By Chris Kain
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Amid conflicting reports on whether federal authorities are investigating Mayor Muriel Bowser over her 2023 trip to Qatar, she said today that neither she nor anyone in her office had been contacted by federal officials about any probe.

“I am not under investigation,” she told reporters during a Q&A after an unrelated event this morning. “I have not been contacted by any federal officials about investigating me.”

The head of the federal office said to be handling the matter also rebutted the idea that Bowser herself is the subject of an investigation, although officials have told reporters that the trip has drawn scrutiny in recent months.

“Mayor Bowser is not under investigation, nor is she the target of any investigation,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement today to WaPo and other media outlets.

The mayor’s trip to Qatar before heading to a climate change conference elsewhere in the Middle East has long been the subject of media interest, with 7News raising questions about inaccurate accounts from the mayor’s office of who funded the travel. It wasn’t until early this year that a letter from the Embassy of Qatar confirmed that the country had helped pay for the trip, which Bowser has described as promoting investment and tourism.

The latest firestorm began yesterday afternoon when The New York Times reported that federal prosecutors in Pirro’s office had opened a corruption investigation into Bowser, citing “people familiar with the inquiry.”

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