Republican Congressman Targeted for Influence Operation by Ex-CIA Officer Working for Qatar

US media is report­ing a Repub­li­can con­gress­man was the tar­get of an influ­ence oper­a­tion by an ex-CIA offi­cial work­ing for Qatar. Accord­ing to the Yahoo news report, the Qatari gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to fight pro­posed leg­is­la­tion to des­ig­nate the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood as a ter­ror­ist organization:

Octo­ber 27, 2022 A Repub­li­can con­gress­man was report­ed­ly tar­get­ed for an influ­ence oper­a­tion by an ex-CIA offi­cial work­ing on behalf of the gov­ern­ment of Qatar in oppo­si­tion to leg­is­la­tion that would have des­ig­nat­ed as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion an Islam­ic polit­i­cal move­ment sup­port­ed by the tiny Gulf nation. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R‑Fla.) told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press he was unaware that he was the tar­get of a poten­tial influ­ence oper­a­tion, revealed in an inves­ti­ga­tion by the newswire. “The alle­ga­tions that a for­mer CIA offi­cer is active­ly try­ing to influ­ence an impor­tant nation­al secu­ri­ty bill on behalf of a for­eign coun­try are deeply dis­turb­ing,” Diaz-Balart said. Kevin Chalk­er, a for­mer CIA offi­cer and founder of Glob­al Risk Advi­sors, which is described as a man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy com­pa­ny, is report­ed­ly under scruti­ny by the FBI over whether the firm broke U. S. laws relat­ed to for­eign lob­by­ing, sur­veil­lance and export­ing sen­si­tive tech­nolo­gies and trade­craft, the AP report­ed. The AP inves­ti­ga­tion said it obtained inter­nal records from the com­pa­ny say­ing it was using spy­craft to gath­er infor­ma­tion on Diaz-Balart over leg­is­la­tion pro­posed in 2015 that would have des­ig­nat­ed the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. Diaz-Balart rein­tro­duced the leg­is­la­tion last Novem­ber with Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑Texas), although both the House and Sen­ate ver­sions of the bill appear to be stalled. Lau­ra Her­nan­dez, the com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor for Diaz-Balart, said Thurs­day that the Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty of the House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee has refused to give a hear­ing to the leg­is­la­tion. The Hill has reached out to Cruz’s office and the House Judi­cia­ry Democ­rats for com­ment. Gulf nations such as the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and Sau­di Ara­bia view the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood — a Sun­ni Islamist polit­i­cal move­ment — as an exis­ten­tial threat to the greater Arab world.

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The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) has report­ed how Qatar and its qua­si-state orga­ni­za­tions are major spon­sors of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood around the world.