Elliott Broidy, a prominent GOP fundraiser, resigned his post as deputy national finance chairman at the Republican National Committee Friday, a person familiar with the matter told TheWrap.
The resignation, first published by the Wall Street Journal, comes just two hours after the paper published a story about a secret $1.6 million hush payment to a former Playboy model, who said Broidy had impregnated her.
The 2017 non-disclosure agreement was brokered by the President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who is also a member of the RNC’s finance committee. Cohen will remain in his post, according to the WSJ.
Mr. Broidy, a Los Angeles-based venture capitalist, was a vice chairman for the Trump campaign’s joint fund with the Republican Party. He personally helped raise more than $108 million during the 2016 presidential race and donated $160,000 to the RNC.
“I acknowledge I had a consensual relationship with a Playboy Playmate,” Broidy told the WSJ in a statement. “At the end of our relationship, this woman shared with me that she was pregnant. She alone decided that she did not want to continue with the pregnancy and I offered to help her financially during this difficult period.”
Mr. Cohen didn’t respond to requests for comment. Keith Davidson, a spokesman for the woman’s lawyer, would not confirm or deny reports of the agreement.
As TheWrap reported in 2016, Broidy pleaded guilty to committing a felony in 2009, by giving nearly $1 million in illegal gifts to state officials in order to secure a lucrative deal with New York’s public pension fund for his then-firm Markstone Capital Partners.
Broidy avoided jail time by blowing the whistle on the same people who accepted his bribes. He admitted to ponying up $75,000 for an all-expenses paid luxury trip to Jerusalem, which included first-class tickets, luxury hotel suites, a helicopter tour, and a personal driver for New York State’s comptroller and his family.