NY Times: Hillary Clinton Approved Russian Uranium Deal After $2 Million Donation to Clinton Foundation
The Wrap By Jordan Chariton
1 hour ago
????

The New York Times is suggesting Hillary Clinton took actions as secretary of state because of financial donations that were made to the Clinton Foundation by Russians pushing for a Canadian uranium company.

The Times reported in an explosive piece on Thursday that Canadian records show the chairman of Russian-owned Uranium One gave over $2 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation, which the Clintons' didn't disclose. At the same time, Russia pushed for control of a Canadian Uranium company.

A Kremlin-connected bank promoting stock in the company also reportedly paid Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech in Moscow. Eventually, the Russian-Canadian uranium deal was approved.

"Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown," the Times writes. "But the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation, headed by a former president who relied heavily on foreign cash to accumulate $250 million in assets even as his wife helped steer American foreign policy as secretary of state, presiding over decisions with the potential to benefit the foundation's donors."

The Times reporting comes from information it, and other outlets like Fox News, obtained from an upcoming book "Clinton Cash," written by conservative author Peter Schweizer.

Politico also reports a Canadian donor, Frank Giustra, who pledged over $100 million to the Clinton Foundation, influenced Secretary Clinton's stance on a Columbia trade deal; Clinton opposed it as a presidential candidate, but flipped as secretary of state.

The Clinton campaign denied that Clinton took any positions as secretary of state due to foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation:

"No one has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interest of donors to The Clinton Foundation. To suggest the State Departments, under then-secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in the U.S. government review of the sale of uranium one is utterly baseless."

The post NY Times: Hillary Clinton Approved Russian Uranium Deal After $2 Million Donation to Clinton Foundation appeared first on TheWrap.

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Dora Hates You

This a lot more than the usual "digging up dirt" that goes with political campaigns. This is, perhaps, more serious and harder to "dodge", like "Benghazi" and "Email Gate". The time she was gang-banged by the JV debating teem is "dirt", not this.



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Dora Hates You

I hope this make Hillary go away.

I'm registered NPA because there's no Anti-Republican party but that is my primary politics these days is anti-Ogratard/FishKiller.  So I'm anti-Republican but I kinda hate Hillary too and am pissed that she is what the Demodouche Party is offering as the alternative.

That said. How much control does the Secretary of State really have over deals such as this? She may have "approved" the deal but did she broker the deal? More than likely this sort of thing has a lot more hands in the pot that she could control. I bet there are a lot of US and Canadian Agencies that also had to sign off on this deal and it is curious that NY Times quotes a known political hit man from the Hoover Institute, Peter Schweizer , without providing these other details.

I'd like to think that this is more than "digging up dirt" but the context of her approval (namely what other parties were involved) is important when the information is from a book called "Clinton Cash" that happens to be out with timing consistent with stereotypical hit pieces.

It makes the NY Times piece look like a hit piece. Maybe Bloomberg wants in and is taking a shot.

(edit: After actually reading the NY Times article I see that NY Times went into a LOT of detail about the "uranium" market and whatnot and all the other media that popped up on google search are just picking out some headline grabbers to drive some views to their sites without actually doing any leg work)

 

Typical of modern internet media is that they are all just repeating the speculation or fretting that this will be the arrow that takes down their hero but nobody is providing any meat on the details of this deal. Clinton is one person and this was a deal involving multiple nations. Who else was party to this deal? and on. Fucking media is just selling add space and not spending a goddamn penny doing any investigation.

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Edited: 04/23/2015 at 10:08 AM by scombrid

NY Times article

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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill

Thanks for the NY Times article. Much more detail than would appear from all the blog posts about the NY Times article.

Way down the page it says the Committee on Foreign Investment comprises attorney general and secretaries of Treasury, Defense, DHS, Commerce, Energy, and State. That's what I was looking for.

Too far down the page though. Most people are going to TLDR out before they get to it.

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I agree Scrom, there were a lot more high power people included in this decision other than Clinton, but do the Clinton's have personal access to their foundation money?

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I was right.

IBD EDITORIALS

For Hillary Clinton, Scandals Have Achieved Critical Mass
230 Comments

04/23/2015 07:09 PM ET

Ethics: With each day, new revelations call into question Hillary Clinton's behavior during her tenure as secretary of state and after. It's time for her to suspend her campaign and start answering questions.

When even the left-wing media notice a leading Democrat's apparent ethical lapses, she has a real problem. And so does the Democratic Party, which as of now has all its bets for 2016 placed on Hillary Clinton, who, Peter Schweizer's upcoming book "Clinton Cash" suggests, may have engaged in corrupt behavior in office.

The latest revelation is a potential bombshell: That while Clinton was secretary of state, a federal committee approved the $610 million sale of Wyoming-based uranium mines to Russia's state atomic energy agency, Rosatom, as it tried to corner the market for the radioactive mineral.

Clinton's State Department was one of those that approved the deal. That's not illegal, but there's a conflict: The chairman of Uranium One, the Canadian company that sold the uranium mines to Russia, was Ian Telfer, who gave $2.4 million to the Clinton Foundation.

That's not all. The New York Times notes that a Russian investment bank that was behind the deal paid Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech in Moscow.

It also should be noted that the Wyoming mine is no small operation, and that Rosatom makes nuclear weapons, among other things. So national security is at stake.

Nor is this the only whiff of potential scandal emanating from the Clinton Foundation.

Starting in 2010, the Clinton charity told the IRS for three years running that it got nothing from foreign or U.S. governments. That was strange, since in years past it had reported tens of millions in contributions.

Oops! Now they've found "errors" in their IRS reports, and want to refile. Seems they now remember that a number of foreign governments gave them tens of millions of dollars during that time.

Coming on the heels of other major scandals involving Bill and Hillary Clinton, a mosaic of corruption is falling into place that's beyond troubling and might even require a special criminal investigation.

Just this week, Judicial Watch said it has received 126 pages of State Department documents that relate to possible conflicts of interest while Hillary was our nation's top diplomat. In particular, it cites "questions about funds Clinton accepted from entities linked to Saudi Arabia, China and Iran, among others."

Need we mention the troubling questions Hillary Clinton refuses to answer about her private email server used to handle State Department business - and her willful destruction of evidence requested by Congress?

Or her patent falsehoods about what happened at Benghazi, where four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were murdered?

Or past ethical lapses left over from Bill Clinton's presidency - including Chinagate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Filegate and the miracle of Hillary's turning $1,000 into $100,000 in just 10 months of commodities trading?

Instead of going on the stump and blaming the 1% for all the world's ills, maybe she should stop running and start answering.



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Dora Hates You

BBC - US & Canada
Clinton cash questions over Russian deal
Anthony Zurcher
North America reporter
23 April 2015

On Thursday the New York Times and the Washington Post both published articles digging deep into the Clinton family finances - and the possible conflicts of interest they have created.
In the Times Jo Becker and Mike McIntire write about a Russian energy conglomerate's purchase of a Canadian company with uranium mining interests in the US and Kazakhstan. It's a detailed, 4,000-word investigation with a lot of moving parts, but the gist is clear.
The chairman of the Canadian company that profited from the sale, Ian Telfer, donated millions of dollars to the foundation - most of which was not reported publicly. The founder of the company, Frank Giustra, also donated $31m (£20.5m) to the foundation and flew former President Bill Clinton to Kazakhstan in 2005, at a time when the nation was considering whether to grant uranium mining rights to Canadian company.
In 2010, at roughly the same time, the Russian company, Rosatom, was attempting to purchase the Canadian company, President Clinton travelled to Moscow and was paid $500,000 by a bank affiliated with Rosatom.

The US government, including the Department of State then headed by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, had to approve the Russian purchase, as it involved acquiring strategic mineral rights on US soil. It did.
"Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown," Becker and McIntire write. "But the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation, headed by a former president who relied heavily on foreign cash to accumulate $250m in assets even as his wife helped steer American foreign policy as secretary of state, presiding over decisions with the potential to benefit the foundation's donors."
Those "special ethical challenges" were scrutinised in the Post piece, as well, which reveals more details about the vast sums of money in speaking fees Mr Clinton has amassed since his presidency ended in 2001.
Mr Clinton was paid "more than $100m for speeches between 2001 and 2013", the Post notes, including "at least" $26m by groups that also donated to the Clinton Foundation, such as financial firms often considered villains on the populist left, like Goldman Sachs and CitiGroup.

Bill Clinton received $26m in speaking fees from groups that also donated to the Clinton Foundation
"The multiple avenues through which the Clintons and their causes have accepted financial support have provided a variety of ways for wealthy interests in the United States and abroad to build friendly relations with a potential future president," writes the Post's Rosalind S Helderman.
Meanwhile Reuters is reporting that the Clinton Foundation will refile "at least five" of its past tax returns to correct errors involving unreported or over-reported of millions of dollars donations from governments.
These stories come on the heels of a Sunday article in the New York Times detailing the growing buzz surrounding an upcoming book about the Clinton Foundation finances, Clinton Cash, by conservative scholar Peter Schweizer.
The work, according to reports, will contain numerous examples of donations to the foundation or speaking fees given to Mr Clinton followed by US government actions that were beneficial to the donating parties.
It appears the book will not contain concrete evidence of actions taken by Mrs Clinton in exchange for donations - but concerns over an appearance of impropriety are stoking interest by media outlets and attacks from Mrs Clinton's political adversaries.
The Times story also reveals that Mr Schweizer's publisher, HarperCollins, has provided advanced copies of the book to both the Post and the Times, which are relying on its research in their own investigations.
In Thursday's article the Times authors state that "some of the connections" between the Canadian energy company and the Clinton Foundation were "unearthed" by Schweizer and that the paper has "scrutinised his information and built upon it with its own reporting".
According to the Post's Helderman, Schweizer's work did not contribute to her story, which "is based on reporting and documents collected independently".
Bloomberg's Leonid Bershidsy writes that the most disturbing element to these stories is attempts by the Clintons to keep some of the donations secret. At the time Rosatom's purchase of US uranium interests wasn't considered a significant deal - the Wyoming mine in question was barely producing any nuclear material and its uses are solely commercial, not military.
"One can only guess at the reasons the contributions, totaling millions of dollars, were kept quiet, but perhaps the idea was to avoid precisely the kind of story the New York Times produced, hinting at a Clinton family interest in helping a businessman friend," he writes.
Mrs Clinton "was clearly worried about the optics of some of the things she and her husband were doing and tried to keep them out of the public eye," he continues. "As is usual in such cases, the cover-up drew her more unwanted attention than her actions warranted."

Presidential hopeful Jeb Bush will have his finances scrutinised in an upcoming book
Brian Fallon, a spokesperson for the Clinton campaign, tells the Times the suggestions of impropriety were "baseless".
There is not a shred of evidence "supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation", he adds.
Clinton Cash is set to be released on 5 May, and this is almost certainly not the last of both the Post's and the Times's investigations into Clinton finances. Expect more stories that focus on the appearance and possibilities of conflicts of interest - but with no firm evidence of quid pro quos, such as Mrs Clinton's direct or unexpected involvement in altering US policy.
Fox News, another outlet granted access to Schweizer's research, is planning an hour-long report on Friday titled The Tangled Clinton Web.
As the US presidential campaign heats up, the issue of questionable financial dealings will likely not be limited to Mrs Clinton, however. According to Bloomberg's Joshua Green, Schweizer is also working on a book about the finances of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who is almost certainly seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
"What we're doing is a drill-down investigation of Jeb's finances similar to what we did with the Clintons in terms of looking at financial dealings, cronyism, who he's been involved with," Schweizer tells Green. "We've found some interesting things."
He adds that he will also share his Bush research with interested media outlets.
Given the level of partisan rancour that's already been directed in support of and against Schweizer, it'll be interesting to see how his next book is received.

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Dora Hates You