Trump Cultists Accuse their Enemies of Things They are Actually Doing, part 11,739:

A Top Trump Aide Worked In Libya With Key Backers Of An Alleged “Sex Cult”

Joseph Whitehouse Hagin, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for operations, has a reputation for being the experienced, steady hand amid the chaos in the White House. The 62-year-old Republican has been a Washington insider for almost four decades, operating largely behind the scenes as the ultimate gray man.

But Hagin put his dreary political life on pause during the Obama years for the world of international influence peddling. That business, the kind of money-soaked dealing Trump lacerated during his presidential campaign, made Hagin and a company he cofounded millions of dollars. It also brought Hagin a lucrative client: an aspiring Libyan expatriate politician with deep pockets and troubling relationships, according to five sources who spoke with BuzzFeed News.

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Basit Igtet, the Libyan client, was an exile eyeing a triumphant comeback at the dawn of the Arab Spring. Hagin and his firm worked with Igtet from 2011 until at least 2013: First, Hagin would help him build support for the rebel government that toppled Muammar al-Qaddafi, and later he and his colleagues would run an international treasure hunt to try to recover Libya’s stolen billions in exchange for a massive payoff for his firm, according to three sources.

Igtet, however, had other interests outside recovering Libyan riches, including one at the center of a major sex-trafficking case. Igtet was deeply involved in NXIVM, the celebrity “sex cult” whose leadership is now under federal indictment, two sources said. Igtet proselytized for the group, BuzzFeed News has learned, while his wife, the heir Sara Bronfman, reportedly kept the cult afloat with tens of millions of dollars.

And in 2013 — as Hagin’s future boss was railing against the Obama administration over the 2012 terrorist attack on the US embassy in Benghazi that killed a US ambassador — Igtet met with the man the US believed to be the mastermind of the attack, who has since been convicted on terrorism charges.

But Hagin’s firm, seeing the chance to reap millions, viewed Igtet as a golden goose and continued to work with the couple even as their associations with NXIVM became increasingly public.