This blog will make a habit out of posting the disclosures filed by Qatar's lobbyists in the US. Today's focus is
Barbour, Griffith & Rogers [BGR], a Republican-leaning firm which has lobbied for Qatar since 2005.
Below are excerpts from their two most recent disclosures required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act, supplemented with some info from the Federal Elections Commission regarding BGR's campaign donations through its political action committee.
As you can see, Qatar paid BGR $35K (plus expenses) a month from June through December '09.
In general, BGR explains that they have "engaged in monitoring and advising on US policymaking processes with regard to the State of Qatar." More specifically, they disclose the following contacts (pasted below) on Qatar's behalf, which center primarily on a failed effort to secure First Lady Michelle Obama involvement in the
World Innovation Summit for Education championed by Sheikha Mozah and sponsored by her Qatar Foundation. BGR also contacted Rep. Nick Rahall's (D-WV) office twice to discuss the Qatar Caucus. When compared to BGR's work for some some of its other foreign clients during this period (India, Kurdistan, Poland), this appears to be a fairly light workload.
Here's a list of campaign donations by BGR employees (click to enlarge pages). Not surprisingly, the donations appear to trend Republican, but there is still a nice hunk of Democratic recipients in the mix as well. It is obviously a very long list, which suggests that BGR possesses the kind of political connectivity one would want in a lobbying firm.
Many of the BGR donations obviously went to the BGR political action committee; information about politicians who received support from BGR PAC in 2009 and first half of 2010 can be found
here,
here,
here and
here.
