Trump introduced Qatari to donor pursuing nuclear power project, report says
A Tennessee businessman says US President Donald Trump introduced him to a potential Qatari investor at his Mar-a-Lago resort in spring 2018.
WASHINGTON — Last spring, President Donald Trump introduced a potential Qatari investor to a friend and inauguration donor seeking a few billion dollars in investment to buy an unfinished nuclear power plant in northeastern Alabama, according to interviews the donor gave to a Tennessee media outlet published this week.
Tennessee businessman Franklin Haney, 78, told the University of Memphis’ Institute for Public Service Reporting that Trump introduced him to the Qatari at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, of which Haney is a longtime member. He said the introduction to the Qatari, whose name he said he did not recall, came a couple weeks after he was introduced in March to Trump’s then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen, whom Haney briefly hired as a consultant.
Cohen pleaded guilty last year to lying to Congress, financial crimes and violating federal campaign finance laws related to hush money payments made to two women who alleged affairs with Trump before the 2016 US presidential election. Cohen is slated to testify next week before three congressional committees ahead of reporting for a three-year federal prison sentence in May.
“As best as Haney recalls, he and Cohen were introduced in March,” the Institute for Public Service Reporting wrote in a detailed investigative report published by the Daily Memphian on Feb. 19. “A couple weeks later, the president introduced Haney to a Qatari official whose name Haney said he doesn’t recall.”
