I’ve written before about the Broidy case.

Elliot Broidy was a top Republican fundraiser and critic of Qatar. Then his emails were leaked and passed around to the press. But Broidy didn’t take that lying down, and began to hunt down the hackers.

On Tom LoBianco’s LinkedIn profile, the former Associated Press reporter self-identifies as a “White House reporter covering Trump Russia probes.” At CNN, LoBianco writes that he “covered the 2016 presidential race and the Russia probes.”

Now LoBianco is in trouble for reasons having nothing and everything to do with the Russia probe.

Earlier this year, Elliot Broidy, a Trump ally and Republican fundraiser, was targeted by Qatari hackers. Broidy had been sharply critical of the terror state which has been linked to everything from ⁹⁄₁₁ to Iran. And his emails were quickly peddled to media figures who spun them into pro-Qatari hit pieces.

When Broidy struck back with a lawsuit targeting Qatar and its lobbyists, phone records showed that LoBianco had spoken three dozen timesto a registered foreign agent of the Islamic terror state.

…

In his story, LoBianco wrote of a “cache of emails obtained by the AP.“ The emails are described as having been “anonymously leaked.“ A more factually accurate term would have been “hacked” or “stolen.“ And LoBianco and the AP had no problem with posting these stolen emails online.

Remember, this is what a giant chunk of Russiagate is about. Not the Steele Dossier’s prostitute nonsense, but what Mueller is actually zeroing in on. And the latest development makes it abundantly clear that this was state-sponsored.

The former U.N. diplomat accused of helping steal and distribute Republican fundraiser Elliot Broidy’s emails is entitled to diplomatic immunity, the U.S. government tells NBC News.

Broidy, the Republican National Committee’s former deputy finance chair, is suing Jamal Benomar, a British citizen born in Morocco. Broidy accuses Benomar of being a “key player” in a Qatari scheme to hack Broidy’s emails and distribute them to U.S. journalists….

A U.S. official, describing the official U.S. position, tells NBC News that Benomar’s immunity is not limited to his “official acts” as a diplomat. Rather, the official says the U.S. is recognizing Benomar as having “status immunity” — which means he’s protected from civil suits even for conduct unrelated to his service as a Moroccan diplomat. That’s because the Moroccans have now accredited Benomar at the rank of “minister plenipotentiary” — a high-level title just below that of an ambassador.

It’s unclear whether Benomar has had that rank since becoming a Moroccan diplomat sometime this year, or whether the Moroccans upgraded his status more recently to ensure he’d have full immunity. In court filings, lawyers for Benomar and Broidy have wrangled over his exact rank and when exactly it took effect. The U.S. government says it registered Benomar with diplomatic immunity as of Tuesday.

The Moroccan Mission to the U.N. did not respond to a request for comment.

Morocco has lately become a shameless Qatari proxy. The hilarious moment when Morocco sent food to Qatar after the Saudi embargo (the fat oil terror tyrants of Qatar are not starving) showed just how shameless.

As does this stunt.

It’s unfortunate that the State Department acceded to this bizarre scam. It shows how much more housecleaning is badly needed.

It also makes it quite obvious that Broidy was right about who hacked him and that the media had colluded with foreign governments in the email hack of a Republican figure.