Judicial Watch: Texas A&M Received Almost $500 Million in Grants from Qatar

According to records requested by Judicial Watch, Texas A&M University received nearly $500 million in grants and contracts from the Qatar regime. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton commented, “Now we know why terrorist-linked Qatar has fought us in court to hide its financial support for Texas A&M — which we just found out is nearly a half billion dollars.”

Records obtained by Judicial Watch under the Texas Public Information Act indicate that Texas A&M received $485,811,921.33 in grants and contracts from the Qatar Foundation.

Judicial Watch pointed out what appears to be discrepancies between what is listed in the gift reporting received from Texas A&M and what was reported by the school to the federal foreign gift reporting system.

“For instance, Texas A&M’s gift record for January 1, 2013 – May 22, 2018, only lists a total of $69,844.41 from the Qatar Foundation, whereas the Department of Education’s database shows a total of over $47 million for the same period,” Judicial Watch noted.

A document titled “Qatar Grants and Contracts” for January 1, 2013 — May 22, 2018, lists the funds received by Texas A&M as follows:

ARAMCO — $1,028,611.55
QATAR COMPUTING RESEARCH INSTITUTE — $121,643.84
QATAR ENVIRONMENT & ENERGY RESEARCH — $218,250.33
QATAR FOUNDATION — $485,811,921.33
QATAR NATIONAL RESEARCH FUND — $32,145,910.92
QATAR UNIVERSITY — $226,826.03
$519,553,164.00

A second record is titled “Qatar Gifts” includes the following:

Qatar National Research Fund — $39,280.82
Qatar Computing Research Institute — $1,202,989.18
Aramco Services Company — $100,000.00
Maersk Oil Qatar — $1,536,230.88
Ooredoo — $524,918.00
Qatar Biomedical Research Institute — $3,000.00
Qatar Foundation — $69,844.41
[$3,476,263.29]

The information on Texas A&M’s grants and contracts from Qatar was obtained following a court victory in litigation on behalf of Judicial Watch client, Zachor Legal Institute, a U.S.-based advocacy group dedicated to combatting the spread of anti-semitism.

The Zachor Legal Institute wanted to know about the potential influence by the Qatar government’s funding of certain Texas A&M University programs, as well as a Texas A&M campus in Education City, Al Rayyan, Qatar.

Any grants given to U.S. universities is noteworthy, given that Qatar has aligned itself with Islamic terrorists and extremists.

In 2018, Qatar filed a lawsuit to prevent its funding information from being disclosed, Judicial Watch reports. But in March 2023, Judge Amy Clark Meachum ruled in favor of making the documents public.

“Now we know why terrorist-linked Qatar has fought us in court to hide its financial support for Texas A&M — which we just found out is nearly a half billion dollars,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

Marc Greendorfer, President of Zachor Legal Institute, said that “Texas A&M’s apparent sporadic and shifting compliance with federal reporting requirements concerning gifts and grants from Qatar raises many questions as to why the university seemingly failed to comply with reporting requirements and whether additional information is not being reported.”

Greendorfer added that the institute will continue to seek answers to their questions, “until every dollar is accounted for.”

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