Although he could have pocketed up to $75 million if his efforts were successful, he told a federal jury, he ended up with less: an $8 million retainer and a $1 million “appearance fee” for the trip in Thailand for a secret meeting.
Broidy, who pleaded guilty in 2020 to conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and was later pardoned by President Donald Trump, is cooperating with the Justice Department in criminal cases involving Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho and his associates. including the United States. Authorities said Low and others benefited from the theft of $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Low, 41, is a fugitive, while one of his associates, Prakazrel “Pras” Michél, a former member of the Grammy Award-winning 1990s hip-hop trio the Fugees, is on trial in US District Court in Washington, which accused of money laundering and other federal crimes related to his dealings with the missing Malaysian businessman. Michél, 50, has denied any wrongdoing.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Broidy, then a Los Angeles-based investor, lobbied major donors to support the Trump campaign. After Trump took office in 2017, Broidy was appointed as the deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Testifying for the prosecution Tuesday at Michél’s trial, he told the jury about a labyrinthine scheme, hatched in 2017, in which he stood to collect up to $75 million from Low in return for illegal use of his influence on Trump. administration to ease Low’s legal problems. Part of the convoluted plan — which Broidy said was brokered by Michél — involved persuading officials to return the dissident Chinese national to Beijing. But the efforts came to naught.
Broidy expressed no apparent remorse on the witness stand as he described the illegal lobbying in mostly clinical terms. Under questioning by a prosecutor, he repeatedly used phrases like “business opportunity” and “deal terms.” Regarding helping Low, he referred to using “my relations in the administration with the president and others who may be relevant.”
Authorities said Low was a leader of a small circle of kleptocrats in Kuala Lumpur who stole from the Malaysian fund known as 1MDB. In the United States, beginning in the late 2000s, he spent tens of millions of dollars on wild parties and showered lavish gifts on many of the celebrities — actors, musicians, socialites — he cultivated as acquaintances. .
As for Michél, after the Fugees broke up in 1997 and his solo career as a rapper waned, he reinvented himself in the 2000s as a private-equity investor, eventually becoming a business associate and close associate of Low’s , according to prosecutors.
By 2017, the FBI and Justice Department were closing in on Low, conducting a criminal investigation related to the 1MDB scandal and bringing a major civil action against him, seeking to seize hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten asset. That’s when Low turned to Broidy, described by the prosecution as “the fixer.”
Broidy testified that he, Michél and another business associate flew to Thailand in the spring of 2017 to secretly meet with Low. Broidy said he later agreed to lobby the Trump administration, seeking to short-circuit federal legal actions, for a fee of either $50 million or $75 million, depending on how long he was successful. .
He told the jury that he tried, through intermediaries, to persuade top administration officials into believing it was be it is detrimental to US-Malaysian relations for the Justice Department to continue to involve itself in the 1MDB matter. He said he tried to arrange for Trump to play a round of golf with then-Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak so Razak could tell Trump the 1MDB scandal was not significant.
Razak was later sentenced to prison in Malaysia for his role in the embezzlement.
After his efforts failed, Broidy said, he met Low again in 2017, in mainland China. He said the meeting included a top Chinese domestic security official.
Low seems to think that the Chinese authorities can somehow help him with his legal problems, and because of that, Low wants to please the Chinese people. Broidy said Low and the security official asked him to use his influence with the Trump administration to secure the extradition of wealthy Chinese national Guo Wengui, an outspoken critic of the Chinese government who lives in New York under a temporary visa.
The security officer described Guo as a criminal, Broidy said.
The official said that in exchange for Guo’s deportation, China would release American detainees in its custody and possibly enter into a new cooperation agreement with the United States on cybersecurity issues. Broidy said he conveyed this to various officials in Washington, including the White House, who told then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus that extraditing Guo would be “an incredible step forward” in US-China relations.
But these efforts also failed.
In the end, even though Guo was not deported, Michél received “more than $70 million” from Low, according to prosecutors. Guo was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York in an unrelated financial fraud case.
In April 2018, Broidy quit his position on the Republican National Committee after it was reported that he had paid the former Playboy model $1.6 million in exchange for her silence about an affair. Then, as the FBI’s investigation into Low intensified, he was charged in 2020 with illegal lobbying and pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors.
The agreement called for him to cooperate with federal prosecutors. And he says he continues to do so, despite Trump’s pardon. After the pardon, Broidy said, he signed a new deal with prosecutors, agreeing to maintain his cooperation in exchange for not being charged with various crimes related to illegal lobbying.
