Last week, we learned that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan were ostensibly fighting to claim credit for who had more influence over First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner. That news came on the heels of reports that at least four foreign governments had privately discussed how to take advantage of the presidential adviser’s treasure trove of financial entanglements and complete lack of political experience. And now, it’s emerged that Ivanka’s husband isn’t the only Trumpworld member the Middle East has so adroitly attempted to wrap around its finger. The Associated Press reports that Elliott Broidy, a top fund-raiser for Donald Trump, was wired $2.5 million last April by George Nader, an adviser to the United Arab Emirates who currently works for Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan and who, incidentally, is serving as a cooperating witness for Robert Mueller. That money, according to reports, was intended to “bankroll an effort to persuade the U.S. to take a hard line against Qatar, a longtime American ally but now a bitter adversary of the U.A.E.” And it seems to have worked!

According to the A.P., just one month after Broidy received the wire transfer, he sponsored a conference highlighting Qatar’s alleged ties to Islamic extremism. At the event, Republican Congressman Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he would be introducing legislation that would label Qatar as a terrorist-supporting state. Two months after Royce introduced the bill, Broidy reportedly contributed $5,400 to his campaign, the maximum allowed by law, and part of the near $600,000 Broidy has donated to G.O.P. members of Congress and Republican political committees since he began pushing legislation singling out Qatar.

Per a New York Times report published last week, the relationship between Nader and Broidy goes back more than a year, with “hundreds of pages of correspondence” including “e-mails, business proposals, and contracts” outlining Nader’s influence campaign over the Republican operative. In a statement, however, Broidy said he’s been going after militant groups for years, and that there’s absolutely nothing to see here. “I’ve both raised money for, and contributed my own money to, efforts by think tanks to bring the facts into the open, since Qatar is spreading millions of dollars around Washington to whitewash its image as a terror-sponsoring state,” he told the A.P. “I’ve also spoken to like-minded members of Congress, like Royce, about how to make sure Qatar’s lobbying money does not blind lawmakers to the facts about its record in supporting terrorist groups.” A spokesperson for Royce said that his boss had long been a critic of the “destabilizing role of extremist elements in Qatar.”

Currently, Mueller’s team is looking into a pair of meetings held around the time of Trump’s inauguration that were attended by both Nader and bin Zayed. One took place at Trump Tower in December 2016 and, shockingly, included young Kushner, as well as then chief strategist Steve Bannon. Another, held a month later, took place on the remote island of Seychelles and involved Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of a Kremlin-connected sovereign wealth fund. The special counsel’s line of inquiry suggests that he’s taking a long, hard look at the influence of foreign money in the Trump administration, and at whether bin Salman’s depiction of Kushner as “in his pocket” rings true—an allegation Kushner’s team has called “obviously false and ridiculous.”