On May 24, CNBC published a story with the headline: GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy says an alleged computer hack by Qatar agents led to the exposure of his affair with Playboy Playmate. Yes, this is real life, and no, the headline is not even the interesting part.
Quick background:
Broidy is suing the nation of Qatar, among others, for illegally accessing his emails and releasing information obtained from those emails to media outlets in order to fuel negative stories about him (like this one); Broidy claims that this is being done in retaliation for his criticisms of Qatar and its “support for terrorism”. A copy of the initial complaint can be found here.
Broidy also recently made headlines for his $1.6MM relationship with Shera Bechard, a former Playmate who probably had an affair with Trump, aka David Dennison (I wrote about the complete lack of substance to Broidy’s “confession” last week).
It appears that someone at CNBC saw the two Broidy stories and decided to see if the stories were connected. A reporter then called Broidy’s attorneys and asked whether Broidy thought the hacked emails led to the exposure of his payments to Bechard.
Broidy’s attorneys sent CNBC’s request to Broidy’s spokesperson, Harvey Englander, who called CNBC back on Wednesday (3/24) and left a voicemail saying that the lawyers had “passed along your message to me, and the answer is ‘yes.’”
A CNBC reporter and Englander then spoke by phone on Thursday (3/25), and in this conversation Englander claimed that Broidy “absolutely” believed that Qatar’s actions against him led to the public revelation of the payments to Bechard.
None of this is especially surprising. This whole thing is pretty nuts, and Broidy and his team taking advantage of every opportunity to bash Qatar in the press is pretty much a given. It’s not true that Qatar was involved here, of course, since the source for the WSJ article was pretty obviously someone with ties to Cohen, and Broidy was an active participant in that story, but still, “it was all Qatar’s fault” is a pretty standard line here.
Here is where things get interesting. On Thursday afternoon, after the conversation with Englander, CNBC published its story. The original story is not especially noteworthy: “Guy (who is literally suing Qatar because Qatar is mad about how he always says bad things about Qatar) says bad things about Qatar.”
On Friday morning (3/26), Harvey Englander, Broidy’s spokesperson, sent the following email to CNBC:
I specifically deny having told you, on or off the record, that Mr. Broidy believes that the computer hack by Qatar led to the exposure of his affair with Ms. Bechard...
I specifically said …that I could not speak to the mindset or beliefs of other people and that I had not spoken with Mr. Broidy about that specific question.
Couple of points here:
First, CNBC clearly stands by the original presentation of its conversation with Englander and is not concerned about accusations of misrepresentation; new paragraphs were added to the story, but the prior statements attributed to him and the headline were not changed. And the sentence, “After this story was published Thursday, Englander denied making the statements attributed to him,” is the journalistic equivalent of “Go F Yourself”.
Second, this is a person whose title is literally “Spokesperson” claiming that “I could not speak to the mindset or beliefs of other people”. You have one job! Speaking to the mindset of other people is your whole deal! He also apparently did not bother to provide CNBC with an updated, accurate representation of Broidy’s views on the matter, despite presumably haven spoken to him by this point.
It’s also pretty curious to me that they aren’t even bothering to claim that Qatar was responsible in any way, since most of the damages in the lawsuit are speculative whereas this is a clear $1.6MM actual loss.
Clearly, at some point Thursday night or Friday morning, someone explained to Englander that Bechard is an area that requires very light treading...the question is why.
My theory:
Assuming that the WSJ article is correct and the Bechard NDA tracts closely with the Stormy Daniels NDA, the only time that Bechard/Daniels are contractually permitted to disclose confidential information is “if compelled to do so by legal process”. Additionally, Bechard/Daniels must use best efforts to avoid the disclosure (which means that Daniels’ attorney cannot voluntarily arrange for Daniels to testify and then claim that she was “compelled” to do so).
However, Qatar, et al., could certainly compel Bechard to testify about the NDA and anything covered by the NDA, and Bechard could speak openly about it without any risk of violating the terms of the agreement, keep her $1.6MM, and avoid any penalties for breach. Publicly tying the Bechard payments to the Qatar litigation risks making the details behind the NDA public...and apparently someone wants to make sure that does not happen.
Edit: I’ve written a very large post on why I think this story is extremely significant:
Shera Bechard, Elliott Broidy, and the Inevitable End of a Presidency
Edit #2: Bechard is suing Broidy (and others). My thoughts:
The Shera Bechard Lawsuit (and who it failed to include, and why)
(x-posted here)