WASHINTON, United States – The White House says that U.S. President Donald Trump intends to nominate Kelly Knight Craft as the next U.S. ambassador to Canada.
Knight Craft is a big-money political donor and philanthropist with personal ties to the coal industry and professional connections to the White House and the U.S. Senate.
The Kentucky woman was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as a United States delegate to the United Nations in 2007 and she also co-founded a charity to provide food, shelter and clothing to Sri Lankan children left homeless or orphaned following the devastating Asian tsunami of 2004.
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Knight Craft’s nomination to become the American ambassador to Canada needs to be approved by the U.S. Senate.
Her husband is coal billionaire Joe Craft, who is considered Kentucky’s most powerful non-elected individual.
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He was a critic of the Obama administration’s climate policies and drove an SUV with a licence plate stamped with the slogan, “Friends of Coal.”