US Energy Secretary Rick Perry has approved
six secret authorizations by companies to
sell nuclear power technology assistance to
Saudi Arabia. RT correspondent Brigida Santos
joins me now with the story. Brigida, before
we go into too much detail, give me an idea
of what the story's about.
Perry has approved at least six Part 810 authorizations,
which allow American companies to start working
on nuclear power technology that can be transferred
to a foreign government. Now in this case,
it would be transferred in, hopefully in their
case, to Saudi Arabia. And that's because
the kingdom is currently reviewing competing
bids from companies in the United States,
in Russia and South Korea as Saudi Arabia
gears up to build two nuclear power plants.
Now, Saudi Arabia says that it's not going
to announce the winner of these contracts
until later this year. So until then, these
authorized US companies are going to be working
merely to convince the Saudis to choose American
products like nuclear reactors and other services
over those of their competitors. However,
the authorizations have come under scrutiny
because they were carried out in secret. Now,
Perry claims secrecy is necessary to protect
the company's proprietary information, but
normally nuclear authorizations are disclosed
to the public at the time of taping that has
yet to happen.
Okay, well first of all, let, let's go back
and talk about this guy a little bit, this
Rick Perry. This guy is not exactly, you know,
the sharpest tool in the shed. This is the
guy, if you remember, he, he, he couldn't
name three agencies that he said he wanted
to abolish. He wanted to abolish three agencies.
They asked him, well, what are the agencies?
He couldn't even name the agencies that he
wanted to abolish. He thought the voting age
in the United States was 21. He called social
security a ponzi scheme. So I guess what I'm
getting at here Brigida this is the guy who
wants to sell nuclear technology to the Saudi
Arabia, to Saudi Arabia. Technology that has
never been disclosed to them. They don't need
it for power. They've got all the power they
need. They've got oil, they've got deserts
for wind power. They've got solar power. It's
not about power. They want to build arms,
they want to build weapons. And so this genius
says, yeah, this is a guy we're allowing to
make a decision like this. What's the reaction
to buy US lawmakers about this character making
decisions like this? What's their reaction?
Lawmakers on both side of the isle are worried
that if the US wins this bid, Saudi Arabia
will develop nuclear weapons and spawn a nuclear
arms race in the Middle East unless proper
safeguards are implemented. And that's because
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
has previously said that his country will
develop nuclear weapons if its rival Iran
does. And now that the Trump administration
has pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, MBS'
stated plan is not completely out of the realm
of possibility. Now, of course, the Iranians
have not, according to reports, violated terms
of the agreement, even though it's been tossed
out. So it's also unclear whether the kingdom
is even going to agree to American anti proliferation
standards or whether the US is even going
to impose them this time around. Now in the
past, negotiations broke down because Saudi
Arabia would not commit to rules that would
ban uranium enrichment and other pathways
to making fissile material for nuclear weapons.
So if the US does not impose safeguards on
Saudi Arabia, it could result in all out proliferation
across the entire Middle East because no other
country would be incentivized to follow those
rules if Saudi Arabia isn't.
Well, you know, what's this notion that they
can't build what they want? We give them the
technology, they're going to build it, they're
going to sell it to their pals in the Middle
East and we are going to have a very, very
scary arms race there in the Middle East.
And again, I come back to Rick Perry. This
guy is an absolute goof. I mean, he would,
he was a goof when he was running for president.
He's been a goof since he, since he was knocked
out of the primaries and we're making, we're
allowing him to make decisions without stepping
in and say, no, we're not going to sell the
Saudis this technology. The other part of
it, it was what you raised. When have we ever
been able to really influence what the Saudis
want to do? It's the, it's the worst dictatorship
on the planet almost. And so this dictatorship
when we've said, hey, can you work with us
on oil prices?
No, we can't. Can you work with us as far
as getting along with this country or that
country? No, we can't. So all of a sudden
they now have nuclear weapons and we're supposed
to say we're going to be able to negotiate
with them? Here's, look, let me ask you this.
Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat is
asking secretary of State Mark, Mike Pompeo
to release the names of the companies that
got the approvals by the middle of April.
He is very good question. Very important information
we should have. We need to know who's tied
up to who, who's making money on this deal.
How likely is it that we're going to get that
information Brigida?
It's extremely unlikely, especially since
the companies are still in competition against
those firms in Russia, China and South Korea.
But it's not just Democrats, I want to mention
that are concerned, as I said, Republican
senators that are also worried about US Saudi
negotiations. And in fact, Senators Marco
Rubio and Bob Menendez have called on the
Government Accountability Office to review
the Trump administration's nuclear power negotiations
with the kingdom over reports alleging that
some are conducted without federal oversight
that's required by the Atomic Energy Act.
The House Oversight Committee has now opened
a formal investigation into the plan, which
involves a group known as IP3. The congressmen
also noted that the Department of Energy is
leading these so-called 123 nuclear negotiate
cooperation agreements rather than State Department,
which is very unusual and inconsistent with
previous nuclear agreement negotiations. And
that's where Perry comes in because he, you
know, he's always been a big energy guy, oil
in Texas. So it's all very questionable.
Brigida, the very idea of Rick Perry having
anything to do with nuclear energy, on its
face is terrifying. Thank you for joining
me. Okay.
In Watertown, New York, people are outraged
that a man who pleaded guilty to raping a
14 year old girl won't be serving any jail
time. Legal journalist Mollye Barrows with
the Trial Lawyer Magazine joins me to talk
about this. I don't know. This is the most
vulgar story. It's vulgar on so many levels.
It is.
But to me, here we have a 14 year old girl,
and the judge says, ah, well we're just going
to give this guy probation. What, what was
the rationale that you saw here? I, I looked
for it and I couldn't find the rationale.
Yeah, I know. Well I'll, I'll outline the
details of the case for you and then we'll
get into a little bit about, so that helps
explain what their rationale was. But essentially
this guy, Shane Piche, was sentenced to 10
years probation and he pled guilty to a third
degree rape charge. His initial charges had
been raping this 14 year old girl he had met
when he was a bus driver for the Watertown
city school district and she was a student
on the bus. Now the alleged incident or it's
not alleged, he confessed to it, happened
at his home. He was also charged originally
with I think providing alcohol, contributing
to the delinquency of a minor basically by
providing her alcohol. And apparently there
had also been two other girls there as well.
And he had initially been charged with providing
them alcohol too, but that charge didn't show
up.
I don't know if it was dropped or what the
situation.
How old is he?
He was 26 at the time that this happened.
So yeah. So essentially he ended up pleading
guilty to this and as they're going through
the process, they had charged him as a sex
offender, but only a level, they wanted, the
prosecution wanted a level two and the judge
said, no, it only needs to be a level one
because they ended up knocking the charges
down to where it was just her. She was the
only victim. These other two girls that he
allegedly gave alcohol to, those charges weren't
brought before court.
So, so forcible rape or was it...
So it was basically saying that the only reason
the DA said the only reason they were pursuing
this to a great extent is because that was
the law. They had the, she wasn't of legal
to consent.
So it was an age issue.
It was an age issue.
And the judge thinks, oh well that's okay
and we're just going to...
And what I read between the lines as and in
various other reports was that they're essentially
in a way, yes, because she wasn't disagree,
she, she, just because she was not of the
age to consent didn't mean that she did not
consent.
Right.
And so that was essentially they're saying
she, it's almost a way of saying she asked
for it.
Okay, but that's, you see, that's the policy.
The policy argument is that there is an age
of reason and an age of choice, and anything
below that age, whether it's 17, 18, anything
below that age there are, you know, there
are plenty of studies. They didn't just arbitrarily
come up with this law.
Right, there's a reason it exists.
There's a reason, they've studied the idea.
They've studied, when can I, when can a child
make an intelligent decision? When can a child
determine that this is what they want to engage
in? So it's not just somebody, they just didn't
pick a number out and say, hey, you know,
let's make it 18, or let's make it 17.
There's a reason that it exists.
It doesn't happen like that. So this judge,
I can't imagine that he's not under pretty
serious scrutiny. What's the outcry on this?
Yes. So, James P. McClusky is the judge. He's
the one that decided that the level of sex
offender should drop from a two to a one.
He, you know, made a number of comments that
basically would imply that he felt like that
there was, because the guy had no priors,
that he felt like that that level needed to
be dropped as well. There's 50,000 signatures
now wanting this guy taken off the bench because
of this. People are outraged. The victim's
mother is outrage. She said, you know, he
took something from my daughter she'll never
have back again. Now she's dealing with depression
and anxiety. And the impression that you get
from the DA's office as they defend this judge's
sentence was that hey, we actually did her
a favor. If we had initially charged him under
the higher level rape charge that we were
looking at, which did have similar sentencing
guidelines to the one that he ended up pleading
to, if we had charged him under that she might've
had to have testified, she would've had to
have testified before a grand jury as well
as at trial. So going back to your point,
it's almost like you're, hey, we know that
you were raped, we know that you might've
consented but you're not at the age to consent,
so we're just going to save you the trouble
of testifying.
Yeah, and see those are the operative words.
Age of consent. Again, this isn't something
that somebody just arbitrarily picked out
a number and said, it's this number and here,
everything below is below the age of consent.
They've studied it and they've figured out
what is the impact girl, to a young lady in,
in later years. When can she really consent?
Obviously 13 and 14 is not an age of consent.
And so I think that, I think they really need
to treat this, this judge very poorly in this,
and I hope they do.
I hope they do as well, Pap. We're going to
continue to follow it and see what becomes
of this petition and the public outcry in
this case.
Yeah, because it sends a heck of a message
to the rest of the public doesn't it?
Absolutely, and we certainly know the patterns
with people like this, often cases.
Mollye, thanks for joining me. Okay.
Thanks Pap.
