A major Republican donor resigned as deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) Friday after reports revealed he gave a former Playboy model $1.6 million to be quiet about their relationship, The New York Times reported Friday.
Republican donor Elliott Broidy would pay the former model under the deal in installments over the course of two years if she stayed quiet about their relationship, according to TheNYT report, which is based on anonymous sourcing. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, arranged the 2017 deal.
Broidy apologized to his wife after The Wall Street Journal first reported on the affair Friday. “She alone decided that she did not want to continue with the pregnancy, and I offered to help her financially during this difficult period,” Broidy said in a statement following both reports. The woman became pregnant during the affair.
The woman’s lawyer, Keith Davidson, also represents porn actress Stephanie Clifford — otherwise known as “Stormy Daniels” — and another former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who sold the rights to her story about an alleged affair she had with Trump. Clifford received a $130,000 payment to keep quiet about an alleged affair she also had with the president in 2005.
Broidy was a major fund-raiser for George W. Bush. He became Trump’s inaugural committee vice chairman and had an Oval Office meeting with the president in October 2017, according to documents TheNYT obtained.
Broidy urged Trump to fire Rex Tillerson, then the secretary of state, whom the United Arab Emirates (UAE) believed was insufficiently tough on its rival Qatar. UAE gave Broidy’s security company a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
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