Trump’s Swamp Creatures
The new Washington, D.C., is awash in foreign money and shady lobbyists — and Elliott Broidy fit right in
A special report from the capital finds it awash in foreign money and swampier than ever.
At 3:45 p.m. on October 6th, 2017, an unassuming man in his early sixties with a low, raspy voice and a thin, wide smile arrived at the White House. He had been here before, in the George W. Bush years, when he was one of the most sought-after fundraisers in the Republican Party. But a scandal had derailed his life, and afterward he had disappeared from politics. In early 2016, the opportunity arose to make his return. The man had helped Donald J. Trump’s long-shot campaign raise millions of dollars, and he could rightly say he played a role in the most improbable presidential victory in American history. Now, Elliott Broidy had come to deliver an urgent message. After a brief visit with Jared Kushner, he was summoned to meet the president in the Oval Office.
Broidy told Trump about a recent trip he’d taken to the United Arab Emirates, the small but wealthy Persian Gulf nation, on behalf of a defense-contracting company he owned. Broidy raved about the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s de facto leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, known as MBZ, whom he had met with while in the Emirates. He said that MBZ and Mohammed bin Salman, the young crown prince of Saudi Arabia, were creating an all-Muslim counterterrorism force made up of 5,000 Arab soldiers to fight against the Taliban and ISIS. With the help of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Broidy said, his company would assist the UAE and Saudi Arabia to train and assist those pan-Arab fighters.
Trump loved the idea. As far as he knew, Broidy had business interests in the Middle East and had briefed the president as a courtesy. What Trump didn’t know — and Broidy didn’t disclose, according to his detailed notes about the meeting obtained by Rolling Stone — was that Broidy was also waging a secretive, multimillion-dollar PR and influence campaign in Washington, D.C., to persuade the Trump ad- ministration to punish Qatar, an enemy of the UAE and Saudi Arabia — but an ally of the U.S.
Broidy’s operation came with code names (Trump was “Chairman,” MBZ “Friend,” Qatar the “snake”), convoluted money trails and a shadowy liaison to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The liaison urged Broidy to make the most of his time with Trump (his “priceless asset”) and reiterated MBZ’s wishes in an email sent to Broidy a few days before the Oval Office meeting. “Again, take advantage of it to tell him that Friend would like to come asap to meet you [Trump] SOONEST out of official site,” the go-between wrote in a long email. The two crown princes “are counting on you to relate it blunt and straight as it is! . . . Tomorrow is a Pivotal and could turn out to be a Historical and milestone meeting!”
Broidy did as he was told, telling Trump that MBZ stood ready to travel to the U.S. for a meeting but would prefer a more private setting than the Oval Office. Broidy recommended New York or New Jersey. When Trump asked Broidy for his thoughts about Qatar, Broidy slammed the Qataris as financial supporters of terrorism and included them with North Korea and Iran in a new “axis of evil.”
Trump smiled and nodded. He had reason to champion Broidy’s cause. Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia had long been loyal customers of his. The Saudis “buy all sorts of my stuff,” Trump said in 2015, and a massive Trump-branded golf course had r ecently opened in Dubai, in the UAE. The meeting was nearing its end, but the president had one last question for Broidy: What did he think of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson? Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil CEO, had shown support for the Qataris. In private, Broidy had seethed at Tillerson, calling him “a tower of Jello.” Broidy told Trump that Tillerson was “performing poorly” and should be fired at a “politically convenient time.”
Broidy then met with H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, to push for the private, informal meeting with Trump that MBZ wanted. The sun was starting to set when Broidy left the White House, confident he’d delivered his message. The crown princes were thrilled. Not long after, the liaison emailed him, “You have become a HERO here and at KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia], to say the least.”
Depending on where you stood, Trump’s election posed either an existential threat to the American experiment or the business opportunity of a lifetime. The thousands of lawyers, former congressional staffers and retired lawmakers who ply their trade as lobbyists had spent two years preparing for a Clinton administration. “If you went around town and told these lobbying firms you supported Trump, it was like a hate crime,” says Tom Davis, a former lobbyist and onetime Virginia congressman. “Trump threw out the book. He brought in a whole new crowd. The players changed, and the rules changed.”
Overnight, Trump’s small circle of friends and loyalists became extremely valuable. They could speak Trump’s language, explain him, influence him. Or at least that’s what they told the blue-chip corporations and foreign governments scrambling to find someone to help them navigate the new administration. “There’s, like, five people who bet on the long shot and won,” a seasoned GOP operative told me. “The day after the election, those five people all think they’re the biggest fucking swinging dicks in the universe. I’m the guy who can make all your dreams come true now.”
That’s where Elliott Broidy came in. Broidy set out to cash in on his connections to the new administration with breathtaking speed and audacity. In the aftermath of Trump’s win, Broidy, who landed a coveted spot as a vice-chair for Trump’s inauguration committee, used his ties to the president-elect to pitch his defense-contracting company, Circinus LLC, to foreign leaders. He invited two senior Angolan officials