Trump ex-fundraiser Elliott Broidy charged with lobbying violation

Elliott Broidy, a formerly influential campaign fundraiser for President Donald Trump and the Republican party, was charged Thursday by federal authorities with violating a foreign lobbying law.

Broidy was charged with an instrument known as as a criminal information, which is typically used when a defendant has agreed to plead guilty.

The charging documents says Broidy agreed to lobby the Trump administration and the Justice Department to drop or favorably resolve the investigation of a foreign national for his role in the embezzlement of billions of dollars from the Malaysia state development fund, known as 1MDB.

Broidy and Nickie Lum Davis, another person involved in the case, failed to disclose to the Trump administration or to the Justice Department that he was acting on behalf of the foreign national.

The document notes that Broidy, Davis and another unnamed person, identified only as Person A, “were unsuccessful in their efforts to have the 1MDB matters dropped or otherwise favorably resolved for Foreign National A.”

1MDB is a development company that has been mired in legal probes for several years, with investigations into money laundering and other illegal activities.

Broidy is charged with conspiring to act as unregistered agent for a foreign principal.

Broidy resigned from his high-ranking role as the Republican National Committee’s deputy finance chairman in 2018, following bombshell revelations that he agreed to pay $1.6 million to a former Playboy model he impregnated in an affair.

In 2009, Broidy pleaded guilty in New York state court to a misdemeanor charge related to his making nearly $1 million in gifts to state pension fund officials in exchange for Broidy’s private equity firm being handed $250 million in pension funds to manage.

The same investigation that snared Broidy in that case led to the conviction of former New York state comptroller Alan Hevesi.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.