Elliot Broidy, Scandal-Tarred GOP Money Man, Loses Qatar Lawsuit
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A former top fundraiser for President Trump suffered another legal setback on Friday in his efforts to pin the blame on Qatar for a hack of his emails when a judge tossed his lawsuit against a veteran United Nations diplomat.
Elliott Broidy, a businessman who held senior finance posts in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and his inaugural committee, sued Jamal Benomar in July, claiming he orchestrated the dissemination of hacked emails to media outlets.
Benomar, a British citizen born in Morocco and a former U.N. special envoy for Yemen, had denied involvement and sought to get the lawsuit thrown out by asserting diplomatic immunity, a status confirmed by the Trump administration last month.
Siding with Benomar, Manhattan federal District Judge Cathy Siebel on Friday dismissed the case, court records show.
“To be clear, I have never spoken with nor met Elliott Broidy. I never was involved in any hacking scheme,” Benomar said in a statement applauding the court decision.
Broidy, who has claimed he was targeted by Qatar and its agents over his efforts to shift U.S. policy against the Persian Gulf nation, plans to appeal the decision, his lawyer said.
Broidy was ensnared in a hush money scandal when he hired ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to broker a $1.6 million payoff to a Playboy model who said he impregnated her and bullied her into getting an abortion.
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