A former leading fundraiser for President Donald Trump has been indicted on a charge that he illegally lobbied the US government to drop its probe into the Malaysia 1MDB corruption scandal and to deport an exiled Chinese billionaire.

Elliott Broidy was charged in Washington federal court with one count of conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent after allegedly agreeing to take millions of dollars to lobby the Trump administration.

The indictment, made public Thursday, said Broidy was recruited in 2017 by an unnamed foreign national, understood to be Malaysian Low Taek Jho, to pressure US officials to end their investigation of a scandal engulfing then Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak.

The scandal involved the theft of over $4.5 billion from state investment fund 1MDB, and Low was allegedly central to moving and hiding some of the stolen funds.

At the time Broidy was national deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee after having been a major fundraiser for Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign.

After being recruited by Low, Broidy personally asked Trump to invite Najib to play golf during the Malaysian leader's September 2017 visit to the United States, the indictment said.

The goal was to give Najib a chance "to attempt to resolve the 1MDB matter" with the US leader, the document said.

The golf game never happened, and Low was indicted in 2018 for his role in siphoning off billions from 1MDB.

Low, who has also been charged in Malaysia over the scandal, has consistently denied any wrongdoing. His current whereabouts are unknown.

In addition, in May 2017 Low introduced Broidy to a Chinese state minister, and they discussed Beijing's desire that Washington deport an exiled Chinese tycoon, the indictment said.

It did not name either person, but the tycoon is known to be Guo Wengui, a prominent dissident businessman.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese official was Sun Lijun, at the time Beijing's powerful vice minister of public security.

The indictment describes Broidy's intense lobbying of the White House, the Justice Department and law enforcement on behalf of the Chinese, including contacts with but not direct discussions with Trump.

The object of the lobbying conspiracy, the indictment said, was "to make millions of dollars by leveraging Broidy's access to and perceived influence with the president and his administration."

The indictment came just weeks after a key partner of Low and Broidy, Hawaii businesswoman Nickie Mali Lum Davis, pleaded guilty to a charge of illegal lobbying both on the 1MDB case and the Guo case.

Guo remains in the United States, where he has continued to campaign against Beijing authorities, working closely with another longtime Trump associate, Steve Bannon.

Bannon was arrested in August while aboard Guo's yacht off the coast of Connecticut and charged with defrauding donors to a Mexican border wall project.

Facebook bars deceptive campaign from pro-Trump group
San Francisco (AFP) Oct 8, 2020 - Facebook on Thursday said it derailed a campaign using fake accounts to praise US President Donald Trump as part of its latest crackdown on orchestrated deception.

The social network has banned US marketing firm Rally Forge, which coordinated the "inauthentic behavior" on behalf of the pro-Trump youth group Turning Point USA and Inclusive Conservation Group, according to head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher.

Activity at the bogus accounts mostly involved commenting on news articles rather than posting their own content, according to Facebook.

The campaign included criticism of the Democratic party and its presidential candidate former vice president Joe Biden and praise of Trump and the Republican party, according to Facebook.

The network appeared to have started its operations in 2018, having take aim previously at the midterm elections in the US, the social network said.

Facebook removed 200 accounts and 55 pages at the social network and 76 Instagram accounts it said were part of the deception campaign and violated policy against coordinated inauthentic behavior

About 373,000 accounts followed one or more of the campaign's Facebook pages and around 22,000 people followed one or more of the Instagram accounts, according to the social network.

"Many of these accounts used stock profile photos and posed as right-leaning individuals from across the US," Facebook said.

In 2018, some of the accounts posed as people with left-leaning views to make comments about news articles or public figures.

"Although the people behind this network attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation linked this activity to Rally Forge," Gleicher said.

"Rally Forge is now banned from Facebook. We are continuing to investigate all linked networks, and will take action as appropriate if we determine they are engaged in deceptive behavior."

- Recruiting teens -

Facebook's investigation into the network was triggered by Washington Post reports about some elements of the campaign, according to Gleicher.

According to the report, Rally Forge enlisted teenagers to coordinate pro-Trump posts across social media in a secretive operation in a campaign organized by Turning Point, a group led by vocal Trump supporter Charlie Kirk.

Nearly a million dollars was spent by Rally Forge on advertising, with not all of those marketing messages connected to the deception campaign, according to Facebook.

While not formally linked to the Trump campaign, Turning Point -- which says it is active at more than 1,500 universities across the country -- has organized events for the president.

As automated systems thwarted fake accounts, those behind the campaign shifted to "less thinly veiled" methods such as variations on real names to appear more authentic, according to Gleicher.

"We see these actors increasingly caught between a rock and a hard place, which makes them easier to catch," Gleicher said.

"We know they will continue to try to mislead people, including by making opinions seem more common than they are."

Comments about trophy or sport hunting by the faked accounts -- supposedly aimed at inflating the perception of support for the activity -- were aimed mostly at the US, and a bit at people in Kenya and Botswana, Gleicher said.

Gleicher said Facebook efforts to ferret out campaigns of deception is forcing those behind them to work harder to evade defenses.

Operations being removed appear to be younger, with fewer followers, than campaigns uncovered in the past, he added.

"We see them using tactics that take much more time to develop, like building a credible seeming organization across networks and giving it a back story," Gleicher said.

He renewed Facebook's call for elected leaders to determine the proper line between political advocacy and deception when it comes to what content should be deemed unacceptable online.

"That is a societal challenge that we think requires legislation," Gleicher said.

Related Links
Democracy in the 21st century at TerraDaily.com

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