FBI Had Evidence That Russia Bribed Clinton Foundation Before Obama Approved Uranium Deal
"The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats."
The FBI had evidence as early as 2009 that Russian operatives were using bribes and kickbacks to compromise individuals involved in the U.S. nuclear industry, but it approved the controversial sale of a Canadian-owned uranium mining company anyway, according to a new report.
The Hill reported that the FBI possessed recordings and emails showing Russia using bribes and kickbacks to compromise employees of an American uranium trucking firm, but chose not to bring charges or inform the public for years.
In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat on a panel made up of Obama administration officials that approved the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian mining company, to the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, thus turning over 20 percent of America’s known uranium reserves to Moscow.
“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” The Hill quoted a “person who worked on the case” as saying. According to an affidavit from a federal agent, the scheme was conducted “with the consent of higher level officials” in Russia who “shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks.
The Hill further noted that Russian nuclear officials “routed” millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, with the Obama Justice Department aware of the attempts to compromise Americans.
As previously reported by Western Journalism, a group of 64 House Republicans signed a letter last summer calling on the FBI, the IRS and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate alleged criminal conduct in regards to Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. The letter highlighted an appearance of “pay for play” regarding the sale of Uranium One, that raises “serious allegations of criminal conduct requiring further explanation.”
The lawmakers cited the evidence presented in Peter Schweizer’s 2015 book, Clinton Cash, including payments former President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation received from Russian interests, as further backing for their call for further investigation.
Ian Tefler, the CEO of Uranium One, donated $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton received $500,000 dollars for a speech he gave in Moscow from a company promoting Uranium One, The New York Times reported. Telfler’s “contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well,” according to the Times.
In the summer of 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump raised the “pay for play” allegations about the Clinton Foundation, but the Clinton campaign denied the charges, characterizing them as “conspiracy theories,” Fox News reported. "No one has produced a shred of evidence that Hillary Clinton ever took action as Secretary of State in order to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation,” a Clinton spokesman said at the time.
“To suggest the State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in the U.S. government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly baseless,” he added. “It mischaracterizes the nature of the State Department’s participation in such reviews, and also ignores the range of other regulatory agencies that ultimately supported this sale.”