In my coverage of Hillary’s nomination, I briefly noted that, “General John Allen, formerly of the Marine Corps, currently employed by Qatar’s pet Brookings think tank, insisted that only Hillary Clinton could defeat ISIS.”

Now the chickens have come home to roost.

Federal prosecutors have obtained records indicating that John R. Allen, the retired four-star Marine general who commanded all American troops in Afghanistan and now heads a venerable Washington think tank, secretly lobbied for the government of Qatar, lied to investigators about his role and tried to withhold evidence sought by a federal subpoena, according to court documents.

This took place during a crisis brought on by Qatar’s backing for the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran.

Qatar was frantically trying to fend off a pressure campaign and economic embargo by its Persian Gulf rivals, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Rumors were circulating of a possible Saudi ground invasion, Mr. Trump appeared to back the Saudis and Emiratis, and both sides of the dispute were spending heavily to win favor in Washington.

During this period, General Allen met several times with American officials, including members of Congress and H.R. McMaster, the retired three-star general who was then the White House national security adviser. But the document, citing an interview of General McMaster by federal agents, stated that General Allen never informed General McMaster that he was being paid for his work.

The document also described efforts by General Allen to obstruct the investigation by lying to federal agents who asked him about his lobbying efforts during an interview last August, and withholding documents that showed his financial interest in his interactions with Qatari officials.

His time at Central Command helped him cement ties with senior Qatari leaders, including Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the country’s emir. In 2011, he was given a fourth star and took command of all American and NATO troops in Afghanistan until 2013.

Qatar was backing the Taliban so this is literally sleeping with the enemy.

In 2016, the year before the court document states his lobbying effort for Qatar began, General Allen was an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and he spoke that year at the Democratic National Convention.

He took over as the president of Brookings in November 2017.

Was there anyone involved with Hillary who wasn’t chasing foreign cash?

But this whole thing is a reminder that the Brookings Institute ought to be treated as a foreign influence operation. 

“[T]there was a no-go zone when it came to criticizing the Qatari government,” Saleem Ali, who served as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar in 2009, told the New York Times.

Allen was also a key player in former Secretary of State Kerry’s push to impose a disastrous terror deal on Israel.

A U.S. State Department spokeswoman expressed outrage Tuesday over a news report in which Israel’s defense minister was said to have dismissed Secretary of State John Kerry’s Middle East peace push as naive and messianic.

“The remarks of the defense minister, if accurate, are offensive and inappropriate, especially given all that the United States is doing to support Israel’s security needs,” the spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said in a statement.

“Secretary Kerry and his team including General Allen have been working day and night to try to promote a secure peace for Israel because of the secretary’s deep concern for Israel’s future,” she added, referring to John R. Allen, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who has developed proposals for securing the West Bank if a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians can be negotiated.

“To question his motives and distort his proposals is not something we would expect from the defense minister of a close ally,” she said.

“The American plan for security arrangements that was shown to us isn’t worth the paper it was written on,” Mr. Yaalon, a former chief of Israel’s military, was quoted as saying. “It provides neither security nor peace.”

Of course it didn’t. It came from the enemy.