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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

On February 19, 2019 , the Committee on Oversight and Re form issued an interim staff

report prepared for Chairman Elijah E. Cu mmings after multiple whistleblowers came forward to

warn about efforts inside the White House to rush the transfer of U.S. nuclear technology to

Saudi Arabia.

As explained in the first interim staff report, under Section 123 of the Atomic Energy

Act, the United States may no t transfer nuclear technology to a foreign c ountry without the

approval of Congress in order to en sure that the agreement meets nine non proliferation

requirements to prevent the spr ead of nuclear weapons. These agreements, commonly known as

“123 Agreements,” are typically negotiated with career experts at the National Security Council

(NSC) and the Departments of State, Defense, and Energy.

The “Gold Standard” for 123 Agreements is a commitment by the foreign country not to

enrich or re-process nuclear fuel and not to engage in activities linked to the risk of nuclear

proliferation. During the Obama Administration, Saudi Arabia refused to agree to the Gold

Standard. During the Trump Administration, Saudi Crown Prince Mohamm ed bin Salman

(MBS) went further, proclaim ing: “Without a doubt, if Ir an developed a nuclear bomb, we will

follow suit as soon as possible.”

There is strong bipartisan opposition to abandoning the “Gold Standard” for Saudi Arabia

in any future 123 Agreement. For example, in a letter t o President Trump, Republican Senators

Marco Rubio, Todd Young, Cory Gardner, Rand Paul, and Dean Heller wrote:

Given your Administration’s ongoing efforts to press the Iranian regime—in the words of

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—to “stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium

reprocessing,” we have long believed that it is therefore critical and necessary for the

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to accept and uphold this “Gold Standard” for responsible

nuclear behavior.

The Committee’s first interim staff report explained that whistleblowers inside the White

House expressed alarm about corporate interests attempting to use their influence with the

Trump Administration to bypass these concerns in order to serve their own financial interests in

building nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia. The Committee received documents bolstering the

whistleblowers’ accounts and showing frequent communications between these corporate

interests and Trump Administration officials.

This report—the Committee’s second interim staff report on this issue—is based on more

than 60,000 pages of new documents obtained by the Committee since it issued its first interim

staff report in February. These documents have been produced in response to requests that

Chairman Cummings made to a ho st of outside companies about their involvement with these

efforts.