In pre-plea proceedings in federal court in Washington, Olson’s defense counsel said he admitted to the misdemeanor charges — each punishable by up to one year in prison at his sentencing Sept. 13 — and cooperated with federal prosecutors on the understanding that they were also investigating and pursuing criminal charges against retired four-star Marine general John G. Allen. The latter commanded U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan before retiring in 2013. He was tapped in late 2017 as president of Washington’s influential Brookings Institution, to which Qatar agreed in 2013 to donate $14.8 million over four years.
The two men are the latest high-level American officials to be enmeshed in a long-running federal investigation into a ferocious — and lucrative — battle for influence in Washington waged between the wealthy Persian Gulf nation of Qatar and its regional rival the United Arab Emirates, as Donald Trump prepared to take office and engage in new rounds of Middle East diplomacy.
In July 2021, billionaire Thomas J. Barrack, Jr., Trump’s longtime friend and presidential inaugural committee chairman, was criminally charged with obstructing justice and acting as an unregistered agent for the UAE; while American businessman Imaad Zuberi, a major political donor to both political parties, was sentenced in February 2020 to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion, foreign-influence peddling and campaign-finance violations.
In plea papers, Olson acknowledged not disclosing as required in annual ethics forms that he had received a first-class airplane ticket from New Mexico to London and a stay in a luxury hotel in January 2015 worth about $20,000 from a Pakistani American businessman who was not identified by the government but whose description matches that of Zuberi.
Olson admitted meeting with a Bahrain businessman, who would offer him a one-year $300,000 contract for work after he left the State Department.
In June 2017, Olson admitted in plea papers, he contacted an unnamed third person — who his defense identified as Allen — to help “provide aid and advice to Qatari government officials with the intent to influence” U.S. policy during a blockade of Qatar by the UAE and its ally, Saudi Arabia. Zuberi, Olson and “Person 3” traveled to Doha, where the latter pair met with various Qatari officials including its emir, then returned to meet in Washington with members of Congress.
In court filings and a hearing May 27, Olson attorney J. Michael Hannon pressed U.S. prosecutors to say why Allen has not been charged.
Exculpatory evidence about Allen could mitigate Olson’s sentence or invalidate his plea agreement, Hannon argued, saying a decision not to charge the general could mean prosecutors improperly “induced” a guilty plea from the diplomat who relied on government representations that he might be recommended leniency at sentencing for his cooperation.
“If in fact there is no case against general John R. Allen [for allegedly violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act], we think that that is a significant piece of information for sentencing, just as we believe that an inducement to enter into this plea agreement is important to the court,”…
Read More: Former diplomat Richard G. Olson implicates retired U.S. general John Allen in Qatar lobbying probe
