GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy believes Qatar hack exposed Playmate affair

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Shera Bechard attends the 31st Annual Genie Awards Gala at the National Arts Centre on March 10, 2011 in Ottawa, Canada.

The AP article said that in exchange for their efforts, Broidy and Nader “expected huge consulting contracts” from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two nations that are hostile to Qatar. The article is based in part on “hundreds of pages of leaked emails between the two men.”

The AP noted that neither Broidy nor Nader had registered with the U.S. government as lobbyists working for foreign governments. Broidy has said he was not required to do so because his actions opposing Qatar were on his own accord.

Broidy’s amended lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles federal court, claims that Qatar targeted Broidy because of his “outspoken criticism” against the Arab state due to its “support for terrorism.”

The amended suit adds as defendants Mohammed bin Hamad Khalifa al Thani, who is the brother of the emir of Qatar, as well as Ahmed al Ruhmaihi, who was responsible for $100 billion belonging to the Qatar Investment Authority.

New York-based corporate intelligence firm Global Risk Advisors, and its principals, Kevin Chalker and David Mark Powell, are also now listed as defendants in Broidy’s suit.

The suit says that sometime before Dec. 27, 2017, Qatar or one of its agents retained Global Risk Advisors “to coordinate an offensive cyber and information operation” against Broidy and his company, “including by infiltrating” Broidy’s computer networks in Los Angeles and by gaining access to Google email accounts of people connected to Broidy, his wife among them.

“We believe the evidence is clear that a nation-state is waging a sophisticated cyber information campaign against me in order to silence me,” Broidy said in a prepared statement. “We believe it is also clear that I have been targeted because of my strong political views against Qatar’s state-sponsored terrorism and double-dealing, and the fact that I was not shy about expressing my views.”