Ahmed Al-Rumaihi

Al-Rumaihi was educated in the U.S. and served as the No. 2 in the Qatar embassy in Washington from 2008 until 2013. After leaving Qatari government service in March 2017, he funded his own enterprise, called Sport Trinity. Last month, he was sued as part of a commercial dispute involving a former business partner of Steve Bannon and the rapper and actor Ice Cube. In a recent filing, the former Bannon partner, Jeff Kwatinetz, accuses al-Rumaihi of having offered to “bribe” Bannon, and further alleges in a complaint, filed in California, that al-Rumaihi told him, “Do you think [Michael] Flynn turned down our money?” Al-Rumaihi said he did not pay Cohen, and Cohen’s since-revealed account ledger includes no payment from al-Rumaihi, or any companies connected to him. A spokesperson for Kwatinetz’s company, BIG3, denied the accusation, saying it was “laughable." Al-Rumaihi said he first met Cohen on December 7, 2016, when he was comped tickets by an American business associate to attend a $5,000-a-plate transition fundraising breakfast at the Manhattan restaurant Cipriani. LIKE MANY BUSINESS disputes that wind up in court, the one involving al-Rumaihi, Kwatinetz, and Ice Cube has gotten ugly. Ice Cube and Kwatinetz run a three-on-three basketball league known as BIG3, to which al-Rumaihi and another partner allegedly agreed to provide $20.5 million in funding. They only delivered roughly a third of that amount, the suit alleges. The dispute over funding for the basketball league has grown deeply personal. Roger Mason Jr., the former commissioner of BIG3, charged in a public filing that Kwatinetz often used racist language in reference to the players and said Henry resigned in protest over the way Kwatinetz disparaged al-Rumaihi and his partner. Henry stood by Mason’s account, and said that a comment Kwatinetz made about al-Rumaihi and his partner triggered Henry’s resignation. “Doesn’t matter, bro,” Henry said Kwatinetz told him of the two Arab investors. “They’re all terrorists.”