US intelligence believes United Arab Emirates trying to manipulate American political system, report says

Senior lawmakers were briefed in past few weeks

(Getty Images)

US intelligence believes that the United Arab Emirates has engaged in a decades-long effort to manipulate the American political system.

The UAE, a major US ally in the Middle East, used legal and illegal measures to push US foreign policy in a favourable direction to the country an intelligence report states, according to The Washington Post.

The newspaper says that its reporting is based on speaking to three people who have read the report but did not provide them with a copy.

It states that the UAE targeted weaknesses in the American political system, including a “reliance on campaign contributions, susceptibility to powerful lobbying firms and lax enforcement of disclosure laws intended to guard against interference by foreign governments.”

The report was put together by the National Intelligence Council and senior lawmakers were briefed on it in the past few weeks.

The UAE reportedly hired three former US intelligence and military officials to help the country break into computers and carry out surveillance on “dissidents, politicians, journalists and US companies.”

The men were prosecuted in US federal court last year and after admitting to giving the country hacking technology, lost their security clearances and paid $1.7m to resolve the criminal charges.

The UAE’s ambassador to the US, Yousef Al Otaiba, told the Post he was “proud of the UAE’s influence and good standing in the US.”

“It has been hard earned and well deserved. It is the product of decades of close UAE-US cooperation and effective diplomacy,” he said in a statement.

“It reflects common interests and shared values.”