Turkey & Qatar Vying For Influence In the Biden Administration

US media is report­ing that Turkey and Qatar are among the coun­tries vying to secure influ­ence in the incom­ing Biden admin­is­tra­tion. Accord­ing to the New York Times report:

Novem­ber 17, 2020 WASHINGTON — The morn­ing after Elec­tion Day, as votes were still being count­ed, diplo­mats from more than 20 for­eign gov­ern­ments logged into a video­con­fer­ence to hear Joe Lock­hart, a vet­er­an Demo­c­ra­t­ic oper­a­tive, pro­vide what his con­sult­ing firm’s invi­ta­tion described as “insid­er tips on how to make YOUR agen­da hap­pen in the after­math of an elec­tion.” Over the next few days, as Joseph R. Biden Jr. accu­mu­lat­ed the votes nec­es­sary to become the next pres­i­dent, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from coun­tries and com­pa­nies around the world began scram­bling to secure rep­re­sen­ta­tion from well-con­nect­ed Democ­rats like Mr. Lock­hart. Man­ny Ortiz, a Demo­c­ra­t­ic lob­by­ist with ties to the party’s con­gres­sion­al lead­ers, said he received a string of inquiries from rep­re­sen­ta­tives for for­eign gov­ern­ments — includ­ing Qatar, Sau­di Ara­bia and Turkey — that had pre­vi­ous­ly focused on strength­en­ing ties to Pres­i­dent Trump.

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Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ing on Qatari/Turkish lobbying/influence efforts has included:

• A report from ear­li­er today that Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress­men are inves­ti­gat­ing Jared Kush­n­er, the son-in-law of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald. Trump, part­ly in con­nec­tion with finan­cial assis­tance obtained from a com­pa­ny part­ly owned by Qatar.

• A report from  Octo­ber on what has been described as the ‘unusu­al’ hir­ing of a Demo­c­ra­t­ic lob­by­ing firm by the Qatari gov­ern­ment, after years of attempts to get clos­er to Pres­i­dent Trump and oth­er promi­nent Republicans.

• A report from Octo­ber that a board mem­ber of two orga­ni­za­tions tied to Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan was present on two com­mit­tees of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee (DNC).