Doha’s decades-long history of buying influence in the U.S. is resurfacing amidst reports that President Donald Trump will accept a gifted luxury Boeing jet by the Qatari government.
Qatar has long been accused of flaunting its vast wealth, derived largely from oil extraction, to curry favor on Capitol Hill and in the Ivy League. Business dealings with the oil-rich nation were what brought down Bob Menendez, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, who accepted, as bribes, opulent offerings ranging from Formula One tickets to gold bars in exchange for advancing Qatari interests.
A small but affluent Persian Gulf petrostate, Qatar became the biggest post-9/11 foreign funder of American universities, with at least $4.7 billion donated between 2001 and 2021, according to annual disclosure data.
Donations from the Qatari state are often funneled through the Qatar Foundation, a so-called “private institution for public benefit” established by the emir of Qatar. According to dark money hawks, this pass-through funding tactic allows Qatar to conceal state backing as private sector contributions.
QATAR’S QUIET CAMPAIGN: HOW DOHA IS BUYING AMERICA
For example, Yale University, which touted that its World Fellows Program was “[w]orking in close collaboration with the Qatar Foundation,” failed to disclose millions of dollars in Qatari donations allegedly in violation of federal reporting laws, according to research conducted by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy (ISGAP).
ISGAP found that Yale University has received upwards of $15.9 million from Qatari entities since 2012, but only publicly reported one award, a single contract courtesy of an anonymous source, worth approximately $284,700. Federal regulations require that American institutions list all foreign-funded charitable gifts and contracts exceeding $250,000.
According to 2020 findings from a U.S. Department of Education investigation into foreign influence over higher U.S. education, “Yale University apparently failed to comply with federal reporting obligations when it underreported its foreign gifts and contracts by $375 million.” For four years, the probe found, Yale did not disclose many of these transactions “then retroactively reported them.”
Qatar has also heavily invested in the United States through its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), and its subsidiaries, notably Qatari Diar. Like the Qatar Foundation, the QIA, which has allocated over $45 billion toward U.S. investments according to the U.S. State Department, acts as an intermediary for fund transfers.
In addition to a pledge of fealty, the money can manifest as physical programming.
As of 2016, according to a Washington Post review of funding records, Qatar was spending a total of $405 million a year to cover the upkeep of six U.S. universities that operate their own satellite campuses in an area of Doha now known as Education City: Northwestern, Texas A&M, Georgetown, Virginia Commonwealth, Cornell, and Carnegie Mellon.
In 1997, the Qatar Foundation launched Education City, a massive development venture meant to import research and academic specialties, such as medicine and engineering, from the West. (Last year, Texas A&M was forced to close its Qatar campus after ISGAP raised concerns about the national security threats that the sensitive nuclear-related research projects there potentially posed.)
Terrorism watchdogs say this influence-peddling operation on U.S. college campuses is designed to spread anti-Israel sentiments in American academia and quell criticism about Qatar’s documented ties to Hamas.
ELITE US UNIVERSITIES PARTNER WITH ARM OF QATARI GOVERNMENT PUSHING ANTI-AMERICAN MEDIA
Northwestern’s Qatar branch, which offers degrees in journalism and communications, used to maintain an institutional partnership with Al Jazeera until the university’s president Michael Schill faced hardline questioning last year during a U.S. House antisemitism hearing about the college’s association with the Qatari-owned media conglomerate.
Before that, the two institutions had maintained a long-standing partnership that involved training workshops, internships, and journalist-exchange programs.
In 2013, as part of an agreement to help the outlet expand into the U.S. media market via its Al Jazeera America (AJA) news channel, Northwestern in Qatar (NU-Q) and the Al Jazeera Network signed a memorandum of understanding to “conduct consultations with Al Jazeera leadership based on its faculty research interests and expertise in the American media industry.”
Some of the faculty teaching at Northwestern’s campus in Qatar have publicly spewed rhetoric promoting political violence against the Israeli people or minimizing the October 7 terror attack.
Khaled AL-Hroub, a Northwestern University professor of Middle Eastern studies and politics, said on an NPR-affiliated radio show that he had not seen “any credible media reporting” to indicate that Hamas murdered women and children on October 7. Rami Khouri, an Al Jazeera contributor and member of Northwestern in Qatar’s joint advisory board, wrote a policy piece in 2015 in which he defended Palestinian stabbing attacks against Israeli civilians. On X, he compared Hamas’ brutality to how Jews “fought back during their centuries of victimization in the West.”
QATAR FOUNDATION DISPUTES BUYING INFLUENCE WITH FUNDING TO NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Qatar also courts think tanks that shape public discourse on U.S. policy in the Middle East in hopes of recruiting them into the Qatari propaganda network or retaining their allegiance.
The Middle East Institute, which promotes a pro-Palestinian perspective, received sizeable funding from Qatar. In the past, the policy center has put out editorial content typically favorable to Qatari interests. Qatar-funded experts at the Richardson Center for Global Engagement allegedly told the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas not to criticize Doha. The Richardson Center said that putting “pressure on Qatar would be counterproductive because Qatar holds all the leverage,” a source advising the families told Jewish Insider.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s ties to Qatar are also resurfacing after she approved Trump’s acquisition of the luxury aircraft from the Qatari government.
Bondi once worked as a foreign lobbyist for Qatar.
Bondi, previously a partner at the Washington office of the lobbying powerhouse Ballard Partners, was registered through the firm to lobby on behalf of the Qatari Embassy for a fee of $115,000 per month, according to an amendment to a consulting services agreement signed in 2019.
U.S. Justice Department documents show she provided “advice, counsel, and other assistance with respect to efforts to combat human trafficking.” At the time, Qatar was under fire for its record of human rights abuses ahead of hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
In November 2019, Bondi temporarily severed her ties to Ballard Partners and representation of the Qatari Embassy to serve as one of Trump’s defense attorneys amid his first impeachment inquiry. Following the first Trump impeachment trial, in March 2020, Bondi rejoined Ballard Partners and resumed representing the Embassy of Qatar, among other high-profile clients such as Amazon and Uber. Those lobbying registrations are no longer active.
Bondi’s past work with the Qatari government came under scrutiny during her confirmation hearing in January. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee had accused Bondi of failing to disclose her links to the Middle Eastern nation.
“I’m disappointed that Pam Bondi failed to list several clear conflicts of interest, which indicates she does not take these conflicts seriously,” ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said in a press release. “The American people deserve an Attorney General who avoids even the appearance of impropriety, and they deserve an Attorney General who will put them ahead of any wealthy special interest or foreign government.”
While testifying before the congressional committee, Bondi said she was “very proud” of her anti-human trafficking work in the lead-up to the World Cup. “It was a short time,” Bondi said, “and I wish that it had been longer for Qatar.”
Bondi is now reportedly playing a pivotal part in the Qatari airplane deal.
Sources told ABC News that Bondi and Trump’s top White House lawyer, David Warrington, have already determined that acceptance of the Qatar-gifted jet would be “legally permissible” if ownership over the aircraft is later transferred to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation.
Last week, Bondi sent a legal memorandum addressed to the White House counsel’s office after Warrington asked her for advice on the arrangement’s legality, the sources said.
