Amid Probe Into Alleged Lobbying for Qatar, US General Resigns as Brookings Head
A retired four-star US Marine general, John Allen, resigned as president of the Brookings Institution, a think tank based in Washington, after the launch of a federal investigation into whether he lobbied the US government on behalf of Qatar during the Trump Administration. Allen wrote in the resignation letter he submitted on Sunday, a week after he was placed on administrative leave following an article by The Associated Press about his alleged lobbying, that “while I leave the institution with a heavy heart, I know it is best for all concerned in this moment.” He has not been criminally charged. Allen led US combat forces and allied troops in Afghanistan. He is accused of secretly asking the Trump Administration to modify its criticism of Qatar in 2017, at a time when other Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt, severed diplomatic relations with Qatar and imposed economic sanctions on the country over Qatar’s alleged support of terrorism. Allen is alleged by the FBI to have traveled to Qatar to meet with its highest officials to give them advice on how to influence US policy and how to get Qatar’s message out to top government officials. Allen stopped taking donations from Qatar to Brookings in 2019, where he started working as a senior fellow in 2017, months after he was tapped as its president. An FBI agent said in an affidavit submitted in support of a search warrant that there was “substantial evidence” that Allen had, with knowledge, broken a foreign lobbying law.
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