Trump adviser in 2016 gave draft of energy speech to UAE for edits

In 2016, two weeks before then-candidate Donald Trump was scheduled to give a speech on energy, one of his closest advisers sent a copy of his planned remarks to an associate in the United Arab Emirates for their review, per documents obtained by House Oversight Committee investigators.

A report released on Monday says that investor Thomas Barrack, who went on to chair Trump's inaugural committee, sent the speech to a former business associate from the UAE, who later told Barrack he passed the remarks along to UAE and Saudi government officials. Barrack then asked Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, to add language requested by the UAE officials to the speech. In an email to Barrack, Manafort confirmed that the speech "has the language you want."

The report says the "Trump administration has virtually obliterated the lines normally separating government policymaking from corporate and foreign interests," but the documents gathered do not indicate that Trump knew drafts of the speech had been circulated among officials in the Middle East. Trump delivered his remarks in North Dakota, promising an "America First" energy plan while also vowing to "work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy."

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