How a Trump Ally Tested the Boundaries of Washington’s Influence Game

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — Elliott Broidy had the kind of past that might have given a more traditional White House reason to keep him at a distance: A wealthy businessman, he had pleaded guilty in 2009 to giving nearly $1 million in illegal gifts to New York State officials to help land a $250 million investment from the state’s pension fund.

But on a fall day in 2017, Mr. Broidy was ushered into the West Wing. For about two hours, he met with a handful of the most powerful people on earth, including President Trump, his chief of staff, his national security adviser and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, discussing everything from personnel recommendations to the Republican Party’s finances.

Mostly, though, according to a detailed account he later sent to an associate, Mr. Broidy talked about the Middle East, a subject that had long been important to him personally and was becoming increasingly important to him financially.

View the complete August 13 article by Kenneth P. Vogel on The New York Times website here.

Federal prosecutors probe this big GOP donor potentially selling foreign clients access to Trump

AlterNet logoFederal 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 his intelligence research firm, Circinus LLC.

View the complete June 21 article by Igor Derysh from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Fund-Raiser Held Out Access to Trump as a Prize for Prospective Clients

The following article by Kenneth P. Vogel and David D. Kirkpatrick was posted n the March 25, 2018:

Elliott Broidy, left, at an inaugural dinner with (from left) Carol Mizel, a philanthropist; Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general; Larry Mizel, a real estate developer; and Robin Broidy, a lawyer and Mr. Broidy’s wife. Credit Clint Spaulding/WWD, via REX, via Shutterstock

WASHINGTON — For Elliott Broidy, Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign represented an unparalleled political and business opportunity.

An investor and defense contractor, Mr. Broidy became a top fund-raiser for Mr. Trump’s campaign when most elite Republican donors were keeping their distance, and Mr. Trump in turn overlooked the lingering whiff of scandal from Mr. Broidy’s 2009 guilty plea in a pension fund bribery case.

After Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Broidy quickly capitalized, marketing his Trump connections to politicians and governments around the world, including some with unsavory records, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Broidy suggested to clients and prospective customers of his Virginia-based defense contracting company, Circinus, that he could broker meetings with Mr. Trump, his administration and congressional allies. Continue reading “Fund-Raiser Held Out Access to Trump as a Prize for Prospective Clients”