Qatari Cash May Be Coming Soon to a Town Near You

Former Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat, received an 11-year prison sentence in January for accepting bribes to benefit Qatar and Egypt. His sentencing caps off one of the highest-profile corruption schemes associated with Qatar on this side of the Atlantic.

Menendez may be exiting politics, but he’s hardly the last American that Doha has charmed. Qatar is adept at exercising influence in the United States, legitimately and illegitimately, inside and outside of Washington.

Doha’s influence is a cause for concern because of the decades it has spent spreading anti-American propaganda via Al Jazeera, providing an oasis for terror financiers, and hosting U.S. designated terrorist groups — especially Hamas. The Qatari government and affiliated entities have supported radical groups from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front to the tune of hundreds-of-millions of dollars.

Qatar is a nominal U.S. ally and hosts an American military base, but the emirate plays both sides. Even when Qatar’s activities are entirely above board, they serve the purpose of normalizing a regime that behaves more like a foe than a friend of the United States.

Menendez took a precipitous fall from grace after the Justice Department issued a superseding indictment alleging that he accepted bribes from New Jersey real-estate developer Fred Daibes, who expected Menendez to “induce” Qatari investors to fund a multimillion-dollar development project. Prosecutors say that Menendez received “things of value from Daibes knowing that Daibes wanted” Menendez to use “his powers” as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to “advance a formal resolution praising Qatar”.

The Qatari investment fund isn’t named in the indictment. But property records indicate that Heritage Advisors — a London-based venture capital firm led by Qatari royal Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al-Thani — finalized a $45 million deal with Daibes in December 2022, and documents introduced during the Menendez trial identified Heritage as the fund involved in the deal.

That same month, European authorities exposed a Qatari corruption scandal that entangled the European Parliament. Police raided at least 20 homes and offices in Belgium, Italy, and Greece, seizing over 1.5 million euros in cash and arresting a half-dozen European officials. European Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili and her partner landed in Belgian prison while authorities investigated their role in the cash-for-influence scheme now known as “Qatargate”.

Leaked documents show how European parliament members boasted of successfully “neutralizing” resolutions condemning Doha and “chang[ing] [the] narrative in parliament” about labor abuses in Qatar. From New Jersey to Brussels, where there’s scandal involving foreign intrigue, Qatar often isn’t far away.

Turns out, Qatar giveth bribes and Qatar taketh them as well. Last year, U.S. defense contractor Raytheon agreed to pay over $230 million in penalties as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice over charges of bribing a senior Qatari military official to secure business with the Qatari military.

Qatari influence runs just as deep on the right side of the law, particularly in Congress. In addition to funding trips to Qatar for Democratic and Republican lawmakers, disclosures pursuant to the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act indicate that Doha has spent upwards of $200 million strengthening its lobbying muscle over the last decade. Doha escalated its efforts in 2017 after the Gulf Cooperation Council severed ties with Qatar, citing the emirate’s Islamist sympathies.

In one example, Qatar hired lobbyists to sway Congress against the Palestinian International Terrorism Support and Prevention Act, which called out Qatar for sponsoring Hamas. Lobbyists on Qatar’s payroll warned lawmakers that the bill “erroneously and unfairly” targeted Qatar and contained “problematic language” that could hinder “recent progress between the U.S. and Qatar to combat terrorism and its financing”. The bill never passed.

More recently, Qatar dispatched its lobbyists to the Hill to engage with offices on legislation including the No Funds for Iranian Terrorism Act, End Financing for Hamas and State Sponsors of Terrorism Act, and the DETERRENT Act, which expands foreign funding disclosure requirements for American institutions of higher education. This activity will likely continue during the 119th Congress, which was sworn in on January 20.

Some of Qatar’s lobbyists go on to hold positions in government, bringing preexisting relationships with Qatar that may distort U.S. policy. Others face consequences for operating below board. Former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates Richard G. Olson pleaded guilty in 2022 to illegally aiding and advising Qatar “with the intent to influence U.S. foreign policy”.

Qatar also courts state and local governments. Think multi-million-dollar grants to the Mayor’s Fund of Los Angeles or the construction of a $14.7-million drone manufacturing facility in South Carolina that a local city council member touted as a “tremendous opportunity for our citizens”. Qatar has invested billions in the gas industry in Texas and committed to strengthening business partnerships in Florida.

Indeed, Qatar pours its wealth into anything and everything in the United States, from think tanks and universities, to real estate and media. Qatar previously spent millions of dollars to support the Brookings Doha Center, an offshoot of the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution that once accepted multi-million dollar annual contributions from the Qatari government. Brookings ended its relationship with the Doha Center in 2021. Shops outside of Washington also receive Qatari largesse. In Texas, the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University runs an International Stem Cell Policy initiative with support from a Qatari endowment.

Next, we return to Heritage Advisors, the firm entangled in the Menendez scandal. Heritage counts the United States Football League and Fort Partners — a hospitality and real estate development firm whose projects include Four Seasons Resorts in Miami, Palm Beach, and Telluride, Colorado — among its investments.

Heritage Advisors’ stateside investments are chump change compared to Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, which has invested some $45 billion in the United States. The fund was part of the investor group that purchased Miramax — the Hollywood film studio behind the cult-classic “Pulp Fiction” — from Disney in 2010 for approximately $660 million. The investors later sold Miramax to beIN Media Group, a Qatari sports and entertainment group that began as a project of Al Jazeera.

If it’s not cinema, it’s sports. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund owns approximately 5% of the parent company of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, NHL’s Washington Capitals, and WNBA’s Washington Mystics. During the Capitals’ 2018 Stanley Cup run, Doha sponsored the late-night metro service in Washington, D.C.

Qatar is also in the real estate business. After the Justice Department moved to seize Manhattan’s Park Lane Hotel in 2016 as part of an asset-forfeiture action associated with a multibillion-dollar money laundering scheme involving one of the property’s investors, Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, Doha swooped in. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund acquired the Park Lane in 2023 for $623 million, taking the property off the market after seven years in limbo. The fund’s portfolio also includes the St. Regis New York, St. Regis San Francisco, and the Empire State Building.

The Qatar Foundation, a nonprofit run by the Qatari royal family, is another fountain of cash for American institutions, particularly colleges and universities. With substantial capital from the Qatar Foundation, six American universities operate satellite campuses in Doha (one example, Texas A&M University, will close its Doha campus by 2028). In principle, these schools espouse the same values and policies in Qatar as they do at home. In practice, that’s not always so.

Last fall, Georgetown University’s Qatar campus invited former Al Jazeera executive Wadah Khanfar to speak at a conference entitled “Reimagining Palestine”. Khanfar welcomed Hamas’ October 7 massacre, which he said “came at the perfect moment for a radical and real shift in the path of struggle and liberation”. His other accolades include a 10-minute eulogy for Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the late spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who praised Hamas suicide bombings. Unverified reports suggest that Khanfar himself served as a Hamas operative in Africa in the 1990s.

Prosecutors may not have charged Qatari individuals in the Menendez case, but Qatar’s appearance in the scandal isn’t happenstance. For years, Doha has paid to play in the United States. And the strategy is returning dividends for the Qatari regime. Despite sheltering terrorists and perpetuating human rights abuses, Doha has managed to avoid serious American scrutiny. To the contrary, successive U.S. administrations have treated Qatar as a trustworthy and prestigious ally. It’s time for Washington to drop the rose-tinted glasses and make clear to Qatar that America is not up for sale.

Join us this Sunday (the 16th of March) at 7pm for the latest episode of the Ayaan Hirsi Ali podcast, where we delve into a thought-provoking conversation with Natalie Ecanow, the writer of this article. Be sure to tune in for a compelling discussion you won’t want to miss.