The Washington Post had a big scoop Tuesday night on a Trump buddy who's allegedly about to get charged by the Justice Department for BIG CRIMES. Of course, this being the lawless Trump Justice Department, where crime pays if you are in Trump's circle, Attorney General Bill Barr might be currently running like a linebacker to keep it from happening. But we'll see!

The person in question is Elliott Broidy, the businessguy who was heavily involved in Donald Trump's inauguration, and then became one of the finance co-chairs for the RNC. He's also buddies with Steven Mnuchin.

Also you might remember him as the OTHER guy Michael Cohen — who was himself a finance co-chair for the RNC, until all his crimes started to come out — did a porn peener payoff for, involving a pregnant Playboy model what was not Broidy's wife. Cohen even used the same codenames in their hush money agreement that he used in Trump's porn peener payoffs! And the lawyer repping the Playboy model was the same guy who repped Trump porn peener payoff recipients Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Isn't that all just weird?

Broidy cut and ran from the RNC deputy finance chair job when all that broke in the news.

Anyway, today's news:

Federal prosecutors are preparing to charge longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy in connection with efforts to influence the U.S. government on behalf of foreign interests, according to people familiar with the matter, a result of a sprawling, years-long investigation that involved a figure who helped raise millions for Donald Trump's election and the Republican Party.

Broidy is under scrutiny for his alleged role in a campaign to persuade high-level Trump administration officials to drop an investigation of Malaysian government corruption, as well as for his attempt to push for the extradition of an outspoken Chinese dissident back to his home country, according to the people, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation.

The Post reports that Broidy might plead and get a real nice deal. Those usually involve flipping on bigger people.

Broidy's associate Nickie Lum Davis pleaded guilty Monday to covertly lobbying, on behalf of a Malaysian bigwig finance dude, to get the Trump administration to drop the Malaysia investigation and also extradite the Chinese billionaire man back home. And who is the Chinese billionaire man? Guo Wengui, whose yacht Steve Bannon was beached on when hegot arrested!

All of the very best Trump people know each other.

According to a charging document filed in her case, Davis admitted she aided and abetted the efforts of two others involved in the influence campaigns, identified only as Person A and Person B. People familiar with the matter identified them as former Fugees rapper Pras Michel and Broidy, respectively.

Sure why wouldn't it be Broidy and also Pras from Fugees why not sure you betcha everything is normal in America right now!

So anyway, Person B in Davis's charging documents is Broidy. And what did Davis do with Broidy?

Davis acknowledged that she helped route an $8 million retainer to Broidy for the influence campaign and that [Malaysian businessman] Low [Taek Jho] offered to pay a $75 million "success fee" as part of a contract with Broidy's wife's law firm if the 1MDB case was resolved within 180 days.

Neat. And they say Trump can't be bought, just kidding nobody says that, except for idiot redneck Trump supporters for whom Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man.

The Post notes that in the olden days, Broidy's previous lawyers stated firmly that he NEVER worked for any foreign government in secret, NO HE NEVER, and he NEVER talked to Trump about any of this, or any other White House staffers, NO HE ALSO NEVER. Au contraire, says the criminal information on Davis:

According to Davis's criminal information and people familiar with the matter, Broidy met with Trump at the White House in October 2017 and told others that he raised the subject of the 1MDB investigation.

And also was in contact with Reince Priebus and Rick Gates about it.

If you want to read more about the Malaysian money laundering case, the Post has that, and it is also here. It involves Van Gogh paintings and also the funding for the movie-film Wolf Of Wall Street, because why wouldn't it.

Point is that Broidy, according to the Post's sources and Davis's criminal information, secretly lobbied Trump and his people to drop the Malaysian corruption case and do the extradition of the Chinese billionaire man who owns the yacht where Steve Bannon gets rid of his tanlines. Broidy even got disgraced accused rapist and casino dude Steve Wynn, who was the RNC's finance chair at the time — it was quite a group! — to help with the Chinese guy, before Wynn had to quit that job. (The other finance guy for the RNC after Trump's inauguration in 2017, whose name is not Steve Wynn, Michael Cohen, or Elliott Broidy? Oh, it's nobody, he just runs the post office now.)

Indeed, Wynn and Broidy literally called Trump about extraditing the Chinese billionaire while they were on Wynn's yacht. Wynn's lawyer says anything he did, he did "not on behalf of a foreign government but rather entirely for the benefit of the United States." It's probably just a coincidence that it's exactly what Chinese dictator-for-life Xi Jinping wants. Xi wants that guy.

And did Trump want to do that for Broidy/Wynn/Xi/whoever? Of course! Whatever Xi Jinping wants, Xi Jinping gets, something something, BEIJING BIDEN! Unfortunately, the White House Counsel's Office killed that idea dead.

Wynn, by the way, is cooperating with the feds.

Wait, Wasn't Broidy Involved In ANOTHER Weird Thing, Allegedly?

So all of this is weird, and we imagine if the Justice Department is actually allowed by Barr to indict Broidy, we will get quite a story in his criminal information. But what if reports are correct that he may be prepared to cooperate? What might he have to talk about?

Let's go back to another time, at the Trump inauguration, when Broidy got hooked up with a guy named George Nader, who later became a Mueller cooperating witness, and is now doing hard time on child pornography charges. Nader was representing the Saudis and Emiratis in their quest to wipe Qatar off the map. (Remember in 2018 when the Trump administration suddenly turned on the tiny nation of Qatar, which is where CENTCOM is?) Broidy had a private mercenary company called Circinus, and he really wanted to do bidness with those same Middle Eastern princes. Meanwhile Nader was weirdly involved in all kinds of what looked like back-channel shit between Trumpers, the Russians, the Saudis, and the Emiratis before and after the election.

One thing led to another, and Broidy ended up meeting with Trump to help convince him to turn on Qatar and support the Saudi blockade. Indeed, he was an integral part of the campaign to turn Trump against Qatar, which benefited the Saudis and the Emiratis.

Did we mention that LOTS of weird money ended up going from the Saudis and Emiratis to Nader, who gave weird money to Broidy, in a way that was DEFINITELY NOT BRIBES OR PAY-TO-PLAY INFLUENCE SCANDAL STUFF?

When all this started to come out a couple years back, Broidy and his lawyers screamed HAXXORS! and denied everything. It really didn't change any of the facts on the ground, though. Also the UAE and Saudi Arabia aren't the only countries where weird questions about Broidy maybe selling access to the Trump White House come up.

By the way, Broidy barely escaped going to jail in 2012 in a pay-to-play bribery scandal by turning state's evidence.

We don't know if the feds might have any questions for Broidy about all that, or about perhaps the Trump inauguration in general. Broidy was the finance vice chair of the Trump inauguration, which is STILL the subject of so many questions about WHERE THE FUCK DID ALL THOSE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS GO? (Sidenote: Last night Maddow had on Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who used to be Melania's best friend, who reveals in her new book out this week that she has been cooperating with THREE investigations into the Trump inaugural. Dunno if these two stories are related, but MAYBE.)

Watch the news, and if Broidy gets indicted, come back and read this post again, because we probably won't feel like writing it a second time.

OPEN THREAD.

[Washington Post]

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