WASHINGTON: US lawmakers said Tuesday they were probing whether President Donald Trump is rushing to sell sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia to please corporate supporters who stand to profit handsomely.
The House of Representatives committee in charge of investigations, led by the rival Democratic Party since last month, said that “multiple whistleblowers” warned of conflicts of interest “that could implicate federal criminal statutes”.
Representative Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, asked the White House to turn over documents including those related to a meeting two months into Trump’s tenure between his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s powerful Mohammed bin Salman, who shortly afterwards became crown prince.
An initial report by the committee said that “strong private commercial interests have been pressing aggressively” to transfer sensitive technology.
“These commercial entities stand to reap billions of dollars through contracts associated with constructing and operating nuclear facilities in Saudi Arabia — and apparently have been in close and repeated contact with President Trump and his administration to the present day,” it said.
The United States cannot legally transfer nuclear technology to countries without reaching so-called Section 123 agreements, which provide assurances of peaceful energy use.
The House committee voiced the fear that Saudi Arabia — the world’s top oil exporter — could convert US knowhow into making a nuclear bomb, heightening already severe tensions with regional rival Iran.
The committee said that the leading proponent of building nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia has been IP3 International, a company whose subsidiary in 2016 listed retired Army lieutenant general Michael Flynn as an advisor.
Flynn served briefly as Trump’s national security adviser before resigning over lying about secret communications with Russia, for which he was convicted and is awaiting sentencing.
The Trump administration in its very first week tried to rush through approval of IP3’s bid to build nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia until a legal adviser ruled that Flynn had a conflict of interest, the committee said, citing whistleblowers.
But IP3’s influence has apparently not ended, with the committee voicing alarm at a report by news site Axios that Trump personally met with representatives of the company among other firms just last week.
Another key proponent of transfers to Saudi Arabia, according to the committee, has been Thomas Barrack, a businessperson who organized Trump’s inauguration.
He recently drew controversy for playing down Saudi Arabia’s killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the US-based dissident writer who was dismembered in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.
