UAE adviser sent money to a Trump fundraiser
WASHINGTON — Elliott Broidy, a fundraiser for President Donald Trump, said he has been outspoken for years about militant groups.
His comments to The Associated Press came amid an AP investigation that said he received millions of dollars from a political adviser to the United Arab Emirates last April, just weeks before he began handing out a series of large political donations to U.S. lawmakers considering legislation targeting Qatar, the UAE’s chief rival in the Persian Gulf.
George Nader, an adviser to the UAE who is now a witness in the U.S. special counsel investigation into foreign meddling in American politics, wired $2.5 million to Broidy through a company in Canada, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
They said Nader gave the money to Broidy to bankroll an effort to persuade the U.S. to take a hard line against Qatar, a longtime American ally but now a bitter adversary of the UAE. But the transaction was invoiced for consulting, marketing and advisory services.
A month after he received the money routed through Canada, Broidy sponsored a conference on Qatar’s alleged ties to Islamic extremism.
During the event, Republican Congressman Ed Royce of California, the chairman of the House foreign affairs committee, announced he was introducing legislation that would brand Qatar as a terrorist-supporting state.
“I’ve both raised money for, and contributed my own money to efforts by think tanks to bring the facts into the open, since Qatar is spreading millions of dollars around Washington to whitewash its image as a terror-sponsoring state,” Broidy said in a statement to The Associated Press.
The original draft considered by the foreign affairs committee contained language singling out Qatar. The U.S. has long been friendly with Saudi Arabia and the UAE as well as Qatar, which is home to a massive American air base that the U.S. has used in its fight against the Islamic State. But tensions in the Gulf came to a head when the UAE and Saudi Arabia launched an embargo with travel and trade restrictions against Qatar less than two weeks after Royce introduced the sanctions legislation in the U.S. House.
According to two people familiar with the committee deliberations, both Republican and Democratic staff members reached a consensus after the bill was introduced that because of the tensions in the Gulf, the language would look like the lawmakers were taking sides. They agreed to take it out of the bill.
But just before the bill was to be put up for debate ahead of the committee’s vote, Royce ordered the language on Qatar not only reinstated, but strengthened, they say. The bill was approved by the committee in November with the stronger language intact.
In July 2017, two months after Royce introduced the bill, Broidy gave the Congressman $5,400 in campaign gifts — the maximum allowed by law. The donations were part of just under $600,000 that Broidy has given to GOP members of Congress and Republican political committees since he began the push for the legislation fingering Qatar, according to an AP analysis of campaign finance disclosures.
Meanwhile, Broidy and his wife, Robin Rosenzweig, filed a lawsuit Monday against Qatar and lobbyists working for Qatar, alleging they hacked his and his wife’s emails as part of the ongoing battle between the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Broidy and Rosenzweig allege that hackers from Qatar broke into their email accounts at the start of this year and Qatar’s lobbying team in Washington, then pushed the emails to journalists around the city in an effort to discredit Broidy.
The Qatar Embassy said in a statement the lawsuit is “without merit or fact” and is “a transparent attempt to divert attention from U.S. media reports about his activities.”