Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.
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They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.
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Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued investigating the matter for nearly four more years, essentially leaving the American public and Congress in the dark about Russian nuclear corruption on U.S. soil during a period when the Obama administration made two major decisions benefitting Putin’s commercial nuclear ambitions.
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The Obama administration and the Clintons defended their actions at the time, insisting there was no evidence that any Russians or donors engaged in wrongdoing and there was no national security reason for any member of the committee to oppose the Uranium One deal.
But FBI, Energy Department and court documents reviewed by The Hill show the FBI in fact had gathered substantial evidence well before the committee’s decision that Vadim Mikerin — the main Russian overseeing Putin’s nuclear expansion inside the United States — was engaged in wrongdoing starting in 2009.
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Likewise, major congressional figures were also kept in the dark.
Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee during the time the FBI probe was being conducted, told The Hill that he had never been told anything about the Russian nuclear corruption case even though many fellow lawmakers had serious concerns about the Obama administration’s approval of the Uranium One deal.
“Not providing information on a corruption scheme before the Russian uranium deal was approved by U.S. regulators and engage appropriate congressional committees has served to undermine U.S. national security interests by the very people charged with protecting them,” he said. “The Russian efforts to manipulate our American political enterprise is breathtaking.”
There is no evidence so substantive that some people will not dismiss it, nor no evidence so spurious that some will not openly embrace it, to the extent that it suits their political biases.
Clinton did not have veto power over the deal, only the president can do it. In any event, not one ounce of uranium left the US, since the company involved did not have an export license.
Seems like there is a lot of stuff to investigate. Hiding pertinent FBI investigations from the Congressional oversight committees in order to push the Russian deal through… You (plural) would be screaming and howling if Trump admin was doing that, wouldn’t you?
Like Benghazi? Or the IRS thing? Yes, there was massive amount of stuff to investigate there. And look at all the stuff they found! Boxes and boxes of…nothing. And Whitewater! Years and millions of dollars devoted to an Arkansas land deal and they found a blowjob! Taxpayer money well-spent!
Sorry - is your argument “Democrats must be lying hypocrites because Republicans are”?
Do you believe that the FBI routinely discloses ongoing criminal investigations to congressional committees? Why do you think that an investigation into a bribery case would be reported to the House Intelligence Committee? What do you think the jurisdiction of the House Intelligence Committee is, anyway?
In a formal letter, Grassley, an Iowa Republican, asked Victoria Toensing, the lawyer representing the former FBI informant, to allow her client, who says he worked as a voluntary informant for the FBI, to be allowed to testify about the “crucial” eyewitness testimony he provided to the FBI regarding members of the Russian subsidiary and other connected players from 2009 until the FBI’s prosecution of the defendants in 2014.
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Toensing’s client was an American businessman who says he worked for four years undercover as an FBI confidential witness. Toensing said he was blocked by the Obama Justice Department, under then Attorney General Loretta Lynch, about testifying to Congress about his time as an informant for the FBI.
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“Reporting indicates that “the informant’s work was crucial to the government’s ability to crack a multimillion dollar racketeering scheme by Russian nuclear officials on U.S. soil” and that the scheme involved “bribery, kickbacks, money laundering, and extortion,” Grassley states in his letter. “Further, the reporting indicates that your client can testify that ‘FBI agents made comments to him suggesting political pressure was exerted during the Justice Department probe’ and ‘that there was specific evidence that could have scuttled approval of the Uranium One deal.’ It appears that your client possesses unique information about the Uranium One/Rosatom transaction and how the Justice Department handled the criminal investigation into the Russian criminal conspiracy.”
Grassley added that “such information is critical to the Committee’s oversight of the Justice Department and its ongoing inquiry into the manner in which CFIUS approved the transaction. Accordingly, the Committee requests to interview your client.”