Thread by @USseriously

I've been wanting to do a thread on Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy for a while, but I seriously don't know where to start. This guy seems to be up to his neck in all sorts of bizarre scandals. So here's a short rundown of some of the things we've learned about Broidy.

Back in 2009, Broidy pleaded guilty to committing a felony by giving nearly $1 million in illegal gifts to state officials in order to secure a lucrative deal with New York’s public pension fund for his then-firm Markstone Capital Partners. blogs.wsj.com/privateequity/…

Preparing to restock the DOJ at the start of the Trump administration, Jeff Sessions sought out Elliott Broidy for recommendations. The Republican donor’s conviction in that political corruption case years earlier didn’t seem to be a problem. propublica.org/article/elliot…

Shortly after Trump was inaugurated last year, Elliott Broidy offered Russian gas giant Novatek a $26 million lobbying plan aimed at removing the company from a U.S. sanctions list theintercept.com/2018/04/20/ell…

And then there's this; Broidy and his wife, Robin Rosenzweig, were in negotiations to earn a $75 million fee if the U.S. Justice Department dropped its investigation into a multibillion-dollar graft scandal involving a Malaysian state investment fund.😳 wsj.com/articles/trump…

Broidy received millions of dollars from a political adviser to the United Arab Emirates last April, just weeks before he began handing out a series of large political donations to US lawmakers considering legislation targeting Qatar, the UAE’s chief rival read.bi/2ugU1zc

Broidy pitched Trump last year on a plan to recruit a thousands-strong international Muslim army that would help the United Arab Emirates battle the Taliban and the Islamic State in Afghanistan. huffingtonpost.com/entry/leaked-m…

Broidy also suggested to clients and prospective customers of his Virginia-based defense contracting company, Circinus, that he could broker meetings with Mr. Trump, his administration and congressional allies.
nytimes.com/2018/03/25/us/…

In April we learned that Michael Cohen negotiated a $1.6 million payment to Shera Bechard, a former Playboy playmate who said she was impregnated by Elliott Broidy. Broidy promptly resigned his post as the Republican National Committee's finance chair.
wsj.com/articles/trump…

(By the way, Paul Campos made an incredibly compelling case in New York magazine that Donald Trump, and not Elliott Broidy, had an affair with Shera Bechard.) 👀
nymag.com/daily/intellig…

But that wasn't all, in May we learned that Elliott Broidy carefully cultivated the crown princes from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, campaigned to alter US policy in the Middle East, and received hundreds of millions in defence deals in return
apnews.com/a3521859cf8d4c…

In addition to its newfound international fortune, Broidy's security firm Circinus received Defense Department payments totalling more than $4 million in August and September 2017, the largest in the company’s history. thedailybeast.com/elliott-broidy…

And then there's tonight's breaking news, Broidy was a client of Rick Gates, a former aide to Paul Manafort, and paid him at least $125,000 for advice on the administration. nytimes.com/2018/07/24/us/…

So, remember this? The night before the inauguration Trump ditched the press pool and went to his hotel in D.C., which was closed off to members of the public and the press. And now we know why: he had dinner with Broidy.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4…

Broidy introduced Trump to Liviu Dragnea, an official from Romania, another prospective Circinus client. Dragnea at the time faced corruption charges, but for months after the inauguration, Circinus continued pitching his government partly on the access it could provide to Trump.

This year Circinus signed a deal with a Romanian government-owned defense company that appears to give it the inside track for contracts valued at more than $200 million. business-review.eu/news/newsweek-…

Back in March, Al Jazeera reported that Elliott Broidy was under scrutiny over an alleged multi-million dollar lobbying contract with sanctioned Russian bank VTB. aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/t…

But wait, there's more. Broidy also invited Angolan defense officials to inauguration events and dangled a Mar-a-Lago trip while Circinus was pursuing Angolan business. Three days before inauguration, the Angolans submitted a $6 million payment to Circinus. h/t @WendySiegelman

Broidy urged Trump to play a golf game with PM Najib Razak of Malaysia, who had the authority over negotiations for a lucrative Malaysian contract with Broidy’s private defense company. Najib was under investigation by the Justice Department for corruption nytimes.com/2018/04/19/wor…

Broidy also explored plans to force the exit from the United States of a Chinese billionaire and dissident, Guo Wengui, evidently to please Chinese allies in Malaysia while reaping payoffs from both the Chinese and, improbably, the United Arab Emirates. aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/e…

DOJ is investigating whether longtime Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy sought to sell his influence with the Trump administration by offering to deliver U.S. government actions for foreign officials in exchange for tens of millions of dollars wapo.st/2nNBl48?tid=ss…

Elliott Broidy demanded that his Playboy playmate mistress Shera Bechard have an abortion. She also accused Elliott Broidy of having unprotected sex with her—‘without telling her he had genital herpes.’ thebea.st/2NWZ0dV?source…

Interesting detail in the document: "Bechard alleges that Mr. Broidy's attitude began to change as a result of "working for Donald Trump," and that "Mr. Broidy said that Mr. Trump was an idiot, who could not even pronounce the names of countries correctly" documentcloud.org/documents/4840…

A Justice Department employee, George Higginbotham, helped 1MDB's Jho Low funnel dirty money to GOP fundraiser and Trump ally Elliott Broidy. Higginbotham pleaded guilty today and is now cooperating with prosecutors. #TickTock bloomberg.com/news/articles/…