By MARK LANDLER
New York Times
SEPT. 12, 2017

WASHINGTON — When President Trump welcomed Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, to the White House on Tuesday, he thanked him for “all the investment you’ve made in the United States.”

Mr. Trump did not single out Mr. Najib’s patronage of his hotel two blocks from the White House, but he could have: the Malaysian leader was spotted entering and exiting the Trump International Hotel, with his entourage, on Monday and Tuesday.

The White House denied that Mr. Najib had picked the hotel at Mr. Trump’s behest. “We certainly don’t book their hotel accommodations,” the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said, “so I couldn’t speak to the personal decision they made about where to stay here in D.C.”

Whatever the motivation, the choice of lodgings added to the awkwardness of a meeting already replete with ethical questions. Mr. Najib is under investigation by the Justice Department, part of a corruption scandal that critics said he has fended off by firing investigators and dismissing negative news reports about him as “fake news.”

In these respects, he is not unlike Mr. Trump. So it was perhaps not a surprise that the two leaders skipped a news conference, kept their public remarks brief, and stayed on the safe ground of trade and counterterrorism. Read the rest of this entry »

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has visited the White House and met President Trump but he continues to be hounded and haunted by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) largest kleptocratic suit to forfeit some US$1.7 billion 1MDB-linked assets in the United States, United Kingdom and Switzerland.

The jury is out as to whether Najib could capitalize on his White House visit and meeting with President Trump for his benefit in the run-up to the 14th General Election, or whether it would be a deadweight to sink his premiership and coalition in the next general election.

The missing “elephant” in the Trump-Najib meeting is not only the talk of Malaysians and Americans, but the whole world – as never before had any Malaysian Prime Minister or possibly any visiting foreign leader who had been bombarded by such a bad press, both in the United States and world-wide.

What is worse, Najib’s visit has added a new ethical conundrum for both Trump and Najib – as the Malaysian Prime Minister and his entourage are staying at the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, raising the question whether Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution which forbids presidents from receiving gifts or payment for services rendered from foreign governments while in office.

Those who believe that Najib’s visit to the White House will ipso facto put the 1MDB scandal behind him are being incredibly naïve, for all that Najib’s visit to the White House has done is to present an unprecedented spectacle of two leaders who are both under investigation by the US DOJ – the Malaysian Prime Minister and the US President, one for theft and money-laundering of more than US$4.5 billion over six years from 1MDB and the other on whether Trump’s current or former aides colluded with Russian intelligence during the 2016 presidential campaign. Read the rest of this entry »

By Kevin Liptak,
CNN White House Producer
September 12, 2017

Washington (CNN) Malaysia’s prime minister visited the White House on Tuesday seeking a dose of legitimacy amid a US Justice Department investigation into his finances.

The US Justice Department criminal probe into Prime Minister Najib Razak centers around billions of dollars in assets the US claims were acquired using a government fund and laundered through American firms. Najib denies any wrongdoing.

In meeting with him at the White House, President Donald Trump hoped to cultivate a dependable ally in Asia, but the visit made for awkward timing.

Last month, the Justice Department shifted its focus from seizing the disputed assets — including real estate, art, jewelry and movie rights — to a criminal investigation into the money used to purchase them. The US asserts the money was stolen from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state investment fund that Najib founded.

The corruption matter didn’t arise, at least in public, during Najib’s visit. Seated around the Cabinet Room table at the White House, the men praised new cooperation between their two countries, including agreements for sales of US-made Boeing jets and General Electric engines. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jonathan O’Connell
Washington Post
September 12, 2017

Malaysian prime minister’s visit to Trump International Hotel could be violation of Constitution’s emoluments clause

Before arriving at the White House late Tuesday morning to meet with President Trump, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak strode through the golden doors of an elevator at the Trump International Hotel and past the lounge to his waiting motorcade.

The prime minister’s official White House visit also brought at least 24 hours of activity and sales to the glamorous 263-room hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue that Trump owns through a trust. And it is likely to escalate debate over whether the president is benefiting from a luxury property that has become Washington’s new power center — and, its critics say, a staging area for those seeking White House access.

Hotel staffers and Malaysian officials declined to say whether Najib and the other officials stayed overnight at the hotel, among the most expensive in Washington, or if they did stay, for how long.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissed a question about the delegation’s stay. “We certainly don’t book their hotel accommodations,” she told reporters Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry »

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has written a most extraordinary and unprecedented article on his blog entitled “Malaysia’s Record of Democracy and Free Speech is Strong” clearly with two objectives:

Firstly, on the eve of his visit to the White House and meeting with US President Trump, to burnish his credentials as a true democrat and advocate of free speech. Najib’s strategic advisers regard Trump’s invitation to Najib as a “coup” and a great national honour for Najib and Malaysia, especially in the run-up to the 14GE. This however is not universally shared by Malaysians who regard Najib’s White House visit as a “national humiliation and shame” as Najib would be visiting the White House under the cloud of the infamy of a kleptocrat and “MO1” – both branded by the US government through its Department of Justice (DOJ).

Secondly, to take the opportunity to demonise and launch a bitter attack against Pakatan Harapan and its leaders, as well as critics of the Najib administration, for the American audience, to paint the picture of the Najib administration unfairly under attack and even “siege” by undemocratic opponents.

Najib is riled by the bad publicity in the US media over his visit to the White House, but who is responsible for such press in the American media? Read the rest of this entry »

I fully support the sentiment expressed by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in his congratulatory speech in conjunction with the birthday of Yang di Pertuan Agong Sultan Muhamad V at Istana Negara in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

The Prime Minister said Malaysia must always raise the bar higher to enable the country to stay ahead and create more success stories and developments.

He said in the government’s effort to make the Malaysia Digital Policy a success and to prepare the nation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution era, Malaysia had no choice but to dare and convince itself that the country was able to leap further than usual.
Read the rest of this entry »

By Prashanth Parameswaran
The Diplomat
September 06, 2017

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s first White House visit is a chance to address broader challenges in bilateral ties.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Predictably, the chatter ahead of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s visit to the White House next week has focused either on specific deliverables, like potential defense deals, or thorny issues like a high-profile corruption scandal implicating the premier. While both sides are expected to make some headline-worthy progress in the heavily scrutinized visit, the true test for U.S.-Malaysia relations lies less in the successful conduct of this interaction and more in the ability of both sides to manage the challenges likely to relations further down the line.

For all the focus on Najib himself, the reality is that the United States and Malaysia have successfully cooperated on a range of issues under six prime ministers since the Southeast Asian state’s independence despite disagreements on matters such as economic policy, human rights, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East (See: “Getting to Full Bloom in US-Malaysia Relations”). And even though bilateral ties had hit new heights under Barack Obama – with both sides elevating ties to the level of a comprehensive partnership and Malaysia becoming a member of key U.S.-led initiatives, be it the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL – incidents like the 1MDB scandal and issues like human trafficking continued to pose complications for ties (See: “Malaysia in 2015: Crises of Confidence”). Read the rest of this entry »