Trump supporter and Republican fundraiser Elliot Broidy is under investigation for alleged attempts to sell influence with the Trump administration.
This would be news only if he hadn’t attempted to sell influence.
Grifters gotta grift.
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This Elliot Broidy WAPO story is underrated in terms of its potential ripple effects in the #trumprussia probe. Like Michael Cohen, Broidy has been caught for doing things that he has always done, but it provides a nice leverage point to get him to talk about the thing we know he did but for which we are looking for evidence: that Broidy worked to open doors to enable foreign money to be funneled into GOP/Trump coffers from Russian, Israeli, Saudi, Emirati and perhaps Malaysian or Chinese sources. That’s the crime we want to be able to expose and nail Broidy and Nader for (along with Manafort, Gates and Barrack and others whose names we may not yet know).
So this article says that Broidy conspired with the Chinese to push to Trump a plan to extradite a Chinese exile (this was a wish of President Xi) and that Broidy sought a $75 mill payment if he could influence the DOJ to end the investigation into the 1MDB money laundering scheme (this was a desire of the former Malaysian PM Razak and his cronies like Jho Low). Both of these issues are not news but it’s very good to know that prosecutors are taking this seriously. In both cases, Broidy appeared to have been working for foreign governments and accepting illicit payments to run their agenda without registering as a foreign agent or a lobbyist. These look like types of bribes and may violate public corruption statutes. There may be some technical legal issues as to what Broidy’s relationship to the government was, but nonetheless, it’s clear that Broidy has real problems and could face indictment. Steve Wynn has also been subpoenaed for records in this matter, which puts nearly the entire GOP finance operation (Broidy, Cohen and Wynn) under criminal scrutiny. If this is not a corrupt party I don’t know what is.
With respect to the Chinese aspect of this story, this is an example of how foreign governments have attempted to essentially bribe Trump officials and Trump himself to get things done which would not otherwise be possible through normal channels. These are the types of things that Robert Mueller is looking at.
But to my thinking, if money/favors flow one way they can easily flow in the opposite direction. Broidy positioned himself as a fulcrum/pivot point of influence between the White House/RNC on the one side and the Emiratis, Malaysians, Israelis and Chinese on the other. He even developed a plan to enlist Emiratis to lobby for the US to send Chinese exile Guo Wengui back to China! Imagine that, Broidy brokering a corrupt deal to enlist the Emiratis to help the Chinese lobby Trump to extract a political opponent of President Xi back to China where he would face almost certain imprisonment! That’s like a corruption matchmaking party. Perhaps match.com needs a spin-off entity to do just this, place corrupt folks from various countries and industries together to see what they can scheme up!
The notion that Broidy only ever helped foreigners get what they wanted from Trump/GOP and he never helped Trump/GOP get things in return or have separate favors done is simply not credible to me. There is no way Trump would oblige a guy like Broidy unless he got something in return.
So if the Feds have Broidy nailed on these public corruption issues, the thing to do would be to flip him in exchange for information about what he did to facilitate help for Trump/GOP campaigns and other interests. That’s what interests me about this angle.
As an aside, another aspect of Broidy is that he was arrested, prosecuted and pleaded guilty in a bribery scheme relating to the NYS pension fund over a decade ago. The AG that nailed him? Andrew Cuomo. Liberals hate talking Cuomo for various reasons (most of which I find inscrutable) but I think he would be a strong '20 candidate and is probably more representative of what America really is than anyone. We’re not as good as Obama nor as bad as Trump. Cuomo is the President that America probably deserves. But that’s just my view.
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The hits just keep coming with this outfit. The only thing I have to wonder is to what extent this was happening in the GOP for a long time, and Trump just came along and was clumsy and corrupt enough to warrant the increased scrutiny, or whether this is a result of taking Trump and his “transactional” corruption and scaling it up to the national level, or if it were both, really. #draintheswamp
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Serious question: Is there anyone associated with tRump who is not a grifter?
Thank you for your analysis…always enlightening to read your comments.
@mattinpa and @khyber900 - I am only going off cursory reading of Broidy and the complete web of international hustlers and grifters. The sheer numbers of them must be staggering…basically anyone who ever claimed a rightwing, anti-dem stance has proven to be enemies of the country.
When you add them all up…and this is just my faulty memory…we have Gorka, Broidy, Nader, Manafort, Gates, Papado, Page, Prince, Ross, Wynn, Cohen, NRA, RNC, Flynn, Flynn Jr, The Whole Trump circus from top to bottom, and much much more. All of them conspiring to offshore their assets, offshore businesses, move paying jobs overseas, move crap products here, and do the bidding of every Arab, Asian, and Russian actors with enough money. Every single transaction these people are working, full-time on, is basically treasonous and absolutely against the interest of our country, govt, economy, and people. Whatever amount of this is making it into the brain-case of rightwing voters…they are doing their best to whitewash, justify, or forget that every single person they vote for (and so many of these actors aren’t elected) is working 24-7 against their country, their health, their wealth, and our future.
It is not news that these horrible people exist and will sell us all down the river for a $…what is new is how 40% of our nation is trying to hear no evil, see no evil or finding a way to justify it. Stunning.
This investigation is uncovering things that have been going on for decades. These shameless pricks have managed to drain so much of our wealth and undermine everything the avg. voter works for. It has been going on and was picking up steam. How did it go on for so long, and how are we even still standing as a country with these vermin gnawing at our underpinnings. With the erosion of the judiciary by republican appointments, the corruption of the SCOTUS we are in a very precarious state. If any of this gets swept under the rug or only receives glancing counter-action from our govt and people, it won’t matter if we stop Trump. The vermin and rot will finish us off.
Last point, except for very light contact, Dems appear to be relatively free of all this. In the grand scheme, almost lily-white innocent of such things. We all deal with the normal breakdown of corruption and pay to play…85% -15% rpublican dominated sleaze. But this seems to be 99%-1% republican sleaze and I would think Dems could make hay of that leading up to election day. I would think Dems are squeaky clean enough to be able to run with that, without having to worry their own folks will be caught up in it…
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Nice, uh, smile.
It’s no bottom all the way down.
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Is there anyone associated with the RNC and the GOP Senators and Congressmen who is not a grifter?
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Don’t know if I’d go that far, but otherwise what you say makes a lot of sense. Interesting analysis!
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I’ve said this before (and surely will again) but I find it amazing that with all the constant (constant!) talk of “dirt on Hillary” that there has been absolutely zero (zero!) evidence of any wrongdoing - civil or criminal. Isn’t that worth at least an occasional mention?
Some politically embarrassing revelations (though even that is a stretch) that the rat-wing has amplified to 11, but no real wrongdoing.
I find that amazing, and further proof (which was not really needed) of the “vast right wing conspiracy” that Hillary told us about oh so many years ago.
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TRUMP is going to regret Trump won!
Pretty sure he already does…
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Here’s a pew research poll question:
How would you describe the current government administration?
A) rancid
B) squalid
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I didn’t say he’d be loved. There would probably be a lot of people that don’t like him on both the right and the left. But America isn’t as good as it thought it was and isn’t as bad as Trump is making us out to be now. We’re not superheroes. We’re not better or cooler than everyone else. We’re good but flawed. That’s pretty much Andrew Cuomo.
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I figured that kind of pun was looming out there…
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c) indicted
d) all of the above
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Out flew the web and opened wide
the mirror cracked from side to side
“The curse has come upon me!” cried
The Shady Fund-A-Lot
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for which she was roundly mocked by conservatives and media pundits from both sides
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because you and @dannydorko have a warped sense of humor
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That Broidy is a real sew-and-sew.
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