Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the stories about her and former President Clinton helping Russia obtain drilling rights in the U.S. through Uranium One have been “debunked” and are just people peddling “bologna.”
“I would say it’s the same bologna they’ve been peddling for years, and there’s been no credible evidence by anyone. In fact, it’s been debunked repeatedly and will continue to be debunked,” Clinton said in an October interview with C-SPAN.
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While Clinton says that anyone who believes that she helped Russia is in the wrong, The New York Times report details how she and her husband directly helped Russia get a vested interest in the U.S. oil market.
The New York Times reported in April 2015 that the Clinton’s had a hand in helping a Russian energy company obtain drilling rights in the U.S. The Russian company had to get State Department help to purchase the Canadian company Uranium One, which made the Russian agency — Rosatom — one of the largest uranium producers in the world. Rosatom purchased the Canadian company — UrAsia — in January 2005, obtaining its uranium stakes stretching from Central Asia to Western America.
Clinton did not back up her assertion the reports are bogus with hard evidence.
“But here is what they are doing and I have to give them credit,” Clinton said on C-SPAN. “Trump and his allies, including Fox News, are really experts at distraction and diversion. So the closer the investigation about real Russian ties between Trump associates and real Russians, as we heard Jeff Sessions finally admit to in his testimony the other day, the more they want to just throw mud on the wall. I’m their favorite target. Me and President Obama, we are the ones they like to put in the cross hairs,” Clinton said.
Leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have donated in excess of $25 million according to the Clinton Foundation’s website, built and eventually sold the Russians the aformentioned company that is today known as Uranium One.
Before the Rosatom acquired the Canadian mining stakes, UrAsia had to obtain the vast uranium stakes it held at the time of the merger.
Frank Giustra, a major mining investor in Canada and owner of UrAsia, won a landmark uranium deal in Kazakhstan just days after visiting with Mr. Clinton. The two men boarded Mr. Giustra’s private jet to Kazakhstan where they met with the country’s autocratic president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. Mr. Clinton, in addition to helping Giustra, undermined American foreign policy by expressing his personal support for Nazarbayev’s desire to head an international elections monitory group, reports The New York Times.
Shortly after the former president and Mr. Giustra visited the nation, the then embryonic UrAsia signed a preliminary contract “giving it stakes in three uranium mines controlled by the state-run uranium agency Kazatomprom.” Following this very private visit, Mr. Giustra donated some $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation and five months later Mr. Giusta held a fundraiser for the joint Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative where he alone pledged $100 million dollars.
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UrAsia merged with Uranium One and almost immediately the new company began picking up uranium holdings in the United States. The company soon purchased in excess of 38,000 acres of across Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, and other western states as well. Following this large acquisition, Uranium One stated it’s intent on making itself a “powerhouse in the United States uranium sector with the potential to become the domestic supplier of choice for U.S. utilities,” reports the New York Times.
Some $8.65 million dollars in donations were made to the Clinton Foundation by Uranium One and former UrAsia investors between 2008 and 2012.
The new rising global uranium conglomerate experienced a sharp and decisive blow when it’s stock fell 40 percent. Fearing the loss of their holdings in Middle East, Uranium One looked to the US embassy in Kazakhstan to negotiate for them with the nation’s officials, reports the New York Times. These discussions would have gone directly through Secretary of State Clinton, but the Clinton campaign did not respond to inquiries about this deal.
A few days after these negotiations, a subsidiary of Rosatom purchased “17 percent of Uranium One.” Not even a year later the Russian government offered Uranium One stakeholders a “generous offer,” that would give the Russian agency a “51 percent controlling stake.”
The US government had to sign off first, a decision that must go through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which includes executive members of the cabinet, the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, and the secretary of state.
John Barrasso, a Senator from Wyoming where Uranium One had its largest operation, wrote President Barack Obama, saying it “would give the Russian government control over a sizable portion of America’s uranium production capacity.” During this time, a Russian bank that would assign a “buy rating to Uranium one stock” paid Mr. Clinton $500,000 dollars to speak in Moscow.
The decision had to go through the Committee, which included Secretary Clinton. At the time, her husband, in addition to the speaking arrangements, was “collecting millions in donations from people associated with Uranium One.” The Committee approved the deal in October of 2010.
The only reported Uranium Official to give to the Foundation was the chairman, Ian Tefler, who gave in 2007 less than $250,000. Mr. Tefler’s family charity the Fenwood Foundation, however, donated millions of dollars from 2009 to 2013, reports the New York Times.
The Committee approved sale of the Canadian mining stakes provided the Russians with direct control of “one-fifth of all uranium production” in the United States, reports the New York Times. While the Russians were taking control of Uranium One between 2009 and 2013, Canadian records highlight a “flow of cash made its way” into the pockets of the Clinton Foundation.
Rosatom took 100 percent stake in Uranium One in 2013 and shortly thereafter privatized the company.
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