$189,000 later in donations to the Republican National Committee and convicted felon George Nader was able to take a picture with Donald Trump.
According to the AP, Nader was convicted for sexually abusing minors:
As a young Lebanese immigrant to the U.S. in the 1980s, he quickly established himself as a forceful independent operator, founding a policy magazine called Middle East Insight. By the ’90s, he had risen as a behind-the-scenes player, setting up dinners for Israeli and Arab dignitaries with Washington power brokers and U.S. lawmakers.
But in May 2003, Nader was convicted in the Czech Republic of 10 counts of sexually abusing minors and sentenced to a one-year prison term, the AP revealed in March.
He served his time in Prague, according to Czech authorities, then was expelled from the country.
In March of this year, Politico reported that Nader had a 1991 conviction in Virginia, for transporting sexually explicit materials in foreign commerce.
A 1985 case against Nader was thrown out because of an invalid search warrant, but the information Politico reported about that case is troubling to say the least.
Nader received a six-month sentence from a federal court in Northern Virginia in 1991 on a felony charge of transporting sexually explicit materials in foreign commerce, according to the newly released records and to prison records POLITICO obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton also imposed a $2,000 fine on Nader, the records show.
Details of the Virginia case have not been previously reported, but it was known that Nader faced a similar charge in federal court in Washington in 1985 involving allegations of importing from the Netherlands magazines depicting nude boys. A judge dismissed those charges after ruling that the search warrant issued for Nader’s home was invalid.
The 1985 case stemmed from a shipment Nader received of film and various magazines that authorities said depicted “pre and post pubescent boys” engaged in sexual acts. Some of the magazine titles listed in court papers are so blunt as to leave little doubt they involved underage children. A search warrant also produced evidence that Nader had “corresponded with several young boys and saved their letters,” prosecutors wrote.
The 1991 indictment came after customs inspectors at Dulles International Airport found two sexually explicit videotapes in Nader’s luggage as he arrived on a Lufthansa flight from Germany. A pediatrician consulted by the government said the boys in the videos were about 13 or 14 years old.
Are Republican family values for sale?
The Secret Service was ignored as well, as they told Trump super fundraiser Elliot Broidy that Nader was not allowed to meet Trump. It appears this didn’t matter to Broidy or the money hungry Republican National Committee.
According to the Associated Press, the US Secret Service had explicitly told Broidy, who was co-hosting a fundraiser for Trump and the Republican National Committee in October 2017, that Nader was not allowed to meet Trump.
The exact reason why was unclear, the AP said, but it may have stemmed from Nader's past conviction on pedophilia charges in Europe, of which he was given a one-year jail sentence in the Czech Republic in 2003.
RNC officials reportedly said no one could take a photo with Trump without donating to the campaign. Broidy reportedly suggested to Nader that a donation of $100,000 to $250,000 would be enough to score the coveted photo.
Nader got the photo, which shows him with Trump, grinning in front of the American flag.
On November 30, Broidy donated $189,000 to the RNC. At the time, that was more money than he had given to the Republican Party in his over two decades of fundraising for Republicans, the AP said.
My questions would be:
Why was the Secret Service ignored?
Why was this allowed to happen?
If there was any question here that this was a bad idea, then why the picture?
Answer: Massive donations to the RNC trumps all.