Disgraced former RNC Finance Chair Elliott Broidy claims the special counsel’s office used email and text messages a retired CIA operative hacked from his computer for the state of Qatar. But according to a lawyer on Robert Mueller’s team, they never investigated the hack.
Broidy’s accusations and the supporting sworn declarations filed in his lawsuit against the alleged hacker suggest the underbelly of foreign lobbying now includes Middle Eastern foes engaging in commercial espionage to sway American foreign policy — with prosecutors ignoring the potential crimes unless they can take down a Republican.
In the midst of Mueller’s investigation into Donald Trump, prosecutor Zainab Ahmad questioned multiple witnesses about Broidy, a former top Republican fundraiser with connections to Trump and the Republican National Committee, according to recently filed declarations sworn under penalty of perjury. The special counsel’s interest in Broidy followed a series of damning high-profile articles about the then-RNC deputy finance chair based on material allegedly hacked from his computer.
The Wall Street Journal, for instance, reported Broidy “was in negotiations to earn tens of millions of dollars if the U.S. Justice Department dropped its investigation into a multibillion-dollar graft scandal involving a Malaysian state investment fund.” The New York Times published another article based on a purportedly hacked memorandum summarizing a private meeting between Broidy and Trump, in which Broidy allegedly lobbied the then-president to meet privately with the United Arab Emirates’ “de factor ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan; to back the U.A.E.’s hawkish policies
