U.S. President Donald Trump has received two nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize that the Norwegian Nobel Committee says are forged.
It’s the second year in a row that someone has nominated Trump for the prestigious prize after assuming the identity of a qualified nominator, said Olav Njolstad, secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Njolstad told The Washington Post that the same person is likely responsible for both fake nominations, which the committee discovered after reaching out to the individual whose name appeared on the letter recommending Trump. Njolstad did not identify that person.
Only certain people are allowed to nominate candidates for the peace prize, and the list of their identities is secret. They include former prize winners, heads of state and certain academics.
Njolstad told the Post that unqualified people are often recommended for the peace prize, but that “as far as I know, this is the first example of someone nominating someone by stealing another person’s identity.”
According to several press reports, an unidentified American nominated Trump for the 2017 prize, saying the U.S. president should be honored for his “ideology of peace through force.” The same argument appeared in the nomination for this year’s prize, Deutsche Welle reported.
The matter has been referred to the Oslo police, The Associated Press reported, quoting the NTB Norwegian wire service. Norwegian authorities have contacted the FBI for assistance and are planning to meet next week, said Rune Skjold, head of the economic crimes unit of the Oslo police force, reported the German wire service DPA. Skjold said forgers can face several years in prison.
President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, just 11 months after first winning the presidency. That apparently galled Trump, who wondered if the award could be rescinded after the book Double Down: Game Change 2012 quoted a subdued Obama as saying: “Turns out I’m really good at killing people; didn’t know that going to be a strong suit of mine.” Obama was referring to successful U.S. military operations including those that killed Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki.
Presidents Jimmy Carter (2002), Woodrow Wilson (1919) and Theodore Roosevelt (1906) were also Nobel laureates.
There are 329 candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize. Last year’s winner was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, from Switzerland. The group’s executive director, Beatrice Fihn, called Trump a “moron” in a tweet two days before it was announced that her group had won the prize.
After the award was announced, Fihn said that the “election of president Donald Trump has made a lot of people feel very uncomfortable with the fact that he alone can authorize the use of nuclear weapons,” The Guardian reported. She added: “There are no right hands for nuclear weapons.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee will announce this year’s winner in October.