Qatar hires new lobby firms for $150,000 monthly

CAIRO – 28 July 2017: Qatar’s hiring a firm once associated with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who left it in May over a dispute with his partners, shows Qatar wants access to the White House with close ties to Saudi Arabia, according to the Associated Press (AP) reported on Thursday.

The firm retains Barry Bennett, a Trump campaign adviser, as well as others with ties to the president, the AP added.

"The Qataris are belatedly working up to the scale of the challenge they face," said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen to AP, a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University who lives in Seattle.

"This whole crisis, now that it's kind of settled down into a prolonged confrontation or standoff, it's become almost a struggle to win the hearts and minds in D.C,” UIrichsen manifested.

Qatar has five K Street firms on retainer, according to The Hill online publication report June added that the retainer more than $1.8 million last year, however the numbers have not been updated and possibly could accumulate to a much higher amount
According to documents newly filed to the U.S. Justice Department, Qatar has hired Avenue Strategies Global for $150,000 a month to "provide research, government relations and strategic consulting services." The contract also says that activity "may include communications with members of Congress and Congressional staff, executive branch officials, the media and other individuals,” the AP report revealed.

The report affirmed that Lewandowski founded Avenue Strategies just after the November election that put Trump in the White House. Lewandowski resigned from the firm only months later, saying he was troubled by a firm-related project he hadn't sanctioned.

Qatar also signed a three-month, $1.1 million renewable contract with the opposition research firm Information Management Services, according to a Justice Department filing.

Despite hosting a major U.S. military base, Qatar has been a target of Trump over its alleged funding of extremists, something Doha denies. Saudi Arabia enjoys close relations to Trump, as well as his son-in-law Jared Kushner, the New York Times said on Thursday.