dbo:abstract
- Elliott B. Broidy (born 1956/1957) is an American venture capitalist and businessman. From 2005 to 2008, he served as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC). In 2009, he was convicted in a public corruption and bribery case in New York. From 2017 to April 2018 he was a deputy finance chairman of the RNC, resigning after The Wall Street Journal reported that he had been a party to a non-disclosure agreement with former Playboy Playmate Shera Bechard, under which he paid $1.6 million for her silence about a sexual affair between them. As of May 2019, the United States Department of Justice was investigating Broidy's business and political dealings. In October 2020, Broidy pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent working for Chinese and Malaysian interests. He sought to lobby the highest levels of the U.S. Government to deport a dissident of the People's Republic of China (PRC) living in the United States, and tried to arrange meetings for a PRC Minister with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and other high-level officials during the PRC Minister's visit to the United States, all while concealing the foreign principals he represented. He had been charged as part of a federal probe into efforts to influence the Trump administration to stop investigations about a 1MDB Malaysian state fund fraud. On January 20, 2021, Broidy was pardoned by President Donald Trump. (en)