“That was his thing,” said Bradley Diller. “I don’t know what the history of his relationship with Hugh Baras was, why he felt this kind of personal responsibility, but he’s making a huge effort to help this guy.”
When the Sanford dealer was trained as a lawyer, he did not practice and did not appear in court filing on behalf of Mr. Baras.
Bradley Diller said he was unaware of his father’s relationship with Mr. Broye or Mr. Lowell, and never discussed – or anyone – in his list of help in an attempt to apologize to his father, Mr. Baras.
“I doubt my father would do anything like that,” he said, adding that based on his discussions, he believed his father was “trying to help him through legal means.”
The Sanford dealer was known to Mr. Brown by Republican Jewish donor circles, according to a person familiar with his relationship. Both donated to conservative and Hawkish foreign policy groups, including the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Mr. Diller donated 33 333,800 to Republican Party committees in 2016, most of which went to Republican National Committee conventions and building headquarters accounts, but there is no record of him donating directly to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Despite the exception of, 23,400 in donations to Republican Senate candidates in 2014, Mr. Dealer does not have a long track record of Republicans before that.
Mr. Brody, a California businessman who owns a Virginia-based defense contracting firm, helped raise money for Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, and after the election, he became Mr. Trump’s inaugural and top fundraising official for the Republican National. The committee, as well as a member of Mr. Trump’s private South Florida club, Mar-a-Lago.
