Need to answer questions about Board of Peace, senior House Dems tell Rubio

Two senior House Democrats wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday demanding information on the financing of the U.S.-led Board of Peace, which U.S. President Donald Trump chairs.

Trump established the board as an international organization in January to oversee the Gaza peace plan and potentially resolve other global conflicts. Trump holds permanent chairmanship, and 27 member states and several observer states and entities take part.

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Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, called the Board of Peace “an opaque, pseudo-governmental organization never authorized by Congress.”

“We still have no answers to even the most basic questions about the structure, operations and oversight of the Board,” they wrote.

The State Department sought to send $50 million to the board but “rescinded the transfer after congressional scrutiny raised basic questions the department could not answer,” the lawmakers wrote. “Meanwhile, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates have transferred more than $100 million to the board, with billions more pledged by other foreign governments, like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.”

“What is the Board of Peace? Is it a public or private entity? International or domestic?” Meeks and Raskin wrote. “Who controls the funds in its J.P. Morgan bank account? In what countries are those accounts located? Who will audit those funds and conduct oversight of the board?”

“What does President Trump intend to do with this vast slush fund while he is in office, or after he leaves?” they wrote.

The lawmakers also pointed to Israel’s stated disapproval of some elements of the Trump administration’s so-called roadmap to peace in Gaza. Large-scale plans for development of the Gaza Strip, which the White House unveiled, “appeared dead in the water,” they wrote.

Meeks and Raskin questioned the board’s structure, potential for self-dealing and the manner in which it claims immunities.

“We will work with you to guarantee the American people full transparency about how their tax dollars are being funneled to, and spent by, this organization never established or authorized by Congress but now poised to receive substantial public funding from the State Department under your direction,” they wrote.

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