Who Is Elliott Broidy? Republican Fundraiser, Venture Capitalist Is Under Federal Investigation

Businessman and prominent Republican donor Elliott B. Broidy is being investigated by a federal grand jury in New York over whether he violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act as vice chair of President Donald Trump's inaugural committee, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.

Broidy is being accused of using his position as vice chair to close business deals with foreign officials, most notably the current President of Angola and two Romanian politicians. It's illegal for a person to offer a foreign official "anything of value" for financial gain.

Broidy's attorneys have shot back at the accusations, saying that neither he nor his security firm Circinus LLC had any contact with "any Romanian government agency, proxy or agent." His attorneys say that Circinus did close a deal with Angola in 2016 but argue that there was no connection with Broidy's work on the inaugural committee.

Broidy, a 63-year-old Los Angeles native, was the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2005 to 2008. Circinus provides security intelligence to the U.S. government and other clients.

He has been linked to other scandals and controversies.

Broidy pleaded guilty in 2009 to a pay-to-play scheme involving the pension fund in New York state. He had bribed senior-level officials in the state's comptroller office to get them to invest $250 million into a pension fund with Markstone Capital Partners, a private equity firm he founded.

Broidy also has close ties with Gulf monarchies, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Circinus has secured hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts with the UAE. He has sought to influence the Trump administration to support Saudi Arabia and the UAE's 2017 boycott of Qatar.

He also allegedly sold his influence to a Malaysian business official to get the Department of Justice to stop an investigation into a controversial Malaysian development fund.

Reports surfaced in April 2018 that Broidy paid Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, $250,000 for negotiating a deal to pay $1.6 million in hush money to a former Playboy model, who claimed she was impregnated by Broidy. Broidy would later resign as deputy finance chair of the Republican Party.

Broidy isn't the only Trump-affiliate to be involved in scandals with foreign entities. Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort was sentenced in March for foreign lobbying and witness tampering. Manafort did extensive work on part of the pro-Russian Yanukovych government in Ukraine.

Former Trump campaign official and lobbyist Richard Gates, an associate of both Broidy and Manafort, has reportedly cooperated in federal investigations since pleading guilty in February 2018 on conspiracy charges in connection with earlier consulting work for Ukrainian politicians.

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about conversations with Russia's ambassador, was involved with lobbying work on behalf of the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.