The history of the underreported and underdiscussed Uranium One deal.....

[calitennis127]

I am going to ahead and post these two lists (Parts I and II) for the likes of Broken, Moxie, and Federberg, since Broken and Moxie are brainwashed by the narrow view of the (American) New York Times and Federberg is brainwashed by the dull-witted eunuchs at the BBC. A few months ago I went through the case that Peter Schweizer makes in "Clinton Cash" against the Clintons for clearly dubious behavior in the Uranium One saga and examined it very closely. Books tend to be meandering and windy in their organization so what I did is distill the narrative to bullet points in chronological order.

My hope in posting this is that the likes of Broken and Moxie can adopt a more global perspective instead of just following the lead of the American New York Times. That is because the American New York Times tends to get a lot wrong and promote a very narrow-minded perspective about world politics among its readers. Fox News has talked about Uranium One a decent bit but not nearly enough in my view.

So, in the interests of sound information and a well-informed world, here goes.....


PART I: THE KAZAKHSTAN PLOT

1) In 2005, Frank Giustra, Bill Clinton’s close friend and the head of a company called UrAsia Energy, wanted access to mines in Kazakhstan for his company (in particular 3 mines several hundred miles from the city of Almaty); to get this access, he needed approval from the Kazakh government atomic energy company, called Kazatomprom (p. 25 – 26)

2) On September 6, 2005, Bill Clinton visited Almaty, Kazakhstan and had a private meal with Giustra and Nursultan Nazarbeyev, the president/dictator of Kazakhstan (p. 26 – 27); according to Mukhtar Dzhakishev, the president of Kazatomprom at the time, the uranium deal came up in discussions that night at the banquet (p. 28); this meeting was organized in part by Sergei Kurzin, a Russian nuclear physicist and dealmaker who had done business in Kazakhstan before and had also assisted Giustra in creating UrAsia Energy (p. 26 – 27, 36)

3) After the meal, Clinton held a public press conference with Nazarbayev (p. 27); at this press conference, he praised Nazarbeyev for making reforms in his country that were supposedly “opening up the social and political life” of Kazakhstan and also expressed support for Nazarbayev’s bid to have Kazakhstan head the prestigious Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) (p. 30)

4) After the press conference, Nazarbayev quickly issued a press release proudly claiming support from Clinton (p. 30) (Bill Clinton’s praise for Nazarbayev and support for his OSCE leadership bid were very significant at this time because Kazakhstan had been under scrutiny and remained under scrutiny for human rights violations, including by none other than Hillary Clinton in a 2004 letter to the State Department (p. 30 – 31))

5) At this same time, according to Dzhakishev in 2009, a Kazakh official named Karim Massimov was in DC and had a meeting scheduled with Hillary Clinton; Hillary cancelled the meeting with him on the grounds that there were investors in Kazakhstan who the Clintons were connected with who were having problems and she was not willing to work with Kazakh officials until those problems were resolved (p. 29)

6) Dzhakishev also indicated that Hillary threatened to work to have American aid withheld from Kazakhstan (a legitimate threat because Hillary sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time) (p. 29)

7) Dzhakishev says that Massimov then called him and told him to work the situation out in Kazakhstan with the investors connected with the Clintons (p. 29)

8) Dzhakishev also says that after being called by Massimov, he was contacted by Tim Phillips, an adviser to Bill Clinton, and got the same message from him that Massimov had received in Washington: there would be no further meetings with Hillary until Kazakh officials approved Giustra’s uranium deal; Dzhakishev also says that Tim Phillips “began to scream” at him and said that it was important to get the deal done for “Democrats” involved in it (p. 29 – 30)

9) Clinton and Giustra left Kazakhstan the day after the banquet with Nazarbayev (i.e. September 7, 2005) and within 48 hours of them leaving, UrAsia Energy (Giustra’s company) signed two memoranda of understanding outlining the transfer of uranium mining assets in Kazakhstan (p. 31); it is also worth noting for context that this selection of UrAsia to buy into the Kazakh mines was a surprise to people in the mining industry because UrAsia had been a relatively insignificant mining company prior to this deal (p. 31)

10) In subsequent months Giustra gave the Clinton Foundation $31.3 million (p. 31 – 32)

11) After UrAsia got the mining deal in Kazakhstan it expanded its assets and started directing shares to Giustra’s friends in Canada, including Robert Cross, a former brokerage colleague of Giustra’s, and Ian Telfer, another friend of Giustra (p. 32)

12) With the shares doled out, UrAsia went public and was brokered on Canada’s Venture Exchange by Canadian investment firms BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc, Canaccord Adams, and GMP Securities LTD (p. 33)

13) In February of 2007, Dzhakishev went to Chappaqua to meet with Bill Clinton (a meeting that Giustra had arranged for) (pp. 33); Dzhakishev says that at this meeting they discussed uranium markets and the future of nuclear power (p. 33)

14) Also in February of 2007, UrAsia Energy announced that it would merge with Uranium One, a uranium company based out of Canada and South Africa; this merger had to be approved by the Kazakh government for Giustra and it did get approved (p. 33); the merger turned out being a “reverse merger” because Giustra, his friends, and other shraeholders of UrAsia would up controlling 60 percent of the new company (p. 34); this makes it likely that Giustra arranged for Clinton’s meeting with Dzhakishev to ensure that the UrAsia-Uranium One merger would get approved

15) On March 13, 2007, Joe Biden – as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – issued a letter to President Nazarbayev stating that Kazakhstan would have to make progress on the human rights front or he would not support their bid to chair the OSCE (p. 33)

16) Also in 2007 Bill Clinton invited Nazarbayev to attend the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) as his guest and on September 25, 2007 he was a featured attendee at an exclusive CGI meeting in New York (p. 33 – 34)

17) Two months later, in November of 2007, Nazarbayev was awarded the OSCE chair, a post he took in 2010 (p. 34); this makes it appear likely that Bill Clinton committed himself to giving Nazarbayev the international credibility he lacked (and craved) in exchange for approval of the UrAsia-Uranium One merger that Giustra wanted; it also appears that Clinton’s inviting Nazarbayev to the CGI event was helpful in refurbishing Nazarbayev’s image for the purpose of helping him get the OSCE chairmanship that he wanted after Biden’s March 2007 letter criticizing Kazakhstan for its human rights record

18) Within a year of the merger being approved, Uranium One began acquiring uranium assets in the United States itself and also began negotiations with the Russian State Nuclear Agency (p. 34)

19) Following the lucrative merger, many of the deal’s largest shareholders wrote multimillion-dollar checks to the Clinton Foundation and its project, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative (p. 34); some of these donations were:

· Giustra’s multiyear commitment to donate $100 million, and half of his future profits, to the Clinton Foundation (p. 34)

· Frank Holmes, a major shareholder in the deal, wrote a check to the Clinton Foundation for between $250,000 and $500,000 (p. 35)

· Neil Woodyer, Giustra’s colleague who founded Endeavour Financial, pledged $500,000 (p. 35)

· Robert Disbrow, a broker at Haywood Securities, which provided $58 million in capital to float shares of UrAsia’s private placement, sent between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation (p. 35)

· Paul Reynolds, an executive at Canaccord Capital, Inc., donated between $1 million and $5 million (p. 35)

· GMP Securities Ltd., another large shareholder in UrAsia Energy, committed to donating a portion of its profits to the CGSGI; GMP made great money on the private placement of shares and as an underwriter on UrAsia Energy deals (p. 35)

· Robert Cross, who was a major shareholder and serves as director of UrAsia Energy, committed a portion of his future income to the Clinton Foundation (p. 36)

· Egizio Bianchini, the Capital Markets vice chair and Global cohead of BMO’s Global Metals and Mining group, had also been an underwriter on the mining deals and BMO paid $600,000 for two tables at the CGSGI’s March 2008 benefit (p. 36)

· Sergei Kurzin, the aforementioned Russian dealmaker who was involved in the Kazakhstan uranium deal and was a shareholder in UrAsia Energy, made CGSGI a $1 million pledge (p. 36)

· Ian Telfer, the chairman of UrAsia Energy, who would become the new chairman of Uranium One, committed $3 million to the Clinton Foundation (p. 36)

· In 2006, Giustra hosted a birthday party/fundraiser for Bill Clinton at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronoto that featured various prominent guests including Kevin Spacey, Billy Crystal, and Bon Jovi (p. 36)

20) The collective commitments and donations from investors who profited from the 2007 UrAsia-Uranium One merger would ultimately exceed $145 million (p. 35)


In conclusion: it appears that Bill and Hillary Clinton leveraged Bill’s international social cachet, Hillary’s power as a senator, and their political surrogates (i.e. Tim Phillips) to get the government of Kazakhstan to approve two uraniumdeals, one a mining concession in 2005 and the second a merger in 2007, for their friend Frank Giustra so that Giustra and his friends/associates, mostly Canadian, could profit and then make large donations to the Clinton Foundation. It is also noteworthy that one of Giustra’s associates in this process was a Russian nuclear physicist named Sergei Kurzin. Kurzin not only helped Giustra start the UrAsia Energy company that merged with Uranium One in 2007, but he was also instrumental in setting up Bill Clinton’s 2005 meeting with Nazarbayev (the president of Kazakhstan) and Giustra in Almaty, Kazakhstan that led to UrAsia becoming a prominent player in the uranium market in the first place. This means that the Clintons were responsible for making Uranium One the company that it became and that the Russian government wanted to buy into by 2009; and they did this, ironically enough, primarily for the benefit of a friend (Giustra) with assistance from a Russian nuclear physicist and dealmaker who had actually helped Giustra start his uranium company. In other words, between 2005 and 2007, the Clintons helped make the company that was to become Uranium One successful in Kazakhstan with help from a prominent Russian tied to their good friend Frank Giustra for Giustra’s benefit so that he and his associates would profit and then make donations to them. Put differently, the Clintons helped make a foreign company successful in collusion with a prominent Russian so that they could enrich themselves. Sounds very menacing!!!!!

 

[calitennis127]

And here is Part II.....

After looking closely at this episode, I think it's quite possible that the Clintons thought of the term "collusion" because it perfectly describes what they did with Russian government officials and agencies in the Uranium One deal.


PART II: THE URANIUM ONE-ROSATOM STORY

1) According to Vadim Zhivov, an executive for Rosatom (the Russian State Atomic Nuclear Agency), negotiations began in early 2008 between Rosatom and Uranium One, the Vancouver-based company of Frank Giustra and other major Clinton Foundation donors, for Rosatom to buy a stake in Uranium One (p. 46 – 47)

2) At the time that Hillary was confirmed as Secretary of State in January 2009, the shareholders of the uranium deal in Kazakhstan were sending in tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation (p. 39)

3) In 2009 the Russian government at the highest levels was looking to expand its share of the world nuclear market; we know this, among other reasons, because 1) the Kremlin had just approved spending increases foruranium production with a focus on civilian nuclear plants; 2) Putin had referred to the nuclear energy sector as “a priority branch for the country”; 3) In June 2009, Rosatom, the Russian State Atomic Nuclear Agency, bought a 17% stake in Uranium One, a company which was rapidly growing in the United States, 4) in October 2009 Hillary received a diplomatic cable explaining the plan of Rosatom, the Russian State Atomic Nuclear Agency, to leverage Ukraine into a long-range supply contract and its efforts to create “zones of pressure” on Eastern European governments; and 5) in December 2009, the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan sent a classified cable to Washington explaining Russian efforts to exert control over Kazakh uranium markets as well as Ukraine and other Eastern European governments in the area of nuclear energy, and it specified that the GRU (or Russian military intelligence) was involved in these nuclear ambitions (p. 40 – 42)

4) We also know that in 2009 Hillary Clinton herself was aware of these Russian intentions to expand their share of the world nuclear market because, again, 1) In June 2009, Rosatom, the Russian State Atomic Nuclear Agency, bought a 17% stake in Uranium One, a company which was rapidly growing in the United States and which also had numerous leading figures who were Clinton Foundation donors (most notably, Frank Giustra and chairman Ian Telfer), 2) in October 2009 Hillary received a diplomatic cable explaining the plan of Rosatom, the Russian State Atomic Nuclear Agency, to leverage Ukraine into a long-range supply contract and its efforts to create “zones of pressure” on Eastern European governments; and 3) in December 2009, the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan sent a classified cable to Washington explaining Russian efforts to exert control over Kazakhuranium markets as well as Ukraine and other Eastern European governments in the area of nuclear energy, and it specified that the GRU (or Russian military intelligence) was involved in these nuclear ambitions (p. 42)

5) In June 2009, Rosatom bought a 17% stake in Uranium One (p. 42), the Canadian company controlled by Frank Giustra and chaired by Ian Telfer after Giustra’s prior company (UrAsia Energy) merged with Uranium One in 2007

6) When this purchase was made, production for the Uranium One company in the U.S. was booming (p. 42); Uranium One had gained control of uranium assets in Wyoming, Utah, Texas, and South Dakota with the intention of buying more (p. 42); the fact that Rosatom would buy into Uranium One at a time when business for Uranium One in the U.S. was going so well served as even more of an indicator to Hillary that the Russian government at its highest levels was keen on expanding its share of the world uranium market, including in the U.S. (between this Russian purchase into a company whose shareholders had made large donations to the Clinton Foundation, the upward market trends with Uranium One, and the diplomatic cables in October and December received at the end of 2009, it was very clear that this was the case)

7) In December 2009, longtime Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko appeared before the Presidium, a selection of Russian government officials, and laid out an aggressive plan to acquire uranium assets outside of Russia; then-prime minister Putin announced at the meeting that the Russian government would allocate the money for the transactions to Rosatom’s equity capital (p. 42 – 43); so not only was this a time when the Russian government was clearly focused on acquiring uranium assets outside of Russia, but Putin himself was pushing for this and wanted Russia to make more inroads in the global nuclear energy market

8) In March 2010, Hillary was in Moscow for a meeting with Putin (p. 43) – TRAITOR!!!!!

9) In June 2010, Rosatom announced that it was seeking to buy majority control (52%) of Uranium One (p. 44, 47)

10) The aforementioned Rosatom executive Vadim Zhivov, who was directing the transaction for Rosatom, said that Russia intended to use Uranium One as a “global platform for future growth” (p. 46); furthermore, the U.S. International Trade Commission was in the midst of a large investigation into allegations dating as far back as 1991 that Russia was dumping uranium on U.S. markets to damage the American uranium industry (p. 49 – 50); and, finally, the funds for the Uranium One acquisition were approved by the Russian Presidium and were to come from Putin directly (p. 47), which makes it sound as though this is a transaction that would make Putin and “the Kremlin” happy!

11) Indeed, when the deal was announced in June 2010, there was “alarm” among shareholders and industry observers that Uranium One (a Vancouver-based company) might end up serving the Kremlin’s strategic interests (p. 47); also in early 2010, Admiral Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, appeared before a congressional committee and warned about the perils of doing business with state-owned entities in Russia, characterizing Russian coordination between governments, organized crime, intelligence services, and big business as a growing problem; Blair also advised that the U.S. needed to address the Russian schemes of “bribery, fraud, violence and corrupt alliances with state actors” to gain competitive advantage against legitimate businesses (p. 50); and multiple Congressmen on both sides of the aisle expressed concerns about “the take-over of essential U.S. nuclear resources by a government-owned Russian agency” (p. 47 – 48)

12) Among those who stood to benefit from the deal on the Uranium One side of it – if it were to go through – were several major Clinton Foundation donors, including 1) Ian Telfer, the chairman of Uranium One; 2) financial advisors Robert Disbrow and Paul Reynolds, 3) CEO Frank Holmes, the head of U.S. Global Investor Funds, and 4) of course Frank Giustra himself (p. 44 – 46); for shareholders of Uranium One, the Russian government acquisition would mean huge payouts; it would give every shareholder a special one dollar-per-share dividend; Telfer alone had shares and options amounting to more than 1.6 million shares (p. 46); so, clearly, if this deal was to go through, various major donors to the Clinton Foundation would benefit and would be likely to donate to the Clinton Foundation even more

13) It must be emphasized that when Uranium One requested approval from CFIUS by the federal government for the deal with Rosatom, Ian Telfer, a major Clinton Foundation donor, was chairman of the board (p. 55); this means that Hillary had a clear incentive to get the deal approved

14) Russia wanted the deal for commercial and strategic reasons; the Canadian investors wanted the deal because it stood to make them richer (p. 47); all they needed for the deal to go through was U.S. government approval (since uranium is a strategic industry and Uranium One was a Canadian company with massive U.S. assets about to be purchased by the Russian government), and playing a central role in whether approval would be granted was none other than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (p. 47)

15) At stake in the summer of 2010 with the prospective Uranium One deal, after the June announcement that Rosatom was seeking to buy majority control (52%) of Uranium One, was whether a Canadian company holding massive U.S. assets could be bought by the Russian State Atomic Nuclear Agency (Rosatom), a Russian government entity which Putin had immense influence over; and it just so happened that the Canadian company involved was populated by numerous major Clinton Foundation donors

16) To sell the deal, the Kremlin went into full public relations mode (p. 47); it sent none other than Sergey Kislyak (the Russian ambassador to the United States) to meet with mining executives in Colorado to ease their concerns about the deal (p. 47)

17) In June 2010, shortly after the Rosatom deal was announced, Bill Clinton gave a speech in Moscow to a Russian financial firm called Renaissance Capital (RenCap) and was paid $500,000 for it (p. 51)

18) Renaissance Capital had been pushing Uranium Stock in the weeks leading up to Clinton’s speech and actually issued a 28-page report in late May of 2010 encouraging investors to buy Uranium One stock (p. 52)

19) It must be noted that RenCap is populated by former Russian intelligence officers with close ties to Putin, and according to Businessweek, when Putin became president of Russia in 2000, RenCap hired several executives with connections to the Kremlin and Russian intelligence service, now known as the FSB [Russian Domestic Intelligence Service] (p. 51 – 52); some of these executives included 1) Yuri Kobaladze, executive director at the firm, who served for 32 years as a KGB and SVR (the foreign intelligence arm of the Russian government) officer, retiring with the rank of general; 2) Yuri Sagaidak, the deputy general director at RenCap, who was a colonel in the KGB; and 3) Vladimir Dzhabarov who served simultaneously as an officer in the FSB and first vice president at RenCap from 2006 to 2009 (p. 52); so here you had a Russian financial firm led by multiple former officers of the KGB and FSB pushing for the purchase of Uranium One stock and paying Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech at the same time that Hillary Clinton was a key player in the U.S. government decision of whether to approve theUranium One deal; put even more simply, a Russian financial company comprised of former KGB officials and linked to the present Russian government was high on Uranium One and clearly wanted it to succeed

20) After Clinton’s speech to Renaissance Capital (which was an hour long and brought him $500,000), he met with Renaissance Capital executives and senior Russian government officials (p. 52); he also met with Putin himself as part of this trip (p. 52)

21) Also throughout 2010 a small Canadian investment company called Salida Capital, which invests in natural resource companies including several in the Russian-dominated portions of Ukraine, simultaneously began engaging in multiple transactions with the Clinton Foundation and working in Ukraine with affiliates of Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Boyko, who was described in a State Department cable as “very close to Russia” and the “point of contact for the Kremlin” on energy dealings in the country (p. 50 – 51); in total, Salida Capital donated $780,220 to the Clinton Foundation in 2010, after receiving an anonymous donation of $3.3 million into their own charitable foundation (p. 50); so in 2010 Salida Capital made a nearly $800,00 donation to the Clinton Foundation while at the same time working closely in Ukraine with leading figures in the Ukrainaian energy sector who the State Department described as being “very close to Russia”

22) On May 21, 2010, according to State Department documents filed by Bill Clinton’s office, Salida Capital cosponsored a speech by Bill Clinton in Calgary, Canada (p. 50)

23) In 2011 a company named Salida Capital was identified in a Rosatom annual report as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian state nuclear agency; Schweizer contacted Salida Capital in Toronto on three occasions to ask if it is connected to the Salida Capital listed in the Rosatom report and it refused comment (p. 51); this makes it likely that an investment company in Canada owned by the Russian government (Rosatom specifically) sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Clinton Foundation while working in Ukraine with prominent Ukrainians close to the Russian government, and at this same time that Hillary was involved in deciding whether to approve Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One (p. 51)

24) The total amount sent from Salida Capital to the Clinton Foundation between 2010 and 2012 would end up being $2.6 million (p. 50)

25) After the June 2010 announcement of the Rosatom-Uranium One deal, the next step was for CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, to approve the deal (p. 53); and Hillary was a member of CFIUS (p. 53)

26) The Russian purchase of Uranium One was approved by CFIUS on October 22, 2010 (p. 54); it is worth noting that Hillary’s opposition would have been enough under CFIUS rules to have the decision on the transaction kicked up to the president (which obviously never happened) and that Hillary had a long history of opposing such deals in need of CFIUS approval, yet on this occasion she was lax about the dangers of a foreign government taking control of an American industry (p. 54 – 55)

27) The end result of CFIUS approving the deal was that Uranium One and half of projected American uranium production were transferred to a private company controlled in turn by the Russian State Nuclear Agency (p. 55); ultimately this was a deal involving the transfer of funds and nuclear technology to Russia (p. 57); so Hillary, as a member of CFIUS, approved a deal that gave control of a very valuable commodity in America to the Russian State Nuclear Agency (Rosatom), something which 1) “the Kremlin” wanted badly as part of a global scheme to gain a greater share of the world nuclear market, 2) would bring the Russian government hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues every year, 3) multiple members of Congress and the American intelligence agencies had raised doubts about, and 4) was the kind of CFIUS-involved transaction that Hillary had been hawkish about opposing in the past; and it appears likely that Hillary pushed for this approval in large part because the chairman of the company Rosatom was buying into (i.e. Ian Telfer) was a major Clinton foundation donor

28) Ian Telfer, as a large Clinton Foundation donor, was among the shareholders who yielded millions from Rosatom taking 100 percent control of Uranium One (p. 56)

29) “The Russians” celebrated the Rosatom-Uranium One deal and saw it as a major victory (think about that: Russia and “the Kremlin” were happy with the Uranium One deal!); for example, Sergey Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom, told Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that the United States would now become a “key market” for Rosatom (p. 56)

30) Because Uranium One owned the rights to the large mines in Kazakhstan after the 2007 merger with UrAsia Energy, the uranium flows to Russia increased (p. 56)

31) In 2013, the Russian government bought out the remaining shareholders of Uranium One and today it owns the company outright (despite saying in 2010 reporting to the U.S. government that they were looking to buy just slightly more than 50 percent of Uranium One and promising not to increase their share in Uranium One) (p. 55)

32) When Rosatom announced its plans to take 100 percent control of Uranium One in 2013, the Russian newspaper Pravda celebrated the move with an over-the-top headline of “RUSSIAN NUCLEAR ENERGY CONQUERS THE WORLD” and ran an article expressing optimism that this would lead to an expansion of access to resources throughout the world, including in Australia and South Africa (p. 56)


Summation: As Secretary of State and a member of CFIUS in 2010, Hillary Clinton approved the Russian government purchase of the Canadian uranium company “Uranium One” that was chaired by a major Clinton Foundation donor (Ian Telfer) and led by multiple other Clinton Foundation donors; Hillary approved this deal despite 1) being fully aware that the Russian government wanted it as part of a global economic strategy to enhance Russian power, 2) the warnings and opposition of the director of national intelligence and multiple members of Congress, 3) the thriving business of Uranium One in the U.S. at the time, and 4) a long personal history of opposing such CFIUS-related deals. Throughout 2010, as the deal was under consideration by CFIUS, the Clintons received money from multiple sources connected to the Russian government (two companies in particular) and Bill Clinton had multiple meetings with top Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin himself. It was clear that those who stood to benefit from this approval would be the government of Russia as well as top Clinton Foundation donors with a stake in Uranium One. Furthermore, for the Clintons, both dangling the deal as a possibility and ultimately approving it would likely lead to more donations to the Clinton Foundation (think Salida Capital in the former case, the Canadian shareholders in the latter). Indeed, the deal’s approval did ultimately yield millions to Clinton Foundation donors such as Ian Telfer and Frank Giustra.

The end result was that Hillary approved the Russian government taking majority control of a Canadian company holding massive American uranium assets at the same time that a) Russian government sources were funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation and b) large Clinton Foundation donors in Canada stood to benefit from the approval. This approval made the Russians ecstatic and brought them more profits from both the United States and Kazakhstan. In other words, Hillary approved a purchase that benefited the Russian government tremendously at the same time that she and her husband were taking money from Russian government sources and were likely to get more from current donors “with Russia ties” in Canada. Or, to put this into Russiagate lingo, Hillary “colluded with the Russians and did the Kremlin’s bidding” in order to enrich herself in the end. She “sold out” American interests to the Russians for her own benefit. Does that plot line sound familiar to anyone?

 

[britbox]

US politicians leveraging a position of power for financial gain? Who'd have thought?

Yep, the Clintons were no different and better at it than most... the leverage issue explains the level of donations dropping off the cliff since Hillary lost hers.

I discussed this with Moxie before the election and remember being bemused that she didn't smell a rat with all the rich donors from Saudi Arabia and Qatar pumping money into a "charity" with a strong focus on the empowerment of women.

You're paying for an ear at the top table. Let's not pretend otherwise. Trump will be playing the same game... although this Russian stuff has moved into the realms of ridiculous hysteria never seen before.

 

[calitennis127]

Yep, the Clintons were no different and better at it than most... the leverage issue explains the level of donations dropping off the cliff since Hillary lost hers.

Very true.

I discussed this with Moxie before the election and remember being bemused that she didn't smell a rat with all the rich donors from Saudi Arabia and Qatar pumping money into a "charity" with a strong focus on the empowerment of women.

Of course not.....Moxie views the Democratic Party, especially the women in it, with such reverence that she cannot imagine them doing something even slightly unethical. Her understanding is that someone like Hillary Clinton is a morally impeccable angel.

Trump will be playing the same game... although this Russian stuff has moved into the realms of ridiculous hysteria never seen before.

My point in all this is that the Russian collusion narrative that was hurled at Trump matches much more accurately with the Clintons' collaboration with major Russian government agencies in the Uranium One deal than a 29-year-old political toddler (Papadopoulos) talking to an FBI informant (Halper). And hardly anyone knows about it or talks about it.

 

[Federberg]

this a tin foil hat thread or what?

 

[calitennis127]

this a tin foil hat thread or what?

Thanks for the substantive reply Federberg.