officials. Broidy worked in particular with the UAE and assisted Emirati efforts to advance its interests in Washington, including by funding two conferences focused on Qatar’s links to international terrorism. Broidy’s defense firm, Circinus, subsequently won a lucrative contract worth hundreds of millions from the UAE. Broidy says all his efforts were legal.

Last March, Broidy sued Qatar, Nick Muzin, a lobbyist who worked on its behalf, and others alleging they conspired to hack his emails and distribute them to the media to harm his reputation. The lawsuit mostly failed in court. A California judge threw outthe complaint against Qatar in August, citing a law that bars US lawsuits against sovereign states, and later tossed the suit against Muzin and other defendants on jurisdictional grounds. But Broidy’s legal campaign also targeted an unlikely figure—Jamal Benomar, a Moroccan-born British citizen who had recently left a high-level United Nations post following a 25-year career in which he served as a special envoy to Yemen and as a top adviser to then-Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Benomar’s appearance in the drama was curious because he had no previously known ties to international lobbying. But Broidy’s July lawsuit against the diplomat, who currently advises Morocco’s UN mission, alleged that Benomar was at the center of Qatar’s shadowy lobbying offensive. The case is ongoing, and as it continues the litigation is exposing parts of a shadowy geopolitical caper stretching from Doha to DC.

A cybersecurity firm hired by Broidy said in April that it had traced the breach of his email account to a location in Qatar. And last month Broidy’s lawyers outlined findings that Broidy was just one target in a broader campaign to illegally access the emails of people of potential interest to Qatar. They allege, based on records subpoenaed from a popular URL-shortening service, that the same user who sent phishing emails to Broidy and people close to him, seeking to dupe them into divulging their password information, blasted similar messages to more than 1,200 others. The recipients included government officials in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Syria; journalists in several countries; and ex-employees of Washington public relations firms that had worked for the UAE. These alleged efforts seem to be part of a cyberwar between Gulf neighbors; the UAE and Qatar have repeatedly accused each other of hacking the accounts of their top officials.

Based partly on information gathered by Broidy’s investigators, the FBI is investigating the hack of his email, according to people who have spoken with FBI agents probing the breach. Those sources said the investigation seems to be run out of the bureau’s Los Angeles office; Broidy lives and works in Beverly Hills. Benomar has not been contacted by the FBI, a source familiar with the matter said.

Broidy’s lawsuit against Benomar alleges the career diplomat acted as one of an unspecified number of “illegal, unregistered agents” working for Doha in the United States and wielded “significant responsibility for coordinating Qatari influence in the United States.” Benomar served as a sort of middle man for the Qataris, sources familiar with the lobbying effort tell Mother Jones. According to these sources, he helped to arrange the country’s hiring of US lobbyists including Muzin and his partner, Joey Allaham, who previously ran a series of New York City-based kosher restaurants.

Benomar’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, a prominent criminal defense attorney who also represents Jared Kushner, defends his client with a surprising claim. Benomar, Lowell says in a court filing, indeed “advised Qatar on foreign policy issues,” but Lowell says he did so at the direction of the Moroccan government. Lowell declined to answer questions from Mother Jones about why Morocco asked Benomar to advise Qatar, what kind of advice he provided, or whether he was paid for his work. Broidy’s lawyers contend that Benomar was compensated and point to his appointment last month to the board of Lagardère, a French media company partly owned by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.)

Broidy’s complaint against Benomar alleges the diplomat had extensive phone contact with both Qatari government officials and US lobbyists for Qatar between October 2017 and June 2018. That included 47 calls and texts in February and March 2018 with Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, a Qatari official involved in the country’s US influence efforts. The complaint, based on phone and other records gathered by Broidy’s lawyers, also notes that Benomar spoke to Muzin the day before Muzin’s firm reported receiving a $500,000 payment from Qatar.

Broidy’s lawsuit alleges that Benomar helped distribute the hacked emails. He “personally participated in reviewing, categorizing, and preparing for dissemination unlawfully hacked documents,” Lee Wolosky, one of Broidy’s lawyers, wrote in an October 4 letter to US District Judge Cathy Seibel, who is overseeing the case.

Subpoenas issued in the California case against Qatar and Muzin turned up a March 13 exchange of WhatsApp messages between Muzin and Allaham. In the messages, reviewed by Mother Jones, the lobbyists discussed a visit by Benomar to Doha; Allaham noted that he believed Benomar was there perusing Broidy’s hacked emails. “That’s what I think he was doing there,” Allaham wrote. “Reviewing them.”

“Why would they need Jamal to review emails?” Muzin responded. “He doesn’t know anything about Broidy or the groups that are mentioned, other than what I told him.” The exchange is among evidence that Broidy’s lawyers hope to cite in their suit against Benomar. It shows that Benomar “personally was reviewing the emails and trying to claim credit for the attack,” Wolosky told Seibel during a status conference in the case last week.

Lowell declined to comment on whether Benomar was in Doha. A person familiar with Allaham and Muzin’s arguments said their WhatsApp exchange shows the lobbyists had no involvement in the hack, did not know who was responsible, and were speculating about emails that were already public. By March 13, news organizations had already published articles citing the hacked emails. So Muzin, Allaham, and Benomar did not necessarily have advance knowledge of their release.

Lowell argues that Broidy’s lawsuit against his client should be dismissed because Benomar has diplomatic immunity resulting from his current role working with Morocco’s UN mission. Broidy’s lawyers dispute this, noting that Benomar was retained by the Moroccan mission on August 1, 2018, nine days after Broidy sued him.

In a meeting with attorneys in the case last week, Seibel agreed to put off discovery in Broidy’s lawsuit until she rules on the question of Benomar’s immunity. Lowell treated that ruling as a win. He argues Broidy’s lawsuit aims mostly to use the discovery process to reveal information that embarrasses Doha and win points with the UAE. Broidy’s aim is “deflecting attention from himself and continuing to align himself with foreign countries with whom he has or has had a financial relationship,” Lowell wrote in a September 28 letter to the judge.

Broidy may lose in court. But if what he really desires is to reveal the actions of Qatar and its agents, perhaps he has already succeeded.

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https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-elliott-broidy-all-access-pass

“Trump, Inc.” is back. Our podcast with WNYC focused earlier this year on the many mysteries around President Donald Trump’s businesses. This season, we’re widening the lens to look at the people around Trump and how they are benefitting from his presidency.

Our first episode looks at Elliott Broidy. You might remember him as the Republican financier who agreed to pay a Playboy model $1.6 million in return for her silence. (Broidy has said it was just to help her financially.)

Before that scandal, Broidy was at the center of another one. A decade ago, he pleaded guilty to bribing New York State pension officials — “an old-fashioned payoff,“ as then-state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo put it. (Before the plea was finalized, a judge allowed Broidy to change his plea from a felony to a misdemeanor.)

After that, Broidy built himself back up as a fundraiser for Republican candidates and, eventually, for Trump. He became the deputy finance co-chair of the Republican National Committee, met with the president, and drummed up hundreds of millions in foreign business while touting his connections.

“Elliott Broidy is fantastic,” Trump said last year at his first presidential fundraiser. “Everybody loves Elliott.”

How did Broidy go from a criminal conviction to praise from the president? And what did he do with that connection? Listen to our episode.

We have an unusually detailed picture of Broidy’s work from his emails, which were hacked and given to reporters. Broidy has blamed Qatar, saying the country targeted him because he is a vocal supporter of Israel and critic of Qatar. (Here is a letter we received from Broidy’s lawyer about that.)

Broidy declined our requests for an interview. His spokesman told us in an email statement: “Elliott Broidy has never agreed to work for, been retained by nor been compensated by any foreign government for any interaction with the United States Government, ever.”

You can contact us via Signal, WhatsApp or voicemail at 347-244-2134. Here’s more about how you can contact us securely.

You can always email us at tips@trumpincpodcast.org.

Former GOP Deputy Finance Chair's Ex-Mistress Claims He Demanded She Have An Abortion

By Matthew Chapman, AlterNet

Shera Bechard has a lengthy list of allegations against GOP megadonor and former deputy finance chair Elliott Broidy

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https://www.alternet.org/elliott-broidy-under-justice-department-investigation

no lnx

Feds Investigating Former RNC Booster For Selling Trump Access To Foreign Governments: Report (Updated)

A longtime Republican donor and former RNC deputy finance chair is facing investigation by the Justice Department.

By Matthew Chapman / AlterNet August 17, 2018, 3:34 PM GMT

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that Elliott Broidy, a longtime GOP megadonor and former Republican National Committee official, is under investigation by the Justice Department for allegedly selling favors from the Trump administration to foreign nationals:

As part of the investigation, prosecutors are scrutinizing a plan that Broidy allegedly developed to try to persuade the Trump government to extradite a Chinese dissident back to his home country, a move sought by Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to two of the people.

They also are investigating claims that Broidy sought $75 million from a Malaysian business official if the Justice Department ended its investigation of a development fund run by the Malaysian government. The Malaysian probe has examined the role of the former prime minister in the embezzlement of billions of dollars from the fund.

In a statement to AlterNet Media, an attorney for Broidy denied all allegations. "Elliott Broidy has never agreed to work for, been retained by nor been compensated by any foreign government for any interaction with the United States Government, ever. Any implication to the contrary is a lie."

Broidy served as the finance chairman of the RNC from 2005 to 2008. He was also appointed deputy finance chairman in 2017, but resigned following revelations that Trump's former attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, had brokered a $1.6 million payoff from him to a former Playboy Playmate who claimed Broidy had impregnated her.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a statement from Elliott Broidy's attorney, denying all allegations.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-18/facebook-and-google-helped-anti-refugee-campaign-in-swing-states

ref below bloomberg no lnx doc vid

Facebook and Google Helped Anti-Refugee Campaign in Swing States

The big tech companies worked closely with Secure America Now to target an audience the group felt could be swayed by the message.

By Ben Elgin and Vernon Silver

October 18, 2017, 1:00 AM PDT

Play Video

Facebook Finds Itself at Center of Russia Investigation

FACEBOOK INC-A

209.06USD+1.83+0.89%

GOOGL

ALPHABET INC-A

1,214.46USD+17.95+1.50%

ESTEE LAUDER

142.48USD+1.53+1.09%

In the final weeks of the 2016 election campaign, voters in swing states including Nevada and North Carolina saw ads appear in their Facebook feeds and on Google websites touting a pair of controversial faux-tourism videos, showing France and Germany overrun by Sharia law. French schoolchildren were being trained to fight for the caliphate, jihadi fighters were celebrated at the Arc de Triomphe, and the “Mona Lisa” was covered in a burka.

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“Under Sharia law, you can enjoy everything the Islamic State of France has to offer, as long as you follow the rules,” intoned the narrator of one ad.

Unlike Russian efforts to secretly influence the 2016 election via social media, this American-led campaign was aided by direct collaboration with employees of Facebook and Google. They helped target the ads to more efficiently reach the intended audiences, according to internal reports from the ad agency that ran the campaign, as well as five people involved with the efforts.

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Facebook advertising salespeople, creative advisers and technical experts competed with sales staff from Alphabet Inc.’s Google for millions in ad dollars from Secure America Now, the conservative, nonprofit advocacy group whose campaign included a mix of anti-Hillary Clinton and anti-Islam messages, the people said.

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The content of some ads left some employees of Harris Media—the Austin-based digital advertising firm that runs campaigns for Secure America Now—feeling uneasy. “It was designed to strike fear in people’s hearts,” said one former Harris employee who requested anonymity.

The extent to which Facebook and Google work with political campaigns and groups hasn’t been widely understood. On Oct. 8, 60 Minutes aired an interview with the Trump campaign’s digital director saying he had Facebook employees work as “embeds” in the campaign who were selected for being Republicans. Facebook said its services for Trump were standard for any advertiser during an important event.

Google also works with political groups on their advertising strategies, helping them hone their copy and figure out how to best target their desired audiences, says Wendy Moe, professor of marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “It’s a tricky issue,” she says, because once the companies decide they’ll do hands-on work for political groups, “it’s hard for them to say we’ll help these groups, but not others.”

The issue gets thornier when it comes to working with groups on the fringes of the political spectrum. Earlier this year, for instance, Facebook worked closely with Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which was also represented by Harris Media. In meetings at Facebook’s Berlin office, executives encouraged the AfD and Harris Media to use Facebook Live in addition to its ad spending to better target German voters, Bloomberg Businessweek reported last month.

Google and Facebook, similarly, worked closely with Secure America Now as it spent several million dollars on election-season ads, according to the people who worked on the campaign.On June 16 of last year, for instance, sales managers from Google’s elections team hunkered down in its New York offices with officials from Secure America Now and Harris Media to talk about how to improve their digital ad campaigns.

In the months that followed, Secure America Now targeted swing-state voters not only with its faux-tourism videos, but also ads that linked Democratic Senate candidates with Syrian refugees and terrorists. “STOP SUPPORT OF TERRORISM. VOTE AGAINST CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO,” stated one ad targeting the Nevada Democratic Senate candidate who eventually won the race. “YOU SAW THE THREAT. NOW VOTE TO PROTECT NEVADA,” declared another ad.

A screenshot from a Secure America Now video.Source: Secure America Now

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In some cases, the ads were highly targeted on social media and aimed at groups of people, such as Hispanic voters in Nevada, that they felt could be swayed by the anti-refugee message,[huh?] according to two people who worked on the campaign. The ads were viewed millions of times on Facebook and Google, according to the internal reports about the campaign.

Facebook’s collaboration with Secure America Now went beyond optimizing its ad reach, and included efforts to test new technology. In one instance, Facebook used the Secure America Now campaign to try out a vertical video format, which the Facebook reps were eager to see used on a large scale.

Working with Harris Media, Facebook devised a case study last year to compare the popularity of the new format to others. The video they used was “Are We Safe?”, which contrasts colorful scenes of Main Street America with black-and-white pictures of Muslims who have carried out attacks in the U.S. Facebook tested 12 different versions of the video. It then followed up with a survey of users who had viewed the video to see which format was most popular. (Square videos, it turned out.)

Officials for Facebook and Harris Media declined to comment. Secure America Now didn’t respond to several requests for an interview.

Google also declined an interview request. But a spokesperson for the company says Google eventually blocked several ads from Secure America Now for violating its policies, including ads for the faux-tourism videos. The company wouldn’t say when it blocked the ads, but in a written statement it said that if ads violate its vigorously enforced policies, “we immediately disapprove them and stop showing them.”

A screenshot from a Secure America Now video.Source: Secure America Now

Secure America Now was launched in 2011 to oppose the construction of a community center and mosque in Manhattan near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The group’s president is Allen Roth, a longtime political adviser to Ronald Lauder, the heir to the Estee Lauder fortune and a supporter of conservative and pro-Israel causes. As a nonprofit, the Washington, D.C.-based group keeps its donors secret.

In the ensuing six years, the group has been sharply critical of the Obama administration’s handling of Benghazi, where U.S. personnel were killed in a 2012 attack on a diplomatic compound in Libya, as well as its nuclear deal with Iran.

During the 2016 campaign, in addition to its ads about Muslims and refugees, the group made a parody site, “Hillary’s Inbox,” with fake email chains between the candidate, her advisers and public figures. Secure America Now ran ads for the site on the Fox News politics page last October, according to internal reports, generating more than 206,000 visitors to the parody site.

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OPENSECRETS NEWS

EXCLUSIVE: Robert Mercer backed a secretive group that worked with Facebook, Google to target anti-Muslim ads at swing voters

By Robert Maguire
April 5, 2018

As the final weeks of the 2016 elections ticked down, voters in swing states like Nevada and North Carolina began seeing eerie promotional travel ads as they scrolled through their Facebook feeds or clicked through Google sites.

In one, a woman with a French accent cheerfully welcomes visitors to the “Islamic State of France,” where “under Sharia law, you can enjoy everything the Islamic State of France has to offer, as long as you follow the rules.”

The video has a Man in the High Tower feel. Iconic French tourist sites are both familiar and transformed — the Eiffel Tower is capped with a star and crescent and the spires of the Notre Dame are replaced with the domed qubba of a mosque.

The Mona Lisa is shown looking, the ad says, “as a woman should,” covered in a burka.

If it wasn’t already clear that the ad was meant to stoke viewers’ fears of imminent Muslim conquest, the video is interspersed with violent imagery. Three missiles are seen flying through the sky as the video opens. Blindfolded men are shown kneeling with guns pointed at their heads, and children are shown training with weapons “to defend the caliphate.”

This is one of three mock travel ads.

Another, for the ,” invited visitors to “celebrate the arranged marriages of future jihadi soldiers” at a pork- and alcohol-free Oktoberfest.

“You can even sell your daughter or sister to be married,” the ad notes enthusiastically while showing the covered face of a woman wearing a black burka.

:{And just to bring it all home, days before the election, the group made an “}“:{travel promo, where Syrian refugees have overtaken America. In the ad, the iconic Hollywood sign reads “Allahu Akbar,” and the Statue of Liberty wears a burka and holds a star and crescent. In the video, Ground Zero in New York City is shown as place where citizens can “celebrate our Islamic victories.”}:

Most Americans have never heard of the far-right neoconservative nonprofit that ran the ads. It has no employees and no volunteers, and it’s run out of the offices of a Washington, D.C. law firm. More importantly, most voters never saw the ads.

And that was by design.

The group, a social welfare organization called Secure America Now, worked hand in hand with Facebook and Google to target their message at voters in swing states who were most likely to be receptive to them.

And new tax documents obtained by OpenSecrets show that the money fueling the group came mostly from just three donors, including the secretive multimillionaire donor Robert Mercer.

As a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, Secure America Now (SAN) is not required to disclose its donors to the public, but they are required to report them to the IRS. This information is usually redacted when provided for public inspection. However, when OpenSecrets called to request a 2016 return, an unredacted return was provided by the group’s accounting firm.

[doc]The filing shows the largest individual contribution, $2 million, came from Robert Mercer, the reclusive hedge fund investor who spent millions in 2016 helping Donald Trump capture the White House.

Mercer has become a household name not only for his political spending in recent years or his peculiar interests — such as part-timing as a New Mexico police officer or funding stockpiles of urine in the Oregon mountains — but also for bankrolling the alt-right and the data firm Cambridge Analytica, both of which helped Trump clutch victory in 2016.

As OpenSecrets reported last month, SAN received another $2 million from the 45Committee, another pro-Trump dark money group, which is itself partly funded by other dark money groups.

The dark money churn is real.

Ronald S. Lauder, the heir to the Estee Lauder fortune, gave $1.1 million. Lauder has long been a supporter of conservative and pro-Israel causes, and his longtime political adviser Allen Roth serves as president of Secure America Now.

The remaining $60,000 in reported contributions came from three donors: Brad Anderson, the former CEO of Best Buy; Foster Friess, the investor and longtime Republican donor; and Olympus Ventures LLC, which is tied to a foundation created by Dick Schulze, the founder of Best Buy.

Social welfare organizations like Secure America Now are not supposed to have politics as their primary purpose, but a combination of vague rules and ineffective oversight make it easy for such groups to spend heavily in elections, without being required to disclose their donors.

SAN reported more than $1 million in political spending to the Federal Election Commission in 2016 — in the form of “independent expenditures,” which means they appealed directly to voters, asking them to support or oppose specific candidates for office.

While there are some differences between what the FEC and the IRS consider political spending, such direct calls for voters to support or oppose candidates are generally considered to be unambiguously political. Yet, in filing their tax returns, SAN told the IRS it only spent $124,192 on politics.

It’s hard to discern where this discrepancy stems from. Marc Owens, a tax lawyer who used to head the IRS Exempt Organizations Division, pointed out in an email to OpenSecrets that the “IRS ‘facts and circumstances’ standard has always been considered to sweep in more activity/expenditures than the FEC ‘independent expenditure’ standard.”

Yet, the IRS isn’t likely to catch the discrepancy on its own. The agency does not systematically analyze FEC reported political spending to catch discrepancies in what groups report on their tax returns. And only seven out of every 1,000 tax returns are audited by the agency, and even then the IRS is not always scrutinizing a group’s political activity.

Even with $1 million in political spending, SAN would find itself well below the threshold for excessive political activity — which, absent specific bright lines from the IRS, is generally assumed to be less than half of a group’s overall spending.

But the only way for the IRS to truly conclude that a group like SAN engaged in too much campaign intervention is to conduct a “facts and circumstances” analysis of the group’s finances. And that’s why those parody travel promotions are so important.

The Islamic State ads offer an interesting test of areas where the IRS definition of campaign intervention might be more expansive than what election law defines as political, even though they don’t mention a candidate. As a Congressional Research Service report noted in 2012, “the standard for determining whether something is campaign activity under the IRC is whether it exhibits a preference for or against a candidate” — not, that is, whether the candidate is actually mentioned.

“Preference can be subtle,” the report notes, “and the IRS takes the position that it is not always necessary to expressly mention a candidate by name.”

So, the fact that SAN didn’t expressly mention candidates in its ads does not mean that they were not political. And facts that have been reported since the election suggest that there is plenty of evidence supporting the conclusion that SAN’s digital ads were aimed at influencing the election.

For one, as Bloomberg reported last October, internal reports from the ad agency that ran SAN’s digital campaign, and individuals who were involved with the effort, showed that SAN worked with Google and Facebook to target the ads at swing-state voters.

“Facebook advertising salespeople, creative advisers and technical experts competed with sales staff from Alphabet Inc.’s Google for millions in ad dollars from Secure America Now,” the Bloomberg report writes.

The ads weren’t targeted broadly at the American public, but at Americans who would be mostly likely to decide the winners in critical senate races and the campaign for the White House.

Other ads in the campaign highlight this aim. For example, other digital ads run by SAN targeted specific candidates.

“STOP SUPPORT OF TERRORISM. VOTE AGAINST CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO,” read one ad, referencing the Democratic candidate for Nevada’s open senate seat.

The ads “were viewed millions of times on Facebook and Google,” Bloomberg wrote, citing internal documents. And Facebook went so far as to use Secure America Now as a test case for new technology, sending out 12 different versions of the video to see which was the most popular.

One other reason why the IRS might rule that the ads entail campaign intervention, despite being absent any mention of a candidate, is that the subject of Muslim’s entering the country was what Owens refers to as “an issue distinguishing the candidates for a given office.”

In December 2015, Donald Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” The month before, he had referred to Syrian refugees as possibly “one of the great Trojan horses.”

One of the most defining differences between Trump and his opponent was his views on Muslims in general, and Muslim refugees in particular. SAN’s ads were likely trying to exploit that difference when they targeted swing voters, with Google and Facebook’s help.

The tax filing itself offers little insight into how much these campaigns actually cost, beyond the “millions” cited by Bloomberg. Large portions of the group’s spending are a black hole. More than $7.4 million in the SAN’s spending — 87 percent of their overall outlays — went towards “membership educational devlp” and “direct mail educational prgm,” which aren’t defined or detailed anywhere in the filing.

Secure America Now representatives did not respond to any of the questions OpenSecrets sent, other than to confirm receipt of the questions.

Neither the IRS nor the FEC are likely to look into SAN’s activities any time soon, if at all, so the group will continue to play a role in public life.

A recent New York Times report detailing internal emails between top Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy and a political adviser to leaders in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia noted that Broidy referenced SAN as “one of the groups I am working with” to push the Trump administration to fill key positions with individuals favorable to those Persian Gulf leaders.

---

2016 tax docs

1745 Broadway, 18th Floor New York, NY 10019 Phone: 212 453 2500 Fax: 212 453 2550 www.skpny.com XL116 6.000 Mr. Allen Roth SECUREAMERICANOW.ORG 1800 M. Street NW, Suite 450N Washington, DC 20036

$1.3 mill

ALLEN ROTH 20.00 PRESIDENT/DIRECTOR 0. X X 0. 0. 0. DAVID GODER 16.00 V.P./SECRETARY/DIRECTOR 0. X X 55,000. 0. 0. MICHAEL HAYES 1.00 TREASURER/DIRECTOR 0. X X 0. 0. 0. BARBARA COMEAU 1.00 ASSISTANT SECRETARY 0. X 0. 0. 0. JEFFREY ALTMAN 1.00 ASSISTANT SECRETARY 0.

olympus ventures ...

sCHEDULE C, PART I-A, LINE 1-DESCRIPTION OF THE POLITICAL ACTIVITIES SECUREAMERICANOW.ORG ENGAGES IN POLITICAL ACTIVITIES BY ENGAGING IN BROADCAST, INTERNET, AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS THAT ARE INTENDED, IN PART, TO INFLUENCE ELECTIONS (IN ADDITION TO EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS TO DEVELOP GENERAL AWARENESS OF THE ORGANIZATION'S MISSION AND ACTIVITIES, INCREASING MEMBERSHIP, AND GENERATING FINANCIAL SUPPORT).

...

3 List all states in which the organization is registered or licensed to solicit contributions or has been notified it is exempt from

registration or licensing.

SECUREAMERICANOW.ORG 27-3711817

AL,AK,AR,CA,CO,CT,DC,FL,GA,HI,IL,

KS,KY,LA,ME,MD,MA,MI,MN,MS,MO,NV,NH,NJ,NM,NY,NC,ND,OH,

OK,OR,PA,RI,SC,TN,TX,UT,VA,WA,WV,WI,

---

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/03/1mdb-trump-ally-elliot-broidy-tries-to-get-75-million-to-end-us-probe.html

top republican donor close to President Donald Trump tried to negotiate a $75 million fee from the man at the center of the 1MDB scandal if he could get the U.S. to stop investigating the Malaysian state investment fund, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Elliott Broidy, a longtime Republican donor, and his wife, Robin Rosenzweig, discussed setting up a consulting contract with Jho Low, who has been accused of embezzling state funds, the WSJ, according to emails that the publication reviewed.

One email showed a proposal that would have given Broidy and his wife $75 million if they got the Justice Department to drop its probe into 1MDB.

Broidy also prepared talking points for Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak for his 2017 visit to Washington that included a meeting with Trump. Some of the talking points included talking up Malaysia's relationship with the U.S. in fighting North Korea and arguing against the legal pursuit of 1MDB.

Chris Clark of Latham & Watkins LLP, on behalf of Broidy and Rosenzweig told the WSJ in a statement that at not time did "anyone acting on their behalf, discuss Mr. Low's case with President Trump, any member of his staff, or anyone at the U.S. Department of Justice."

Read the full Wall Street Journal report here.

---

Trump Ally Sues Qatar For Hacking His Email | HuffPost

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/.../elliott-broidy-sue-qatar-hack-email_us_5ab94196...

3 days ago - GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy says Qatar leaked his emails to reporters in retaliation for his criticism of the Qatari government. ... million to scuttle a Justice Department investigation into a corruption scandal implicating a Malaysian businessman — and Broidy using his ties to the Trumpadministration to help.

Trump fundraiser took millions from Dubai before opposing Qatar ...

www.businessinsider.com/a-top-trump-fundraiser-took-25-million-from-dubai-before...

4 days ago - A top Trump fundraiser took $2.5 million from Dubai before pushing an anti-Qatar agenda in Congress ... The donations were part of just under $600,000 that Broidy has given to GOP members of Congress and Republican political committees since he began the push for the legislation fingering Qatar, ...

How a little-known GOP fundraiser got Trump to reshape US foreign ...

www.businessinsider.com/elliott-broidy-influenced-trump-uae-qatar-policy-2018-3

Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy has emerged as an influential figure in President Donald Trump'sWashington, and has often used shady deals to boost his ... On top of these questionable overtures,Broidy has also reportedly been in negotiations with a businessman at the center of a Malaysiancorruption scandal who ...

:{top GOP fundraiser and his wife sued the government of Qatar, lobbyist and former Republican political adviser Nicolas Muzin, and Muzin’s lobbying firm Stonington Strategies on Monday for allegedly hacking their email accounts and distributing the stolen emails to various media organizations.}:

:{The selectively leaked emails appear to show Elliott Broidy, a Los Angeles-based Republican National Committee deputy finance chair, using his proximity to Republican elected officials to influence foreign policy decisions and to boost his defense company’s business prospects. The anonymous leaker, which described itself as a group that exposes wrongdoing in Hollywood, has disseminated different tranches of hacked emails to reporters over the past several weeks, resulting in a trickle of negative news stories scrutinizing Broidy’s business practices and his communications with U.S. politicians and foreign governments.:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:

The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, HuffPost and others have published stories that appear to be based on the leaked emails.

Broidy, who has denied any wrongdoing, has for weeks accused Qatar of orchestrating the hack in retaliation for his outspoken criticism of the government there and his support for its regional rivals.

“We believe the evidence is clear that a nation state is waging a sophisticated disinformation campaign against me in order to silence me, including hacking emails, forging documents, and engaging in espionage and numerous other illegal activities,” Broidy said in a statement. “We believe it is also clear that I have been targeted because of my strong political views against Qatar’s state sponsored terrorism and double dealing.”

Qatar denies it was involved in the hack. “Mr. Broidy’s lawsuit is a transparent effort to divert attention from U.S. media reports about his activities,” Jassim Al-Thani, Qatar’s media attache in Washington, said in a statement. “His lawsuit is without merit of fact. It is Mr. Broidy, not Qatar, who orchestrated nefarious activities designed to influence Congress and American foreign policy. It does not matter how many venues Mr. Broidy publishes his false accusations in, they will not become truth.”

The Qatari government has indicated in a past statement to HuffPost that it is considering a counter-lawsuit against Broidy for making “false statements.”

On Monday, Broidy also accused Muzin, a lobbyist hired by Qatar, of helping to carry out the operation.

Muzin dismissed the allegations. “Mr. Broidy’s lawsuit is an obvious attempt to draw attention away from his controversial work, and is as flimsy as the promises he reportedly made to his clients,” Muzin wrote in an email. “I am proud of the work my firm has conducted with Qatar and look forward to continuing to support peaceful dialogue and progress in the Middle East.”

The hacking operation began around Dec. 27, 2017, when Broidy’s wife, Robin Rosenzweig, received a phishing email that appeared to be a Gmail security alert, according to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on Monday. When Rosenzweig entered her login credentials, as prompted by the phishing email, hackers gained access to her account, which included login information for other email accounts, including Broidy’s.

Broidy and Rosenzweig hired forensic analysts to track down the source of the hack. For weeks, Broidy’s team promised to soon release definitive evidence proving Qatar was responsible for stealing the emails. But the complaint filed on Monday offered little proof.

According to the complaint, Broidy’s team initially traced the hacker to IP addresses in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. But they later discovered that the attack originated in Qatar — the European IP addresses were meant to mask the real identity of the hacker, the complaint alleged.

The complaint does not provide forensic evidence that the government of Qatar directed the hack. Instead, it provides a lengthy description of Qatar’s efforts to improve its reputation in Washington by hiring politically savvy lobbyists — and how Broidy worked to crush those efforts.

The complaint pits Muzin and Broidy — two prominent Republican operatives who are active in the pro-Israel advocacy world — against each other.

Muzin is one of several lobbyists Qatar hired to advocate for it in the U.S. as Washington mulled how to respond to a Saudi-led blockade against Qatar. Last September, Muzin’s lobbying firm Stonington Strategies registered as a foreign agent for Qatar. Initially retained at a rate of $50,000 per month, Qatar later increased the rate to $300,000 per month.

As part of his effort to improve Qatar’s image, Muzin tried to get Jewish American leaders to meet with Qatar’s emir in New York during the United Nations General Assembly and to visit Qatar on an all-expense-paid trip, the complaint alleged. Broidy urged Jewish American leaders to turn down the invitation.

As Broidy worked to block Qatar’s efforts to improve its image in the U.S., his defense firm inked lucrative deals with Qatar’s regional rivals. In 2017 he finalized more than $200 million worth of contracts with the United Arab Emirates to develop its defense and counterterrorism ties, the complaint stated. Broidy is in discussions to do similar work with the government of Saudi Arabia.

The complaint provides no conclusive evidence that Muzin was involved in distributing the stolen emails to reporters. According to the complaint, Muzin indicated he was aware of the operation by stating, “I did not cause the Broidy stuff, just because I have information” and “I don’t know all the details, but I know that I am hearing repeatedly that there’s a lot more coming.” It is not clear to whom those comments were directed.

Muzin did not respond to a question about those comments.

Broidy and Rosenzweig are asking the court to order injunctive relief to prevent access to and use of the stolen emails and to award monetary damages.

Broidy made headlines in 2009, when he pleaded guilty to giving New York state officials almost $1 million worth of gifts to help his company win a lucrative contract with the state’s pension fund. But since then, he has largely operated behind the scenes. That changed after reporters started receiving his and his wife’s internal emails, offering a glimpse at how the well-connected fundraiser’s political and business activities intersected.

On Feb. 28, HuffPost received the first batch of Broidy’s emails from a group that called itself L.A. Confidential. The emails appeared to show Rosenzweig, asking for more than $80 million to scuttle a Justice Department investigation into a corruption scandal implicating a Malaysian businessman — and Broidy using his ties to the Trump administration to help.

The next round of emails showed Broidy directly pitching President Donald Trump on a plan to recruit an international army “of Muslim soldiers recruited from Arab and Islamic nations” to fight the Taliban and the Islamic State group in Afghanistan.

The most recent round of emails sent to HuffPost came from a group that called itself Hollywood 2018 and used ProtonMail, an encrypted email service. When HuffPost tried to ask Hollywood 2018 if it was the same group that was behind L.A. Confidential, the email bounced back, indicating the account had been deactivated.

The leaker was strategic, providing different news outlets with different documents, ensuring that each outlet would feel it had newsworthy material.

The New York Times reported that Broidy offered access to Trump as part of an effort to get foreign leaders to sign contracts with his defense firm Circinus. The Times also detailed how George Nader, a political adviser to the UAE who is reportedly now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller, cultivated Broidy to gain influence with the Trump administration.

The Associated Press reported that Nader wired Broidy millions of dollars to fund an effort to convince U.S. lawmakers to pass legislation that would label Qatar as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Broidy’s team has confirmed the authenticity of several of the leaked emails — but it also accused the Qatari government and Muzin of sending around doctored or forged documents that appeared to show Broidy was involved with a sanctioned Russian bank.

Unlike Russia, Qatar is not known for its cyberattacks. But there are signs that the small, wealthy Gulf state is building up its capabilities. In 2015, an intermediary with ties to Qatar gave the Times internal emails from the UAE’s foreign ministry in which an Emirati official admitted the UAE was violating a United Nations resolution by sending weapons to Libyan militias.

Last year, a group that called itself GlobalLeaks sent reporters damaging emails stolen from Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the U.S. Independent cybersecurity researchers identified a hacker-for-hire group working for several Gulf states that used tactics that resembled those used against Otaiba.

Read the complaint below:

Leaked Emails Appear To Show A Top Trump Fundraiser Abusing His ...

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/.../elliott-broidy-trump-malaysia-doj_us_5a988471e...

Mar 2, 2018 - In August 2017, Broidy sent an assistant at his investment firm an email titled “MalaysiaTalking Points *Final.*” The email does not note who wrote the talking points or who was expected to deliver them, but they appear to be drafted from the perspective of a Malaysian official in preparation for a meeting ...

Top GOP donor sought $75M fee if DOJ ended probe into Malaysian ...

thehill.com/.../376261-top-gop-donor-sought-to-influence-doj-investigation-into-mal...

Mar 1, 2018 - A longtime Republican donor allegedly sought to make tens of millions of dollars if the Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped its investigation into an investment deal connected to theMalaysian prime minster. Elliott Broidy and his wife, attorney Robin Rosenzweig, reportedly discussed in emails over the ...

1MDB: Trump ally Elliot Broidy tries to get $75 million to end US probe

https://www.cnbc.com/.../1mdb-trump-ally-elliot-broidy-tries-to-get-75-million-to-en...

Mar 3, 2018 - A top republican donor close to President Donald Trump tried to negotiate a $75 million fee from the man at the center of the 1MDB scandal if he could get the U.S. to stop investigating theMalaysian state investment fund, the Wall Street Journal reports. Elliott Broidy, a longtime Republican donor, and his ...

===

Trump Victory** Committee. The **Trump Victory** Committee is a joint fundraising committee for Donald J. **Trump** for President (the Donald **Trump** presidential campaign organization), the Republican National Committee (RNC), and 11 state Republican committees.

www.wsj.com/...trump-victory-fund.../5443E3EC-CA23-46E0-A9...

May 18, 2016

Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee struck a deal to establish joint fundraising committees ...

Donald Trump secures $6 million for Trump Victory fund - CNNPolitics

https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/25/politics/donald-trump-los...fundraiser/index.html

May 25, 2016 - Donald Trump's southern California fundraiser Wednesday has already secured $6 million in contributions to the Victory Fund, the joint effort between the real estate mogul's presidential campaign and the Republican Party, according to a source close to the event.

Trump Victory: Joint Fundraising Committee Summary | OpenSecrets

https://www.opensecrets.org/jfc/summary.php?id=C00618389

OpenSecrets.org has fundraising profiles for all 535 members of Congress (and more).

Joint Fundraising Committees | OpenSecrets

https://www.opensecrets.org/jfc/top.php?type=C&cycle=2016

Trump Victory, R, $108,424,870. Team Ryan, R, $65,549,125. Hillary Action Fund, D, $46,575,709. Boehner for Speaker Cmte, R, $13,580,470. McCarthy Victory Fund, R, $10,765,771. Democratic Hope Fund, D, $8,995,429. NRSC Targeted State Victory Cmte, R, $8,277,266. Scalise Leadership Fund, R, $7,118,778.

2020 hopeful McAuliffe launches anti-Trump 'Victory Fund'

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/2020-hopeful-mcauliffe-launches-anti-trump-v...

May 30, 2017 - Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the longtime Clinton ally who is considering a 2020 presidential bid, on Tuesday launched a "Victory Fund" to attack President Trump and Washington Republicans.

Real Estate Moguls Who Bankrolled Trump Victory Are Donating Big ...

www.newsweek.com/real-estate-moguls-bankrolled-trump-victory-are-donating-big-h...

Feb 2, 2018 - Donations from New York, Los Angeles and south Florida real estate interests accounted for at least 21 percent of the $16.4 million raised last year for the Trump Victory fund. A joint committee of the Trump campaign and the GOP, the fund allows individuals to give close to $450,000, The Real Deal ...

Trump victory has given mutual funds and ETFs a $2.9 trillion lift

https://www.cnbc.com/.../trump-victory-has-given-mutual-funds-and-etfs-a-2-point-9-...

Nov 7, 2017 - Since Trump's victory assets under management for mutual and exchange-traded fundssurged about 16 percent, or $2.9 trillion, to $21.1 trillion.

Sixty mega-donors gave 30 percent of the money raised by Donald ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../sixty-mega-donors-gave-30-percent-of-the-mone...

Jul 16, 2016 - Sixty mega-donors gave at least $100,000 each to a joint committee raising funds for Donald Trump and the Republican Party, together pouring in $15.4 million from late May until the end of June, new campaign finance records show. The huge sums that flowed into the Trump Victory fundmade up 30 ...

Search results for 'Trump Victory Fund' in beneficiary - Political Party ...

politicalpartytime.org/search/Beneficiary/Trump%2520Victory%2520Fund/

From the early hours of the morning until late in the evening, politicians are breaking bread and sipping cocktails with donors. Political Party Time lets you know who's fundraising and where.

===

broidy

Sessions Turned to Convicted Fundraiser for Advice on U.S. Attorneys

Read More

Sessions Turned to Convicted Fundraiser for Advice on U.S. Attorneys

Preparing to restock the Department of Justice at the start of the Trump administration, Jeff Sessions sought out Elliott Broidy for recommendations. The Republican donor’s conviction in a political corruption case years earlier didn’t seem to be a problem.

Elliott Broidy’s All-Access Pass — “Trump, Inc.” Podcast

Our podcast investigation is back — and this time we’re looking at more than just the president’s family.

EXCLUSIVE: Robert Mercer backed a secretive group that worked with Facebook, Google to target anti-Muslim ads at swing voters

Trump Ally Sues Qatar For Hacking His Email | HuffPost

Trump fundraiser took millions from Dubai before opposing Qatar ...

How a little-known GOP fundraiser got Trump to reshape US foreign ...

Leaked Emails Appear To Show A Top Trump Fundraiser Abusing His ...

Top GOP donor sought $75M fee if DOJ ended probe into Malaysian ...

1MDB: Trump ally Elliot Broidy tries to get $75 million to end US probe

Trump Victory Committee - Wikipedia

Trump Victory Committee - Wikipedia

How the 'Trump Victory' Fund Works - Wall Street Journal

www.wsj.com/...trump-victory-fund.../5443E3EC-CA23-46E0-A9...

Donald Trump secures $6 million for Trump Victory fund - CNNPolitics

Trump Victory: Joint Fundraising Committee Summary | OpenSecrets

Joint Fundraising Committees | OpenSecrets

2020 hopeful McAuliffe launches anti-Trump 'Victory Fund'

Real Estate Moguls Who Bankrolled Trump Victory Are Donating Big ...

Trump victory has given mutual funds and ETFs a $2.9 trillion lift

Sixty mega-donors gave 30 percent of the money raised by Donald ...

Search results for 'Trump Victory Fund' in beneficiary - Political Party ...