Mike Huckabee’s recent praise for Qatar wasn’t exactly subtle — but then again, neither was his paycheck.
“Just back from a few days in surprisingly beautiful, modern, and hospitable Doha, Qatar,” is how the Republican former Arkansas governor and former presidential candidate began a mid-January tweet, inviting followers to watch his upcoming television appearances. If Huckabee’s language — surprisingly beautiful, modern, and hospitable — sounds like the contrived parlance of tourism brochures, that may be because his inspiration wasn’t exactly organic.
Just back from a few days in surprisingly beautiful, modern, and hospitable Doha, Qatar I will appear on @FoxNews at 9am ET and @Varneyco on @FoxBusiness at 8:45 to bring Fancy Nancy some “crumbs” to sprinkle on her caviar topped @FiveGuys burger.
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) January 12, 2018
A Foreign Agents Registration Act disclosure filed Friday by lobbyist Joseph Allaham revealed Blue Diamond Horizons, a company run by Huckabee, was paid $50,000 on Nov. 23 as an “honorarium for visit,” in furtherance of Allaham’s lobbying efforts on behalf of the Qatari government. Of course, the two-time presidential candidate made no mention of that in his tweet. First noted by Mother Jones, which has tracked the entire convoluted saga, Huckabee’s Qatari payday makes him but one of several public figures caught up in Allaham’s lobbying campaign.
Allaham, who registered retroactively with the Justice Department as a foreign lobbyist in the disclosure filed last week, described his contract with the country in his filing as initially about “promot[ing] the 2022 World Cup in Qatar in the United States and Qatar” before being “expanded to include relationship-building with the leadership in the Jewish community in the United States to better international relations.”
“Methods of performance included peaceful means of community engagement, charitable contributions and arranging meetings in the United States and visits to Qatar,” the filing states.
Qatar’s lobbying efforts have been extensive. A lobbyist involved in the country’s pro-Israel outreach in the United States told Mother Jones “the effort aimed to influence people with access to Trump or his top aides in the hope they would convey support for Qatar to the president, or at least temper their criticism of Qatar.” Given his support for Israel and connections in the White House, Huckabee would be a logical partner for outreach, and his efforts could potentially have extended beyond the one tweet into conversation behind closed doors.
The outlet further reported that “Huckabee traveled to Doha, Qatar’s capital, at the same time as both Alan Dershowitz, the celebrity lawyer who has become a confidant of President Donald Trump, and Mort Klein, the longtime president of the Zionist Organization of America.”
“The Dershowitz and Klein trips were among at least 20 visits to Doha taken by politically prominent Americans that were organized by Allaham and Nick Muzin, a former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and the Trump transition team, who until this month worked as a lobbyist for Qatar,” according to Mother Jones. “The junkets were paid for by Qatar and designed to help the Qatari government woo American Jewish leaders, many of whom had previously criticized Qatar for being a threat to Israel.”
Both Dershowitz and Klein explained to Mother Jones they were given “personal audiences” with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and “other senior officials.” According to Dershowitz, the Qatari officials “said they wanted to explain their situation … They are a small country between Saudi Arabia on one hand, a regional power, and Iran on the other. And they had to survive.”
Nevertheless, Qatar is ruled by a hardline Salafi-Islamist regime — a regime that uses slave labor to build its World Cup stadiums and its abundant gas dollars to benefit terrorists. In that context, Huckabee might want to reconsider the wisdom of lining his pockets with their money.
