{"id":572,"date":"2018-05-23T04:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T08:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/susanwright\/?p=572"},"modified":"2018-05-23T00:43:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T04:43:20","slug":"trump-pal-used-access-to-trump-to-push-policy-and-gain-large-government-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/susanwright\/2018\/05\/trump-pal-used-access-to-trump-to-push-policy-and-gain-large-government-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Pal Used Access to Trump to Push Policy and Gain Large Government Contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

You should get used to hearing the name \u201cElliot Broidy.\u201d<\/a> Things surrounding Donald Trump\u2019s old pal and associate are starting to pick up \u2013 and not in a good way.<\/p>\n

On Monday, news of the money-making deal between Broidy and George Nader, as they lobbied against Qatar, on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates revealed they profited by nearly $1 billion in contracts.<\/p>\n

That, apparently, was only the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s report is that Broidy\u2019s company during that same time managed to secure government contracts that it had been seeking for years. The payout on those contracts was making Broidy a LOT of money, as well.<\/p>\n

The company, a Virginia-based security firm called Circinus LLC, is owned by Broidy and has secured at least $800 million in foreign defense contracts since Trump took office. All of those payouts came after Broidy reportedly worked his contacts in D.C.\u2014including Trump\u2014to advocate for positions favorable to the countries that Circinus now lists as clients.<\/p>\n

In addition to its newfound international fortune, Circinus received Defense Department payments totaling more than $4 million in August and September 2017, the largest in the company\u2019s history, a review of available contracts found.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Coincidence?<\/p>\n

We\u2019re still going.<\/p>\n

It was two months after that that a report in The New Yorker revealed that Broidy had dropped $200,000 in that mystery bank account opened by Donald Trump\u2019s longtime \u201cfixer,\u201d Michael Cohen.<\/p>\n

The $200,000 was part of a $1.6 million payoff of a Playboy model Broidy was allegedly having an affair with, at one point. During the course of the relationship, she became pregnant and had an abortion.<\/p>\n

But back to Broidy and those government contracts:<\/p>\n

Circinus, formed in 2001, has been bidding on contracts with the Pentagon since 2011, but has had limited success. Prior to 2017, Circinus had been paid a total of just $7,501 for its work on various defense contracts. Then, in August 2017 it finally received $3.9 million for a contract it had begun bidding on in 2013 with the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM). The INSCOM contract\u2014which is for unidentified intelligence services\u2014nearly doubled the company\u2019s income for the year. The following month, Circinus received $242,011 from the Defense Security Service for a separate contract.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We\u2019re still talking coincidences, right?<\/p>\n

Circinus has seen a boon in business since Trump took office. In addition to the more than $4 million in U.S. defense contracts it inked in late 2017, Broidy\u2019s company has secured\u00a0a reported $200 million<\/a>\u00a0in deals with the state-owned Romanian defense company Romarm. That\u2019s in addition to the $600 million contract Broidy secured with the UAE, which came after two Oval Office meetings with Trump in late 2017 where Broidy lobbied the president on several fronts favorable to the Emiratis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trump isn\u2019t draining the swamp. Trump is <\/em><\/strong>the swamp!<\/p>\n

Broidy also worked a California Republican congressman by the name of Rep. Ed Royce, on behalf of Romania.<\/p>\n

Royce is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

Royce visited Romania in August 2017 \u2013 more coincidences, here \u2013 at the same time Broidy happened to be, in, of all places, Romania.<\/p>\n

The contract with Romarm came right after.<\/p>\n

Broidy wasn\u2019t done with Royce. He pressed him to take a harder stance against Qatar, as well, on behalf of the Saudis and the Emirates. He later boasted about how he\u2019d managed to force Royce to be critical of Qatar.<\/p>\n

Royce\u2014who received the maximum legal campaign contribution from Broidy\u2014eventually backed legislation critical of Qatar.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good grief. That\u2019s blatant.<\/p>\n

Broidy\u2019s emails were hacked, which is a whole, other problem. From those emails, we get a picture of just how busy 2017 was for he and his company.<\/p>\n

In August, Broidy tried to influence a Justice Department investigation into the Malaysian state-run company 1MBD, according to the emails. Included in the hacked correspondences was a draft of a contract that would have netted Broidy $75 million if the Justice Department investigation came to an end, according to emails\u00a0obtained by\u00a0<\/a>The Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0Broidy\u2019s attorney denied his client tried to insert himself into the investigation.<\/p>\n

But in addition to his direct access to Trump, Broidy also has a relationship with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who sought Broidy\u2019s recommendations for U.S. attorney nominees shortly after Trump was elected,\u00a0ProPublica reported<\/a>. Broidy, a lifelong venture capitalist with interest in developing movies, has no background in legal work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The emails further showed how he used his access to Trump, in order to enrich himself through his benefactors in Saudi Arabia and Iran.<\/p>\n

In October 2017, Broidy sent an email to his new partner, George Nader (another name you can expect to hear more of). Apparently, he really wanted to get rid of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who he saw as \u201cinsufficiently hostile\u201d to Qatar.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cPresident Trump asked me about the job Rex was doing,\u201d Broidy reported to Nader following the meeting. \u201cI responded that he was performing poorly and should be relieved but only at a good time, politically.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are a lot of stories about Broidy out there, right now. Don\u2019t expect this to be the last of them. I have a feeling what drops next will likely outdo even this.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You should get used to hearing the name \u201cElliot Broidy.\u201d Things surrounding Donald Trump\u2019s old pal and associate are starting to pick up \u2013 and not in a good way. On Monday, news of the money-making deal between Broidy and George Nader, as they lobbied against Qatar, on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3473,"featured_media":578,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,272,239,200,203],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-donald-trump","tag-elliot-broidy","tag-qatar","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-united-arab-emirates"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump Pal Used Access to Trump to Push Policy and Gain Large Government Contracts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Elliot Broidy is said to have received a record-profitable contract from the Pentagon, through his access to President Trump.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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