These legal requirements could not be circumvented
There’s a report from the House Oversight Committee. Paul Waldman at the Post boils it down for us:
We begin with a company called IP3 International, described as “a private company that has assembled a consortium of U.S. companies to build nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia.” IP3, which has an all-star team of former generals and federal officials on its staff and board, was pushing hard on the Trump administration to approve its plan to build these reactors despite the lengthy process required to transfer nuclear technology abroad.
Not to mention the fact that it’s Saudi Arabia. Remember the twin towers? That Saudi Arabia. Remember Jamal Khashoggi? That Saudi Arabia again.
A key proponent of this nuclear effort was General Michael Flynn, who described himself in filings as an “advisor” to a subsidiary of IP3, IronBridge Group Inc., from June 2016 to December 2016 — at the same time he was serving as Donald Trump’s national security advisor during the presidential campaign and the presidential transition. According to the whistleblowers, General Flynn continued to advocate for the adoption of the IP3 plan not only during the transition, but even after he joined the White House as President Trump’s National Security Advisor…
The other key person inside the administration was Derek Harvey, the senior director for Middle East and North African affairs at the National Security Council in the early days of the Trump administration.
Harvey was fired by McMaster and went to work for Devin Nunes.
But in the White House, he was an unusually strong advocate for IP3′s idea, despite the legal impediments meant to make sure that materials and technology capable of being turned into nuclear weapons don’t spread throughout the world:
Career staff warned that any transfer of nuclear technology must comply with the Atomic Energy Act, that the United States and Saudi Arabia would need to reach a 123 Agreement, and that these legal requirements could not be circumvented.
So they circumvented them, because of course they did.
H/t YNNB
If the world worked the way conservatives claim it does, i.e. that every media outlet that isn’t explicitly conservative is in the tank for Democrats, then the media would be running 24/7 stories on how the Trump Administration was illegally selling nuclear secrets to Saudi Arabia. After all, Fox News continues to this day to hyperventilate about how Hillary supposedly gave uranium to the Russians even though it’s not even vaguely true.
Instead, those supposedly liberal media outlets are running stories about how the Dems are in disarray about the Green New Deal, and isn’t Kamala Harris a phony for using hot sauce, and gosh let’s hear more from this Howard Schultz fellow.
Ophelia, borked link alert! (It goes to MSN).