government to take action against the Muslim Brotherhood or put pressure on its regional ally, Qatar.”2 Nader soon arranges a meeting between Broidy and MBZ, whereafter Broidy signs contracts with the UAE worth “several hundred million dollars”—ostensibly for services to be rendered by Broidy’s mercenary company.3
That “Saudi and Emirati objectives in Washington” include lobbying the U.S. government to “take action against the Muslim Brotherhood” is in alignment with a major concern of Egyptian president and Red Sea conspirator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as is an ancillary effort—cheered by both Nader and Broidy in their emails to each other—to block former United States ambassador to Cairo and then assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs Anne Patterson from getting a job at the Pentagon.4 According to the New York Times, MBZ, MBS, el-Sisi, Nader, and Broidy all consider Patterson “too sympathetic” to one of el-Sisi’s chief enemies, deposed and imprisoned Egyptian president and Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Morsi; on June 17, 2019, the democratically elected president will die mysteriously of a “heart attack” in an Egyptian court just days, according to the Middle East Eye, after the el-Sisi administration gives the incarcerated politician an ultimatum—disband the Muslim Brotherhood or face dire consequences—that Morsi refuses.5
From the time of their first meeting onward, writes the New York Times, Broidy and Nader “work[] to sway the Trump administration on behalf of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia at a time when Mr. Broidy [is] seeking contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the two countries.”6 Broidy and Nader even jointly lobby the White House on an issue important to the Malaysians and Chinese when they discover the possibility of Emirati kickbacks in doing so. They consistently find an amenable bargaining partner in the president—who must quickly see that MBZ and MBS have found, in UAE adviser Nader and GOP mega-donor Broidy, their preferred conduits for continuing their pre-election relationship with Trump and his staffers.7
As he is lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, one of Broidy’s side projects sees him seeking “billions” in oil, gas, and mining assets in Angola while helping Angolan politicians gain access to both Republicans in Congress and members of the Trump administration.8 Broidy is aided in this effort by Lisa Korbatov—the same Trump associate whose parents in 2007 sold “small-time scam artist” Mokless Girgis a mansion under suspicious circumstances, with the final stages of the transaction accruing to Trump’s benefit in an effortless $9.5 million profit in just twelve months.9 Korbatov’s arrangement with Broidy’s private security firm in the Angola affair promises her a 3 percent finder’s fee of any security contract Broidy’s security company, Circinus, signs.10 While wooing the Angolans, Broidy scores multiple tickets to Trump’s inauguration and entices his clients with possible meetings with President Trump, Vice President Pence, and defense secretary Jim Mattis, the last of whom has been an “unpaid adviser” to MBZ in the past.11
On April 3, 2017, at a time it would have been clear to both Trump and his top aides that Broidy had been acting as an agent of MBZ and MBS, Trump names the former Trump Victory Committee vice chairman (and presidential inaugural committee vice chairman) the new national deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.12 Trump’s decision significantly increases the ability of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to access top GOP officials.
By May 2019, a series of scandals involving Broidy—already a convict from a 2009 federal charge of “rewarding official misconduct”—leads the Republican Party to scrub its webpage announcing Broidy’s appointment as one of its top finance officials.13 In 2018, Al Jazeera writes critically of Broidy’s “history of bribery and pro-Israel advocacy,” and indeed it is in 2018 that the media outlet publishes allegations that Broidy has secretly worked as an unregistered agent for a Russian principal since June 12, 2014, when he took on a multimillion-dollar lobbying contract with VTB, a Russian bank eventually subjected to U.S. sanctions; Al Jazeera’s allegations include publication of the purported consultancy agreement between Broidy and VTB.14 Of the six countries in the “expanded” Red Sea Conspiracy—including Russia and Israel as well as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt—Broidy’s lobbying history shows him working at various points on behalf of foreign nationals or entities from four of these.
As part of Broidy’s 2014 contract with VTB, he commits to offer the Russian bank “political advocacy” in Washington, among other services such as well-informed “investment advice.”15 Al Jazeera reports that Broidy’s lobbying on behalf