Doha has increased its team of consultants and legal hirees in the United States to include Michael Mukasey, a former attorney general for George W Bush, and Rudy Giuliani’s former chief of staff to its long list of contractors, The National reported.

According to the report, documents released by the US government’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara) recently revealed that Doha has hired Mr Mukasey and Tony Carbonetti, Mr Guiliani’s former aide, to help in its stand-off with the quartet states — Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt — that have been boycotting Qatar since last June for reneging on its commitments in the Riyadh agreement of 2013.

The secret agreement, whose content was revealed last year, included a commitment from Qatar to stop support for the Muslim Brotherhood and to end support for “antagonistic media”.

One year later, with no settlement in the horizon, Qatar has embarked on a costly strategy to seek outside help in responding to the crisis and to rebrand its image.

Mr Mukasey is the second former US attorney general following John Ashcroft, that Doha had employed during the last year. According to Fara documents, Mr Mukasey, who served in the role between 2007 and 2009, is charging Doha, $1,600 an hour for his services.

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