Menendez Case Puts Focus on Qatar’s Push to Turn Wealth Into Influence

When Senator Robert Menendez arrived in Qatar in 2022 to attend the nation’s lavish manufacturing of the lads’s soccer World Cup, he gave an uncommon interview to the authoritarian authorities’s information company praising the progress that Qatar had made on labor rights.

The tiny Gulf state was dealing with an onslaught of international criticism over its preparations for the world’s greatest sporting occasion, together with over the exploitation of migrant workers who constructed the event’s infrastructure. However Mr. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, stated he most well-liked to spotlight optimistic elements of the video games, and the host nation.

Touring to Qatar gave Mr. Menendez “the expertise to say wow!” he stated, based on the Qatari state news agency. “My quick go to to Doha was joyful and I noticed that the worldwide neighborhood got here to Qatar and had been properly obtained and properly revered.”

Lower than a yr later, Mr. Menendez, 70, was charged in a federal indictment with taking tons of of 1000’s of {dollars} in bribes, together with bars of gold, to wield his energy at dwelling and overseas. The case initially targeted on actions that benefited Egypt. However on Tuesday, up to date court docket paperwork added new particulars associated to Qatar.

Within the up to date indictment, prosecutors accused Mr. Menendez of utilizing his affect and connections — a byproduct of his highly effective place because the chairman of the Senate International Relations Committee — to assist a New Jersey developer get monetary backing from an funding fund run by a Qatari royal member of the family in trade for profitable bribes.

To assist win over the Qataris, prosecutors stated, the developer, Fred Daibes, additionally anticipated Mr. Menendez to “take motion to profit the federal government of Qatar.”

The Qatari authorities didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the accusations within the Menendez case. Mr. Daibes’s lawyer, Tim Donohue, stated he had no remark. Adam Charge, a lawyer for Mr. Menendez, stated Tuesday that the senator’s contacts with overseas officers had been “routine” and “lawful.”

And whereas the indictment doesn’t accuse the Qatari authorities or the Qatari royal member of the family of criminality, it’s the newest in a line of instances wherein Qatar, a serious pure fuel exporter, has appeared to hunt higher affect in the US and Europe by forging relationships with highly effective authorities officers, or folks linked to them.

On Tuesday — the identical day that the up to date indictment was launched — Barry Bennett and Doug Watts, Republican political consultants, admitted in court docket filings to violating American overseas affect guidelines over their lobbying activities on behalf of Qatar. That case got here simply over a yr after Belgian authorities introduced fees in opposition to a vp of the European Parliament, saying that she had traded political selections benefiting Qatar for bags of cash.

Qatar, shadowed for years by accusations it had used bribery to win the World Cup internet hosting rights, has denied that it sought to affect the European official, who has additionally maintained her innocence.

To analysts who research the Gulf, although, such instances are items of a broader image, and a window into how the area’s fossil fuel-rich states rework their wealth into political power around the world.

Over the previous 20 years, the rulers of Qatar, a nation with a inhabitants of lower than 400,000 residents however a sovereign wealth fund that controls $475 billion in property, have used a few of the state’s wealth to thrust their conservative Islamic nation into the worldwide highlight. Qatar is dwelling to a U.S. navy base, a serious worldwide airline, one of many world’s largest sports activities broadcasters and the Al-Jazeera information community, which initiatives its worldview to huge Arabic and English-speaking audiences. Qatar has additionally positioned itself as a vital mediator with the flexibility to function a hyperlink between Western governments and tough events, together with Hamas, Iran, Russia and the Taliban.

Most just lately, Qatar has performed a key position in negotiations to launch hostages held by Hamas, the Palestinian armed group that launched the Oct. 7 assaults in Israel, and to succeed in a cease-fire within the conflict in Gaza.

The federal government’s efforts to extend its worldwide relevance — notably to key allies like the US — are partly motivated by Qatar’s vulnerabilities, analysts say. Qatar is a peninsula flanked by a lot bigger regional powers: Saudi Arabia and Iran.

In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed ties with Qatar, accusing its authorities of supporting Islamic extremism and terrorism and meddling of their inner affairs. Saudi Arabia closed Qatar’s solely land border, successfully isolating the nation, which scrambled to seek out new sources of essential goods.

“When the blockade started in June 2017, Qatar discovered itself on the again foot when it got here to energy and affect in Washington, in distinction to Gulf neighbors Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.,” stated Anna Jacobs, a senior Gulf analyst for the Worldwide Disaster Group who relies in Doha, the Qatari capital.

The rift was repaired regularly starting in 2021 — Saudi Arabia and Qatar now have relatively warm relations — however “this vulnerability pushed Qatar to deal with community constructing and creating a stronger presence in Washington to guard its pursuits,” Ms. Jacobs stated.

Gulf nations like Qatar view cultivating relationships with politicians like Mr. Menendez as a type of “cynical statecraft,” stated Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar on the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. Like many Washington assume tanks, his analysis group has obtained funding from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — an indication of the depth of Gulf affect in the US.

When the rift between Qatar and its neighbors started, “the notion in Doha was that Saudi and Emirati officers had invested closely in constructing relationships not solely with members of the Trump administration but additionally of their lobbying actions in the US, and that Qatar wanted to do the identical,” stated Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Center East fellow at Rice College’s Baker Institute for Public Coverage.

The allegations in Mr. Menendez’s indictment associated to Qatar stretch from December 2020 till final yr. On the time, Mr. Daibes was looking for financing for an actual property venture in New Jersey, and Mr. Menendez launched him to a Qatari investor who was a member of the nation’s royal household. The royal’s fund had “ties to the federal government of Qatar,” the indictment stated.

Whereas the Qatari was contemplating the funding, Mr. Menendez “made a number of public statements supporting the Authorities of Qatar” and requested Mr. Daibes to share these statements with the investor and an unnamed Qatari authorities official.

“You would possibly need to ship to them. I’m nearly to launch,” Mr. Menendez wrote in a message to Mr. Daibes in 2021, attaching the textual content of a pending assertion. That day, his workplace issued a news release praising Qatar for agreeing to host Afghans looking for refuge in the US.

Quickly after, the Qatari investor messaged the Qatari official: “I obtained copy from F,” based on the indictment. “F” gave the impression to be a reference to Mr. Daibes.

A month later, prosecutors stated Mr. Daibes texted the senator images of a number of luxurious wristwatches and requested, “How about one among these.”

The Qatari firm finally invested tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} into Mr. Daibes’s actual property venture.

The indictment doesn’t identify the Qatari investor, the Qatari funding firm, or the Qatari authorities official.

However deed data in Bergen County, New Jersey, present that in 2023, a London-based firm entered right into a $45 million shared-ownership settlement for a New Jersey actual property venture with Mr. Daibes. That firm — Heritage Advisors — was based by a member of Qatar’s royal household, Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al Thani.

Heritage Advisors didn’t reply to an e-mail and a telephone name looking for remark from the corporate and Sheikh Sultan. Efforts to succeed in Sheikh Sultan through his Qatar-based holding firm, Al-Alfia, had been additionally unsuccessful.

The royal household is a sprawling prolonged clan, however its members typically intermarry and are carefully knit. Earlier than getting into enterprise, Sheikh Sultan labored for Qatar’s ministry of finance and petroleum. He later labored within the workplace of Qatar’s deputy prime minister and was the pinnacle of Qatar’s Tourism Authority, based on a biography on Heritage’s web site.

It’s unclear what advantages Mr. Menendez may need offered to Qatar past rosy public statements, however he was not the nation’s solely buddy in Washington: Qatar has additionally sought to domesticate relationships with assume tanks, students and journalists, and it foots a lot of the bill for the Al Udeid Air Base, which hosts the ahead headquarters of the U.S. Central Command.

“What they need from the US is safety,” stated Mr. Ibish, the scholar with the Arab Gulf States Institute. “They want exterior help from an incredible energy as a result of they’ve a really tense relationship with so a lot of their most vital neighbors.”