Wait, What With The Broidy Guy And Qatar And Huh? We'll Splain You Easy

This will NOT end well...

Elliott Broidy's in a whole heap of shit, y'all! You might remember Mr. Broidy as the RNC Finance Committee guy who (maybe???) got rope-a-doped by Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson into paying $1.6 million to his pregnant Playboy model girlfriend last year. But there's so much more to Mr. Broidy than his wandering dick! So before we get into a big corruptionsplainer on all the slimy shit Broidy's done to get rich subverting the American electoral process, let's just take a second for a quick Middle East splainer to lay the groundwork.

Can't we all just agree to hate Israel together?

For generations, wonks have told us that all the problems in the Middle East would vanish if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were resolved. But the population of the Middle East is about 220 million people, of whom the Israelis and the Palestinians together only total about 15 million. In reality, focusing on this tiny conflict allowed Middle Eastern regional powers to keep a wider Sunni-Shiite war at a slow boil -- sure, the rulers were corrupt, but think of the Great Satan US and the Little Satan Israel!

We've now reached a point where everyone's amassed an arsenal of big guns. And the Saudis, particularly Jared Kushner's buddy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), would like to have that BIG WAR now while their arch-rival Iran is weak from American sanctions.

But what does that have to do with Elliott Broidy? Or the US, for that matter?

HOLD YOUR HORSES! WE'RE GETTING THERE!

See, when the Russians interfere in our electoral process, they want to weaken the United States and keep it from strengthening European allies in Russia's sphere of influence. When Middle Eastern powers interfere in our electoral process, they want US backing. Which brings us back to Elliott Broidy and his private military company Circinus. Because Broidy was flogging his services to the Saudi and Emirati governments, who were happy to cut him a check for half a billion dollars if he would just use his considerable influence with the Trump Administration to turn the US government against Qatar. ALLEGEDLY. 

So when Broidy met George Nader at Trump's inauguration in January 2017, it was a match made in heaven. (Well, except that Broidy likes surgically enhanced blondes, and Nader likes underaged boys. But anyway!) Because Nader was an emissary for the Saudi and Emirati princes angling to get relatively peace-loving Qatar out of the way before rearranging the entire Middle East. And Elliott Broidy wanted to make a shit-ton of money renting soldiers out to those very same princes.

George WHO?

You remember George Nader. He's the guy who set Erik Prince up on that blind date in the Seychelles that may or may not have been an effort to establish a back-channel between Trumpland and the Kremlin. He's the Lebanese-American who showed up at that  other Trump Tower meeting during the campaign with Erik Princeand the Israeli social media guy who insists that he did nothing to help Trump win the election. Nader paid him $2 million for ... nothing, we guess???? And Nader is the guy who got a surprise greeting at Dulles Airport from Robert Mueller in January, after which he allegedly flipped and told the scary Special Counsel man everything he knows.

Which means the AP scoop last night piecing together Elliott Broidy's leaked emails to reveal the extent of their scheming to turn the Trump Administration against Qatar are probably not news to the Russia investigation. But they are news to us, and juicy news at that!

Ooooh, give us the dirt?

Well, you will be FOR SHOCKED to hear that the Saudis and Emiratis made Jared Kushner for a giant fucking idiot!

“You have to hear in private my Brother what Principals think of ‘Clown prince’s’ efforts and his plan!” Nader wrote. “Nobody would even waste cup of coffee on him if it wasn’t for who he is married to.”

Apparently "Principals" Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and Saudi prince MBS figured it was worth it to hear the "Clown Prince" out on his galaxy brain MBAsplainer of the Israeli-Palestinian process if it meant the White House would get behind the blockade of Qatar. (Spoiler Alert: The Saudis already worked shit out behind the scenes with Israel, that's why Israel is off the fucking chain lately.)

Broidy met twice with Trump to tell him that the evil Qataris were "a television station with a country" and to encourage him to maintain support for the blockade. He also offered to broker a meeting with MBZ -- which is pretty weird for a guy who insists he's not working for a foreign government and doesn't need to register as a foreign agent!

And what a stroke of luck that Broidy was good pals with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and could whisper in his ear exactly which Qataris the US government should sanction!

“Mnuchin is a close friend of mine (my wife and I are attending Sec. Mnuchin’s wedding in Washington D.C. on June 24th),” Broidy wrote to Nader. “I can help in educating Mnuchin on the importance of the Treasury Department putting many Qatari individuals and organizations on the applicable sanctions lists.”

JFC! Anyone else?

HELL YEAH THERE IS! Broidy spread $600,000 around to GOP candidates during 2017 -- he made a lot of friends. Including at the RNC, where he appears to have convinced John Kelly that his buddy was some dude named George Vader -- not that convicted child molester George Nader that the Secret Service guys refused to let Trump get photographed with.

Instead of raging against the FBI, may be President Trump should “demand the Department of Justice look into” his campaign’s relationship to Mr. George Nader, the subject of yesterday’s @nytimes article. pic.twitter.com/voukJ0FFvl 

— Ali H. Soufan (@Ali_H_Soufan) May 20, 2018 

Broidy bragged to Nader that he had "shifted" House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ed Royce (R-California) "from being critical of Saudi Arabia to 'being critical of Qatar.'"

Broidy also bragged that he had “caused” Royce to praise a senior Saudi general, Ahmed Hassan Mohammad Assiri, in words that were then memorialized in the Congressional Record. Nader was thrilled: A U.S. congressman publicly flattered a Saudi official, who documents show was helping evaluate Broidy and Nader’s contract proposals.

KA-CHING!

And Broidy seeded the media with "op-eds" decrying the Qataris as sponsors of terrorism and urging the US government to move the al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar to another country. Like Saudi Arabia or the UAE! 

On April 21, 2017, Broidy sent Nader the draft of an Op-Ed to show the impact of his campaign. It was marked “Confidential.”

Three days later, “The Two Faces of Qatar, a Dubious Mideast Ally” was published in The Wall Street Journal. The opinion piece, co-written by retired Air Force Gen. Charles Wald, who had been the deputy head of U.S. European Command, called for moving U.S. military assets from the al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. “The United Arab Emirates would be a logical destination,” wrote Wald.

What readers did not know was that Wald was listed in company documents as a member of Broidy’s Circinus team that was pitching contracts in Saudi Arabia.

Wald denies that he was ever employed by Broidy, and Broidy claims that he's the victim of a secret smear campaign of forgeries by those dastardly Qataris. Which is CHUTZPAH for a guy who is himself engaged in a secret smear campaign to rearrange the entire Middle East so he can become a billionaire!

So, did it work?

Sure did!

Days after Broidy’s meeting with Trump, the UAE awarded Broidy the intelligence contract the partners had been seeking for up to $600 million over 5 years, according to a leaked email.

The Muslim fighting force contract would be even larger, potentially bringing their entire Gulf enterprise to more than $1 billion.

But then Robert Mueller greeted George Nader at the airport on January 17 of this year with a fresh grand jury subpoena. And we just don't know what happened to their giant pile of Saudi money after that!

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[ AP / AP supporting documents ]