Qatar hired ex-Trump campaign staffer as D.C. lobbyist

[DonViejo]

Stuart Jolly is the latest figure in Trump’s orbit to profit from an intense Gulf State struggle to win influence in Washington.

By BEN SCHRECKINGER 02/23/2019 06:40 AM EST

A former national field director for President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign registered as a foreign agent of Qatar late last year, the latest figure in Trump’s orbit to profit from a scramble by Gulf states to win favor in Washington.

Qatar’s hiring of the operative, Stuart Jolly, adds to the list of allies of former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski that have forged ties to Qatar, a gas-rich nation currently under a blockade that Saudi Arabia and others imposed over allegations that the country was funding terrorism and too cozy with Iran, among other grievances. The dispute has set off an intense, and lucrative, struggle for influence in Washington. Both sides have dished out millions of dollars to lobbyists and public relations firms as they compete for favorable treatment from the Trump administration and Congress.

Qatar’s government has already put Lewandowski’s former lobbying firm, Avenue Strategies, on a $500,000 monthly retainer, and it has arranged interviews and travel for a Lewandowski friend, radio host John Fredericks, who sometimes broadcasts his show from the Capitol Hill row house known as the “Lewandowski Embassy.”

Doha hopes the U.S. government — which maintains a strategically vital airbase in the country — will pressure its neighbors to end the blockade. Jolly’s contract called for him to help Qatar arrange meetings with U.S. officials.

Jolly worked with Lewandowski at the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity before both men joined the Trump campaign. Jolly said his Qatar work was unrelated to his relationship with Lewandowski, who continues to have the president’s ear, despite alienating many figures in Trump’s inner circle and being fired from the campaign in June 2016.

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/23/qatar-stuart-jolly-trump-campaign-1182279

[tanyev]

1. So you create a false crisis and then send in people to make money 'solving' the crisis.

Quite an extortion racket.

[empedocles]

2. Webs of corruption - Mideast, Koch, Lewandowski, $6mil/yr retainer, how Jolly