Elvis Presley awarded US Medal of Freedom by Donald Trump

Rock and roll star Elvis Presley has been posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honour, by President Donald Trump.

Presley's velvety voice filled the White House briefly on Friday when a recording of one his songs was played at a ceremony hosted by the president to honour the king of rock 'n roll.

Presley was part of an eclectic group of seven Americans being awarded the Medal of Freedom, including the late baseball legend Babe Ruth and Antonin Scalia, the conservative Supreme Court justice

The living recipients included Miriam Adelson, who, like her casino tycoon husband Sheldon Adelson, is a heavyweight Republican party donor.

Mr Trump's homage to Presley - who once met with President Richard Nixon at the White House in 1970 - paused for a recording of the gospel song "How great thou art."

Mr Trump said that playing music was his idea but when the richly toned performance stopped after just a few seconds, the disappointed president complained that staff organising the event "have no promotional ability."

Mr Trump also recalled that he had attended an Elvis performance himself decades ago, where overexcited fans were "ripping the place apart, screaming. They were going crazy."

The other recipients were retiring Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, one of the longest-serving senators in US history; Alan Page, who was elected to the Minnesota Supreme Court after an NFL career with the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears; and Roger Staubach, the Hall of Fame Dallas Cowboys quarterback.

Miriam Adelson is a doctor, philanthropist and humanitarian, but is perhaps best known as the wife of Sheldon Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate considered one of the nation's most powerful Republican donors.

The Adelsons gave Mr Trump's presidential campaign a $30 million (£23 million) boost in the final months of the 2016 race. The couple followed up this election cycle by donating $100 million to the Republican Party for last week's midterms.

Dr Adelson, 73, is an Israeli-born, naturalised US citizen who earned a medical degree from Tel Aviv University and founded a pair of drug abuse treatment and research centers in Las Vegas and Tel Aviv. She and her husband own the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Israel Hayom newspapers.

The Adelsons are also avid supporters of Israel. Their passion for strengthening the country, along with Israeli-US relations, has helped keep such policy priorities as relocating the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem front and center in the Republican Party and the Trump administration.

Mr Trump moved the embassy in May, and Mr Adelson, who had offered to personally fund the move, sat in the front row for the ceremony.

Robert Weissman, president of the public interest group Public Citizen, questioned whether the decision to recognise Dr Adelson was based on merit.

"It's emblematic of the corrupt and transactional presidency of Donald Trump, and it is a shame, but not a surprise, that he is corroding and corrupting a civic treasure, an honor like the Medal of Freedom," Mr Weissman said.

Elliott Abrams, who held foreign policy roles under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, called the complaints "ridiculous." Mr Abrams noted that Dr Adelson has donated her time and her money to combatting addiction. He contrasted her award with those given by President Barack Obama to Chita Rivera, Robert De Niro, Barbra Streisand, Ellen DeGeneres and Warren Buffett, among others.

"People who said nothing about all of that and now criticise the medal for Dr Adelson are simply being nasty and partisan, and are not actually taking a look at her remarkable knowledge and charity in the chemical addiction field," Mr Abrams said.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said Mr Trump used the process followed by previous administrations to settle on his group of honorees. It was coordinated by the staff secretary's office, incorporating recommendations from the public, relevant presidential advisory bodies, the Cabinet and senior White House staff, she said.

The award is given to individuals "who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

Dr Adelson said she was "deeply humbled and moved by this exceptional honor."

"Liberty is at the heart of my decades of work against substance abuse. Drug dependency is enslavement, for the user and his or her family and society, and treatment an emancipation," she said in a statement Thursday.

Fletcher McClellan, a political science professor at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, said presidents have no limits on making these awards.

"He has total discretion as to who and when and how," said Prof McClellan, who has studied the Presidential Medal of Freedom.