Secret US nuclear plants for Saudis
SENIOR White House officials pushed a project to share nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia despite the objections of ethics and national security officials, according to a congressional report citing whistleblowers within the administration.
Politicians from both parties have expressed concerns that Saudi Arabia could develop nuclear weapons if the US technology were transferred without proper safeguards.
The Democratic-led House oversight committee has opened an investigation into the claims by several unnamed whistleblowers who said they witnessed “abnormal acts” in the White House regarding the proposal to build dozens of nuclear reactors across the Middle Eastern kingdom.
The report raises concerns about whether some in a White House marked by “chaos, dysfunction, and backbiting” sought to circumvent established national security procedures regarding nuclear power technology.
It also comes as US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is developing a Middle East peace plan that could include economic proposals for Saudi Arabia.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the report, the effort was pushed by former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was sacked in early 2017.
Derek Harvey, a National Security Council (NSC) official brought in by Flynn, continued work on the proposal, which has remained under consideration by the Trump administration.
Representative Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the House oversight and reform committee, announced the investigation yesterday. Relying on the whistleblower accounts and email communications, the committee’s report details how NSC and ethics officials repeatedly warned that the actions of Flynn and one of his senior aides could run afoul of federal conflicts of interest law and statutes governing the transfer of nuclear technology to foreign powers.
The probe puts new scrutiny on Flynn’s early days in the administration as he awaits sentencing for lying to the FBI in the Russia investigation.
Congressional investigators are also probing the role of Tom Barrack, a proponent of the nuclear proposal who ran Mr Trump’s presidential inaugural committee, which is separately under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York.
Rick Gates, a former Barrack employee and co-operator in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, was also involved in advocating the nuclear proposal.
A lawyer for Flynn declined to comment. Mr Harvey and representatives for Mr Barrack did not immediately return requests for comment.
According to the report, the whistleblowers came forward to the committee because they had concerns “about efforts inside the White House to rush the transfer of highly sensitive US nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in potential violation of the Atomic Energy Act and without review by Congress as required by law – efforts that may be ongoing to this day”.
The report tracks closely with public reporting, including a 2017 article by the non-profit news outlet Propublica, which detailed some of the concerns raised inside the National Security Council about the nuclear proposal – known as the Marshall Plan for the Middle East – advocated by a company called IP3 International.
IP3 is led by a group of retired US military officers and national security officials, including retired rear admiral Michael Hewitt and retired Marine general James Cartwright.