President Donald Trump has been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize – but both nominations appear to be fraudulent, The New York Times is reporting.
Olav Njolstad, the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the prize, told the Times the committee had uncovered the forged nominations and raised the issue with the Oslo police.
The same person is responsible for both forged nominations and had pretended to be someone qualified to make the nomination, Njolstad told The Washington Post.
“We receive many invalid nominations each year in the sense that they don’t meet the deadline or the nominator is not in fact qualified to nominate. But to my knowledge this is the first example of a forged nomination where someone has stolen the identity of another person,” Njolstad said in an email to the Post.
According to the New York Times, the Oslo police has been in touch with the FBI. CNN has reached out to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
A nomination for the prize is only valid if its submitted by someone who falls into a category that meets the committee’s criteria – like current heads of state, former Nobel Peace Prize winners and professors of history, law or philosophy, among others.
There are 328 candidates, including individuals and organizations, being considered for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the second highest number of candidates ever, according to the organization. Since first awarding the prize in 1901, the committee has kept every candidate’s identity and its selection process secret, only divulging its secrets 50 years after the decision and for the purposes of research.
Four US Presidents have been Nobel laureates – Barack Obama (2009), Jimmy Carter (2002), Woodrow Wilson (1919) and Theodore Roosevelt (1906).
The Nobel Peace Prize is traditionally announced in early October and will be awarded this year on December 10 in Oslo.
