Since the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) revelations in the US Court on Nov. 30 that hundreds of millions of ringgit of embezzled 1MDB funds had been used to lobby and bribe US officials to drop the US DOJ’s largest kleptocratic litigation on 1MDB, former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had come out with at least five FaceBook postings, but not a single one on the US DOJ bombshell on the latest 1MDB developments.

Can Najib explain why?

Malaysians are entitled to know what Najib has to say with regard to the US DOJ revelations in the US courts that hundreds of millions of ringgit from the 1MDB scam had been deployed not only to influence DOJ’s investigation into the 1MDB scandal, but even to secure the US President, Donald Trump, to drop the US DOJ kleptocratic proceedings on 1MDB altogether.

Several individuals, including a former DOJ staff, George Higginbotham, had been bribed to lobby high-level government officials on the US DOJ probe on the 1MDB scandal.

George Higginbotham had pleaded guilty to aiding the “principal architect” behind the 1MDB scheme, by conspiring to deceive US banks of the source and purpose of tens of millions of US dollars sent from overseas to finance a lobbying campaign on behalf of foreign interests.

According to the Nov. 30 proceedings in the District of Columbia District Court, four seizures from several accounts totalling US$73 million were made from the period between January to July 2018.

The court proceedings also referred to meetings of the conspirators with Jho Low in Thailand and Macau.

What is particularly interesting is Paragraph 30 of the “Verified Complaint for Forfeiture In Rem” for the four seizures totalling US$73 million, where US DOJ made the revelation that in August 2017, Jho Low and the conspirators even prepared “talking points” for Najib’s meeting with US President Donald Trump which took place in early September 2017.

Najib was referred to as “MALAYSIAN OFFICIAL NO.1 (MO1)” while Trump was referred to as “US GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL NO.1”.

Several of Najib’s “talking points” prepared for Najib’s meeting with Trump focused specifically on the 1MDB investigations to convey the following messages:

· that US involvement in the investigation was unnecessary;

· that the 1MDB concerned only Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Malaysia;

· that the Malaysian Attorney-General had publicly announced that no American investor had been harmed by any 1MDB transaction; and

· that the involvement of U.S. prosecutors had caused unnecessary US-Malaysia tension and could cause a negative reaction among Malaysians.

This is treason at its starkest, and Najib should inform Malaysians whether any of these “talking points” had been used by him when he met President Trump in the White House in September 2017, whether he was a party to or knew that Jho Low was deploying hundreds of millions of ringgit of embezzled 1MDB monies to lobby and even bribe US officials to drop the US DOJ litigation on 1MDB.

It is also time for Najib to make a full disclosure of all his meetings with Jho Low before and after the 13th General Elections, where, when, who participated in these meetings and what transpired at each meeting.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Paliament on Monday, 3rd December 2019)