The scandals surrounding Trump are beginning to overlap in strange ways

And increasingly, these proven and alleged scandals are running together in rather remarkable ways.

Back in early 2017, a since-deleted news release from the Republican National Committee under Trump detailed its fundraising team: finance chairman Steve Wynn and deputy finance chairmen Michael Cohen, Louis DeJoy and Elliott Broidy. All four of them have now run into very big, and very public, problems.

The Washington Post’s Matt Zapotosky, Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind S. Helderman report that Broidy is under scrutiny for allegedly taking part in an effort to lobby the Trump administration on behalf of China in its attempt to gain the extradition of a man who has spoken out against the government, Chinese business executive Guo Wengui, along with a separate alleged effort to thwart a Justice Department case involving Malaysian corruption.

An attorney for Broidy declined to comment to The Post. A previous attorney has said he has “never agreed to work for, been retained by nor been compensated by any foreign government for any interaction with the United States government, ever.” Broidy said in 2018 that the “narrative is a fabrication driven by hackers who want to undermine me.”

What’s particularly remarkable about the new allegations is how the spider web of alleged and proven corruption around Trump has grown.

Wynn has also been tied to the lobbying campaign, having conveyed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s desire for Guo’s extradition on multiple occasions and having called Trump about the matter while with Broidy on Wynn’s yacht, according to the documents and people with knowledge of the case. Wynn has cooperated with the government’s investigation.

In addition, shortly after Wynn resigned from the RNC following accusations of sexual misconduct, Broidy himself resigned over a $1.6 million payment made to a former Playboy model who became pregnant during an affair with him. The settlement was negotiated by none other than Cohen, his fellow RNC deputy finance chair, who was previously Trump’s personal lawyer.

Cohen’s role in that settlement, which required the woman’s silence, came after he brokered similar deals involving another Playboy model, Karen McDougal, and an adult-movie star, Stormy Daniels, who both accused Trump of affairs. (All three women were also represented by the same lawyer, Keith Davidson.) Cohen eventually pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations involving those payments and implicated Trump. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing, and existing Justice Department policy says he can’t be indicted while he’s a sitting president.

There’s one other name above that might ring a bell when it comes to recent indictments. Guo is also the owner of the multimillion-dollar, 150-foot yacht where former top Trump campaign and White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon was arrested last month in an allegedly fraudulent crowdfunding effort to privately fund Trump’s border wall.

Broidy also overlapped with another person who pleaded guilty as part of former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation. The Associated Press reported in 2018 that Broidy had received a $2.5 million payment sent through a Canadian company by George Nader, an adviser to the government of the United Arab Emirates who later pleaded guilty to child sex charges and cooperated with Mueller’s probe. The money was part of an anti-Qatar effort, but neither Broidy nor Nader registered as a foreign agent. Nader allies denied the payment was connected to the UAE, and Broidy said he did nothing wrong because he was not directed by a foreign client. (Nader has also faced charges of illegally funneling foreign donations to both the Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigns.)

Broidy’s alleged conduct is also particularly troubling for Trump at a time when he has put getting tough on China at the center of his reelection effort. Guo has been accused of bribery and other crimes in China, and while in the United States he has made a number of unproven allegations against the Chinese Communist Party. A recent charging document against one of Broidy’s business partners alleges a “a prominent official of a national political party with ties to the administration” has been paid $9 million as part of the lobbying effort to return Guo to China and the other matter involving the Malaysian development firm, 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB, which has been accused of billions of dollars in fraud.

The question from here, as with Cohen, is exactly what occurred in his interactions with the administration and even Trump. The alleged effort to thwart the 1MDB case and to extradite Guo both ultimately failed, but the allegations suggest Broidy had extensive reach.

The Justice Department has said the effort included trying to arrange a golf outing between Trump and the then-Malaysian prime minister. “It would be extremely helpful to me if you could confirm the golf date today with POTUS,” Broidy texted to a White House official in 2017, according to the Justice Department. The official replied: “I’m sure it will get done.” (Documents say they didn’t ultimately golf together.)

Trump later that year met at the White House with the then-prime minister, Najib Razak, who has since been sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in the 1MDB case. The White House has denied the probe was discussed.

Previous government documents and sources indicate Broidy claimed to have discussed the 1MDB case with Trump during an Oval Office meeting in 2017. Zapotosky, Leonnig and Helderman also reported that Trump was very much receptive to the idea:

Trump was eager to extradite Guo, as the Chinese wished, telling aides in an Oval Office meeting that he supported the plan, according to a former administration official familiar with his views.

Priebus passed along the extradition request to the National Security Council, where it was vetted by a senior White House lawyer, John Eisenberg, who conferred with then-White House Counsel Donald McGahn, the official said.

White House lawyers agreed that extradition, which was opposed by the Justice Department, would not be appropriate, according to the official. McGahn later told aides who asked about the status request, “We killed that,” the official said.

Broidy becomes the latest person with close Trump ties and lots of connections in Trumpworld to face the prospect of criminal charges or pleading guilty — along with possibly cooperating. And as the number of people who fit that description grows, their sagas increasingly overlap.