Oklahoma AG seeks answers about Inola smelter ownership

OKLAHOMA CITY (KSWO) - Oklahoma’s attorney general is asking for the companies behind a controversial smelter in Inola to make ownership disclosures.

Monday, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond asked a judge to require the companies, Emirates Global Aluminum and Century Aluminum, to answer questions about their ownership.

EGA is a state-owned enterprise of the United Arab Emirates, which holds a 60 percent controlling interest in the project.

But Drummond is asking what Jared Kushner, who has been alleged to have advanced the UAE’s development in the US, stands to benefit from the Emirate investment.

It also broadens Oklahoma’s requests to reach financial interests held by a public official’s in-laws.

In his filing, Drummond said in part, quote,

“These are allegations, not findings, and the State treats them as such,” Drummond said in today’s filing. “But they are serious allegations about the government that owns sixty percent of this project, and the State is entitled to find out whether they reach (the project). Defendants told the federal court that the venture was secured through a government-to-government partnership between the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The reports describe that same government paying a senior United States official, through a bank chaired by its ruler’s brother, for his influence over United States policy. If any public official or member of a public official’s family holds an interest in, or stands to benefit from, the Emirati investment behind the Inola smelter, that fact bears squarely on issues (that are a part of this case).”

Previously, Drummond filed a suit in June to stop the smelter’s development.