“That was his thing,” said Bradley Diller. “I don’t know what the story of his relationship with Hugh Baras was like, why he felt this kind of personal obligation, but he went to great lengths to help this person.”
While Sanford Diller was trained as a lawyer, he did not practice and did not appear on court records as acting on behalf of Mr. Baras.
Bradley Diller said he was unaware of his father’s relationship with Mr. Broidy or Mr. Lowell, and that his father never discussed using their help – or anyone else’s – to get a pardon for Mr. Baras to obtain.
“I doubt my father would do such a thing,” he said, adding that, based on their discussions, he believed his father was “only trying to legally help him on the rise”
Sanford Diller knew Mr. Broidy from Republican Jewish donor circles, someone familiar with their relationship. Both donated to Conservative and Hawk foreign policy groups, including the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
While Mr Diller donated $ 434,000 to Republican Party committees in 2016, the majority of which went to the accounts of the Republican National Committee on Conventions, Law, and Buildings, there is no record of a direct donation from him to the campaign of Mr. Trump. With the exception of donations of $ 23,400 to Republican Congressional candidates in 2014, Mr. Diller had no previous longstanding experience with Republican donations.
Mr Broidy, a California businessman who owns a Virginia-based defense firm, helped raise funds for Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign, and after the election became a top fundraiser for the inauguration of Mr Trump and the Republican Committee as well as a member of Mr. Trump’s private club in South Florida, Mar-a-Lago.
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