State Attorney General Gentner Drummond asked a Rogers County judge Monday to require the two companies behind the proposed Inola smelter to answer discovery requests about their ownership. This would include whether any public official or their family member holds a financial interest in the foreign investment behind the Inola smelter project.
Drummond initially filed suit in June to stop smelter development and then a motion on Oct. 22 to begin discovery in the case. On that same day, Vanity Fair published an excerpt from an upcoming book detailing the hacked phone revelations of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Allegations from the book include payments of approximately $2 billion that were made to Kushner in exchange for him advancing United Arab Emirates’ interests in the U.S. government.
Emirates Global Aluminum controls 60% of the project and is a state-owned enterprise of the UAE. According to a state attorney general's office press release, Drummond said any public official or family benefiting from the Emirati investment in the smelter “bears squarely on issues that are a part of this case.”
