US Drops Investigation of Four-Star General Over Qatar Lobbying

US media is report­ing that author­i­ties have dropped their inves­ti­ga­tion into four-star Gen­er­al John Allen over his role in an alleged ille­gal for­eign lob­by­ing cam­paign on behalf of Qatar. Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press report:

Jan­u­ary 31, 2023 AP — The Jus­tice Depart­ment has dropped its probe of retired four-star Gen. John Allen for his role in an alleged ille­gal for­eign lob­by­ing cam­paign on behalf of the wealthy Per­sian Gulf nation of Qatar, his lawyer told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press. Attor­ney David Schertler said in a state­ment Tues­day that the Jus­tice Depart­ment had informed him that it was clos­ing its inves­ti­ga­tion of Allen and no charges would be filed. The Jus­tice Depart­ment declined to com­ment but a law enforce­ment offi­cial famil­iar with the inquiry who was­n’t autho­rized to speak pub­licly con­firmed the deci­sion on con­di­tion of anonymity.

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Qatar has been embroiled in recent influ­ence-buy­ing scan­dals over alle­ga­tions it has spent large amounts of mon­ey to buy influ­ence in Europe. This includes alle­ga­tions of bribery and cor­rup­tion relat­ed to the award­ing of the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar and accu­sa­tions of attempt­ed influ­ence-buy­ing at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment. Qatar has denied all such claims, and, to date, no charges have been brought in con­nec­tion with these scandals.