WaPo: Broidy Probed For Efforts To Sell Trump Admin Influence To Foreign Officials

Trump supporter and Republican fundraiser Elliot Broidy is under investigation for alleged attempts to sell influence with the Trump administration, the Washington Post reported Friday citing three unnamed people familiar with the probe.

“In recent weeks,” the Post reported, “prosecutors with the Justice Department’s public integrity section — which examines possible political and government corruption — have sought documents related to Broidy’s business dealings.”

Among the subjects of the investigation are Broidy’s alleged plan to persuade the Trump administration to extradite exiled Chinese dissident Guo Wengui back to China, per two of the Post’s sources, and an effort to have the Justice Department drop an embezzlement probe into a Malaysian investment fund, for which Broidy and his wife allegedly sought $75 million.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators asked at least one witness about Broidy’s activities, according to one unnamed person familiar with the matter.

The casino magnate, former GOP finance chair and alleged sexual harasser Steve Wynn’s lawyer confirmed to the Post that Wynn “is completely cooperating with the investigation,” though the lawyer noted Wynn “has no reason to believe that anyone acted improperly in anything he knew about or was involved in.”

The Post noted that the New York Times and Wall Street Journal previously reported on Broidy’s Malaysian and Chinese dealings.

The same Elliot Broidy is currently the subject of a lawsuit from ex-Playboy model Shera Bechard, who alleges he improperly called off a promised $1.6 million payment — which Trump fixer Michael Cohen arranged with Bechard’s lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson — to her after others leaked details of their affair in violation of a nondisclosure agreement. Broidy resigned as deputy RNC finance chair after news of the payment broke.

An extensive Associated Press report in May revealed in detail Broidy and George Nader’s work with leaders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, part of an effort to promote anti-Qatar policies to the Trump administration.

Broidy blamed Qatar and a former CIA operative and his partner, who’d both just opened an office for their consulting firm in the country, for leaking the hacked emails that formed the foundation of the AP report. The Journal and Times’ stories on Broidy’s Malaysian and Chinese work also cite caches of emails.

“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,” an attorney for Broidy told the Post. “Any implication to the contrary is a lie.”

Read the Post’s full, much more detailed story here.