Officials in the Trump administration have pushed for building nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia despite strong opposition from the White House legal advisers, who believe there are legal difficulties during the process, according to a report written by the congress.
According to the report, senior administration officials, including National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who served shortly before he was fired, worked with retired military officers to circumvent the routine decision-making process and promote the export of information that experts feared could be used to spread nuclear technology in the Middle East. The legal advisers warned that the export of the plan, called the Marshall Plan of the Middle East, could violate laws designed to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and could put Flynn in conflict of interest.
According to the report, the company, IP3, which promotes the distribution of nuclear technologies to generate electricity, is the one that sought to build power plants in Saudi Arabia. The drafts sent by IP3 to Michael Flynn also included reference to another Trump associate, Thomas Barrack, who headed the committee that organized his inauguration ceremony. In one memo Flynn wrote to Trump, he suggested that Barrak be appointed special envoy to the nuclear power station program.
The president met senior nuclear industry officials at the White House in the mid of February in a discussion on expanding their international activities, including in the White House. The meeting was organized by Jack Cain, a former US Army general and co-founder of IP3.
