Democratic congressman and Senate hopeful Seth Moulton (Mass.) announced he will reject donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel advocacy group. Government records show he accepted an all-expenses-paid junket to Qatar as well as campaign donations from a lobbying firm for the Hamas-allied Gulf monarchy—and he’s yet to swear off taking Qatar-linked gifts and campaign donations in the future.
Moulton, who announced last week he will challenge Democratic Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.), traveled to Qatar in October 2020 as part of the “Qatar Educational and Cultural Affairs Program,” according to his financial disclosures. During the four-day trip, for which Qatar covered travel, lodging, and food, Moulton toured the Qatar Foundation, a charity controlled by Qatar’s royal family that has hosted Muslim Brotherhood leaders. The charity’s chairwoman, royal matriarch Moza bint Nasser, praised Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar after he was killed by Israeli forces in October 2024.
During the desert getaway, Moulton and Reps. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) and Jim Himes (D., Conn.) had multiple “informal” meetings with Qatar’s lobbyists from the firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough to discuss “Qatar’s domestic and foreign policy positions.” Nelson Mullins has contributed $11,500 to Moulton’s campaigns since 2014, and a lobbyist for the firm, Robert Crowe, gave $1,000 on Sept. 1, 2020, according to the firm’s lobbying disclosures to the Department of Justice.
The Qatari trip and the campaign donations, which haven’t been reported, take on new significance in light of Moulton’s showy disavowal of AIPAC. Moulton said Friday he will return $35,000 in AIPAC donations he received over the years because the group has “aligned itself too closely with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government.”
“I’m a friend of Israel, but not of its current government, and AIPAC’s mission today is to back that government,” said Moulton.
Moulton has made no similar pronouncements regarding funding from Qatar. It could suggest Moulton is more concerned about being seen as too pro-Israel and aligned with AIPAC than he is about connections to Qatar, an oil-rich regime that harbors Hamas leaders and blamed Israel for provoking the Oct. 7 attack. It’s a plausible theory, given the success anti-Israel groups such as Track AIPAC have had in portraying the group as part of a pervasive “Israeli lobby” aiming to influence American politics. Markey, who is running for his third term in the Senate, is a staunch critic of Israel who does not take donations from AIPAC.
While that perception is gaining traction among Democrats, Israel trails far behind other countries in terms of lobbying expenditures. Qatar outspent Israel on lobbying over the past decade, $260 million to $195 million, according to OpenSecrets.
Qatar has been especially prolific in donating to American universities, cultural institutions, and advocacy groups as part of a broad campaign to influence policymakers and public perception of Qatar in the United States. In many cases, those contributions come with restrictions that prohibit bad-mouthing the Qataris. Northwestern University’s contract with Qatar to house a campus in Doha prohibits faculty and students from criticizing the regime, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Qatar funds a number of advocacy groups in the United States, including the Autism Society of America. In 2018, Qatar’s lobbyists at Nelson Mullins invited Moulton to be the guest of honor at an “Autism Gala” hosted by the Qatari embassy in Washington, D.C., according to lobbying records.
Moulton’s 2020 trip to Doha was authorized under the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961, a congressional program that lets members take foreign government-funded junkets for cultural missions.
According to Qatari media, Moulton, Swalwell, and Himes toured the Qatar Foundation during the junket to learn about the charity’s funding for medical research. The Qatar Foundation, founded in 1995, serves as an influence arm for the Qatari royal family, according to Middle East expert Charles Asher Small, who testified to Congress last year that the charity “aims to exert [Qatar’s] soft power influence onto a global audience.”
The Qatar Foundation tour was a public relations win for the Qataris, who published a press release of the junket that quoted the Democratic trio heaping praise on the regime.
“The bilateral relationship between Qatar and the United States has great potential, and I expect the friendship between the two countries to grow in the future,” said Moulton in a press release from the Qatar Foundation.
The Qatar Foundation has hosted the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas leaders over the years.
The charity opened an academic center in 2009 named after Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who once cheered that Adolf Hitler “put [Jews] in their place.” Al-Qaradawi, who died in Doha in 2022, attended the opening of a Qatar Foundation mosque in 2015. In 2012, Qatar Foundation official Haya Al-Nassr awarded Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh with a “victory shield” during a ceremony.
Moulton has taken several other junkets funded by controversial groups. In February 2022, J Street, an anti-Israel Jewish group, paid $20,000 for Moulton and his wife to travel to Israel to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Moulton’s financial disclosures.
J Street, which has contributed $47,000 to Moulton’s campaign since 2016, has faced scrutiny from both Israel’s critics and its opponents. Conservatives accuse the group, which formed as a liberal alternative of AIPAC, of undermining Israel’s national security. Anti-Israel activists, including New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani (D.), have refused to work with J Street because, they say, it’s not anti-Israel enough.
Moulton’s campaign and congressional office did not respond to requests for comment.
