Days after Kash Patel fielded questions about his nomination as the director of the FBI, an ethics disclosure showed that he had earned at least $5,000 consulting for the government of Qatar.

That document highlighted the host of potential conflicts of interest Patel brings to the job through his past clients, ranging from Qatar to a Russian filmmaker with ties to the Kremlin to the Chinese clothes retailer Shein.

It also revealed the limits of a U.S. law meant to expose foreign influence campaigns: Some Trump administration appointees, including Patel, didn’t bother registering their work for foreign clients under the law.

Another Trump nominee, former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, disclosed his work for a venture capital firm founded by a Qatari royal, but only during the confirmation process to become administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Critics say the law, called the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, is shot through with loopholes that allow foreign powers to evade disclosing the full extent of their spending in Washington.

The loopholes are growing even bigger under Donald Trump. New Attorney General Pam Bondi, who herself previously registered as a lobbyist for Qatar, issued a memo earlier last week disbanding the Justice Department’s foreign influence task force and limiting the scope of prosecutions under the act.

“You add all this up, and it just looks like an administration that is sending a flashing neon sign saying that ‘foreign influence is welcome here,’” said Ben Freeman, director of the democratizing foreign policy program at the Quincy Institute.

Freeman’s nonprofit has been critical of the role of foreign money in Washington, releasing a report last month documenting how much flows to ostensibly independent think tanks from countries such as the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Qatar.

Qatar is a heavy-hitter on the think tank circuit, spending $9.1 million since 2019. The Persian Gulf monarchy has also deployed huge sums on lobbying the U.S. government, outstripping even such groups as the National Rifle Association by spending more than $72 million between 2015 and 2022, according to a separate analysis by OpenSecrets.

“If you look at their influence as a whole, they’re doing everything,” Freeman said. “They’ve got the lobbyists, they’ve got the nonprofits, they’ve got higher ed on their side. There’s a lot of money flowing into the U.S. to say nice things about the Qatari government. And I think you’re seeing that coming to a head in the Trump administration.”

Qatar Cash Under the Radar

Qatar houses the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East and has played a crucial role in the ceasefire in Gaza, but it has also drawn criticism over its human rights record and for hosting members of Hamas.

Bondi’s work on behalf of Qatar, which she said centered on anti-human trafficking work ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup there, was already public record before Trump nominated her.

Patel’s and Zeldin’s work with ties to Qatar, however, had flown under the radar before their nominations.

In Patel’s case, the public disclosure of his work for the Qatari Embassy on February 1 came after two days after his testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said only that he had conducted “consulting” work through a firm he owns.

Under FARA, Americans acting on behalf of foreign people, governments, political parties, or businesses must register if they conduct any of a wide range of political activities that includes lobbying, public relations, or collecting funds.

The ethics watchdog group Public Citizen on February 4 wrote a letter to the Justice Department asking federal prosecutors to investigate why Patel never registered as a foreign agent.

“Kash Patel’s undisclosed work on behalf of the Embassy of Qatar raises red flags about his ability to operate ethically and within the best interests of U.S. national security if confirmed to head the FBI,” Craig Holman, a government ethics expert at Public Citizen, said in a statement. “Patel should immediately be brought back before the Senate to provide additional context about these ties and answer questions from senators about how his former work might affect his leadership of the Bureau.”

A spokesperson for Patel did not respond to a request for comment. The White House also did not comment.

Zeldin’s work for a firm founded by a Qatari royal had previously gone undisclosed as well. In his case, the former New York representative conducted “consulting” work for the venture capital firm Heritage Advisors — a disclosure triggered by a minimum of $5,000 in earnings. He did not elaborate further in his ethics filing, released January 9.

Zeldin did not answer questions sent through the EPA. In a written statement to the Senate last month, according to Politico, he said he had never lobbied the government or reached out to the media on behalf of the firm.

The investment company, which did not immediately return a request for comment, was founded by Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al Thani, a Qatari royal. The firm has plowed $50 million into the conservative media company Newsmax, the Washington Post reported last year.

Freeman, the Quincy Institute expert, said he did not know enough about Heritage Advisors to say whether Zeldin’s work should have triggered foreign agent registration, but he questioned why Patel never disclosed his direct work for the Qatari government before.

FARA Away

If there were any chance that Patel would face formal legal scrutiny, it may have vanished with a February 5 memo from Bondi outlining her priorities for the Justice Department.

Bondi said she was disbanding a foreign influence task force that focused on FARA violations. She also said that future prosecutions of the law should be limited to “traditional espionage by foreign government actors.”

“It’s going to be a whole lot more likely that the bad guys of the world are going to get representation in D.C.”

Critics have long said it is too easy for Washington political figures to get away without registering as foreign agents. For decades, the registration law had lain dormant, until former Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller revived its use in criminal cases involving Trump allies such as Paul Manafort.

Freeman said that even since then, there have been relatively few charges involving failures to register. Bondi’s memo will lead to a drop in transparency and an increase in Washington lobbyists’ willingness to work for shady foreign powers, he predicted.

“Pick your authoritarian despot around the world,” he said. “If you can work for them and cash a paycheck with them, I think it’s going to be a whole lot more likely that the bad guys of the world are going to get representation in D.C.”