Elliott Broidy Pleads Guilty in Foreign Lobbying Case

When Mr. Trump won, Mr. Broidy began aggressively promoting his connections to the new administration to politicians, business executives and governments around the world. His defense company won big contracts from the United Arab Emirates and Angola. And Mr. Broidy discussed the possibility of a visit to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private resort in Florida, for an Angolan politician from whom he was seeking to collect additional payments.

Mr. Broidy’s guilty plea relates to only his work on behalf of Malaysian and Chinese interests.

But Judge Kollar-Kotelly said that prosecutors intended to introduce evidence at Mr. Broidy’s sentencing related to his efforts “to obtain business from a Middle Eastern country,” which is most likely the United Arab Emirates, and his “efforts to influence U.S. policy toward a second Middle Eastern country,” which is known to be Qatar.

Prosecutors also said on Tuesday that additional charges “may be filed in this case,” citing “the pending nature of some of the other co-conspirators in this case and their cases.”

Some of Mr. Broidy’s associates in the scheme with Mr. Low have already been charged, including Nickie Lum Davis, a fund-raiser who pleaded guilty in August and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Another, George Higginbotham, a former Justice Department employee, pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiring to lie to banks about the source of tens of millions of dollars he funneled into the United States from Mr. Low.

The federal authorities have accused Mr. Low of playing a key role in the embezzlement of billions of dollars from the Malaysian fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad, or 1MDB.

Mr. Low has denied wrongdoing.

Mr. Broidy’s guilty plea came on the same day it was revealed that an Asian subsidiary of Goldman Sachs would plead guilty to charges in the United States to resolve a foreign corruption and bribery case over its involvement in the 1MDB matter.

Mr. Low had retained Mr. Broidy to use his connections to push to end the 1MDB investigation.

Mr. Broidy admitted on Tuesday that he had asked Mr. Trump in June 2017 if he would play golf with Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia. Mr. Najib was not identified in court, but he was in office at the time and was planning a trip to Washington, despite being under investigation by federal prosecutors for his role in the embezzlement.