The U.S. Dept. of Justice is preparing to charge Elliott Broidy, a former finance chairman for the Republican National Committee  who has ties to President Donald Trump, “in connection with efforts to influence the U.S. government on behalf of foreign interests,” The Washington Post reports.

Broidy, who has raised millions for Trump, made headlines in recent years and was forced to resign his GOP leadership role when it was revealed he had paid a former Playboy playmate $1.6 million to keep silent about their affair. President Donald Trump’s then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, brokered the deal. When the news broke both Broidy and Cohen were serving as RNC deputy finance chairmen.

He has also served as a vice chairman of the Trump Victory Committee, a joint Trump campaign-RNC fundraising organization.

“Broidy is under scrutiny for his alleged role in a campaign to persuade high-level Trump administration officials to drop an investigation of Malaysian government corruption, as well as for his attempt to push for the extradition of an outspoken Chinese dissident back to his home country,” The Post reveals.

But Broidy appears to have been a huge international wheeler and dealer, using his influence with the President Trump as a bargaining chip to do the bidding of foreign governments.

“A cooperating witness in the special counsel investigation worked for more than a year to turn a top Trump fund-raiser into an instrument of influence at the White House for the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” The New York Times reported in March of 2018. That “top Trump fund-raiser” was Broidy, the cooperating witness was now-convicted pedophile George Nader.

“High on the agenda of the two men,” the Times reported, “was pushing the White House to remove Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, backing confrontational approaches to Iran and Qatar and repeatedly pressing the president to meet privately outside the White House with the leader of the U.A.E.”

Tillerson was fired the week before, the Times reported, “and the president has adopted tough approaches toward both Iran and Qatar.”

While those events are not part of the charges reportedly being prepared, they highlight the extreme influence Broidy wielded.

Meanwhile, the Post adds, the case against Broidy “has intensified in recent weeks, with prosecutors securing a guilty plea Monday from one of Broidy’s business associates, Nickie Mali Lum Davis, who admitted to taking part in what prosecutors have described in charging documents as a ‘back-channel lobbying campaign’ to end the Malaysian corruption investigation and to return Chinese exile Guo Wengui to his home country.”

Read the Post’s full report here.

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New documents obtained by Vice News show that the United States Postal Service is taking steps that officials say will “slow mail processing” ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

Specifically, the documents show that “the United States Postal Service proposed removing 20 percent of letter sorting machines it uses around the country before revising the plan weeks later to closer to 15 percent of all machines.”

In total, this means that more than 500 sorting machines will be taken offline ahead of this year’s election, which is expected to see a record number of votes sent in by mail.

Interestingly, the documents about reducing the sorting machines date back to May 2020, which was a month before Trump-appointed postmaster general Louis DeJoy took over.

Although USPS leadership is claiming that these machines are simply being moved around in the name of efficiency, the documents show that one union official representing USPS workers saw the plans and bluntly replied that “this will slow mail processing.”

Related: Trump’s Postmaster General Removing Hundreds of Mail Sorting Machines – Before the Biggest Vote By Mail Election Ever: Report

So far, Vice News’ sources say that machine removals are right now occurring in Michigan, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Texas, and that “more machine removals are planned in the months ahead.”

President Donald Trump says he is allowing Microsoft to purchase the U.S. assets of the popular Beijing-based TikTok social media video sharing app, in a sale Trump personally is forcing.

In discussing what he sees as the broad portions of an agreement the President used a real estate term to openly solicit the payment that would have to be made to the U.S. Treasury.

“I said a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the U.S. Treasury of the United States, because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen,” Trump told reporters Monday afternoon.

“Now they don’t have any rights, unless we give it to them,” Trump continued. “If we’re going to give them the rights then it has to come into this country, it’s a little like the landlord-tenant. Without a lease, the tenant has nothing, so they pay what’s called ‘key money’ or they pay something, but the United States should be reimbursed.”

Trump is actively forcing the sale of a foreign-owned company, after announcing he would ban it over the weekend. And now that he’s forcing the sale, he’s saying the U.S. should get a “substantial” cut from the sale of the company – or he will not allow it to go through.

In some states and certain situations, “key money” is illegal.

It is not known if any other U.S. company purchasing a foreign asset or company was ever required to pay what effectively sounds like a bribe.

Watch:

NEW: Pres. Trump says TikTok will close down in the U.S. on Sept. 15. “unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it and work out a deal.” https://t.co/bV6Ke3vbOZ pic.twitter.com/p3PoJIqFMY

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 3, 2020