A new report issued by House Democrats this week claims that key Trump administration appointees overrode the objections of top national security officials and attorneys to promote the sale of nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia — and these sales could have directly benefited Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Per the Washington Post, the report, which was issued on Tuesday by House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), claims that top national security officials including former national security adviser H.R. McMaster warned the administration against plans to sell nuclear power plants to the Saudis.
These national officials called for a halt to such sales in 2017 and cited “potential conflicts of interest, national security risks and legal hurdles.”
Despite this, however, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and other Trump appointees continued to push the sales of nuclear power to the Saudis.
Of particular interest in the report is the revelation that the Saudi nuke sales could have benefited Kushner, whose family in 2017 was desperate to secure investment capital at a troubled property in Manhattan.
“The Cummings report notes that one of the power plant manufacturers that could benefit from a nuclear deal, Westinghouse Electric, is a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, the company that provided financial relief to the family of Jared Kushner,” the Post writes. “Brookfield Asset Management took a 99-year lease on the family’s deeply indebted New York City property at 666 Fifth Avenue.”
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