FACT CHECK: HAS THE URANIUM ONE CONTROVERSY BEEN ‘DEBUNKED’?
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed last week that allegations that she approved the sale of a uranium production company to Russia in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation have been “debunked.”
Verdict: False
The Clinton family’s longstanding ties to the uranium company in question have received serious scrutiny by news outlets across the ideological spectrum. Allegations of a quid pro quo are unsubstantiated, but in light of new reporting critics continue to raise reasonable concerns over conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency from the Clinton Foundation.
Fact Check:
Allegations of corruption between Clinton and Uranium One investors gained renewed interest last week after The Hill reported that the FBI was investigating Russian efforts to take control of nuclear power interests in the U.S. through bribery, money laundering and other corrupt means before the uranium deal was approved.
“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns,” one source told The Hill.
Clinton was asked about the allegations during an interview on C-SPAN after President Donald Trump and conservative pundits brought the Uranium One scandal back to national attention.
“It’s the same baloney they’ve been peddling for years, and there’s been no credible evidence by anyone,” Clinton responded. “In fact, it’s been debunked – repeatedly – and will continue to be debunked.”
Many conservatives have alleged the donations were part of a more elaborate pay-to-play scheme devised by the Clinton family, a claim Trump advanced during the 2016 presidential election . For this reason, Clinton argued the allegations are nothing more than a political distraction.
But donations to the Clinton Foundation by Uranium One investors have been scrutinized and even criticized by left-leaning news organizations. As The Guardian noted , “Such awkward collisions between Bill’s fundraising activities and Hillary’s public service have raised concerns not just among those who might be dismissed as part of a vast rightwing conspiracy.”
The New York Times has investigated the donations extensively since 2007. Its reporting describes a close, mutually-beneficial relationship between the Clinton family and Frank Giustra, a businessman and founder of the company that would later become Uranium One.
Giustra went from a virtually unknown figure in uranium mining to a major industry player in 2005 after he secured lucrative uranium rights in Kazakhstan, days after traveling to the country accompanied by former President Bill Clinton.
“What his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections,” writes the Times.
Giustra donated $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation several months after the visit to Kazakhstan, which the Times characterized as a “ windfall ” for the charitable organization.
The Clinton Foundation had repeatedly insisted that the $31.3 million line item on its tax return was the sum total of smaller contributions, but the Times found there was only a single donor – Giustra.
The Times also discovered $2.4 million in undisclosed donations by Ian Telfer, the chairman of Uranium One, despite a pledge by Clinton to publicly disclose all Foundation donors while serving as secretary of state. The Times editorial board called the omission “an inexcusable violation of her pledge.”
The Times scrutinized other transactions as well, including a $500,000 speaking fee paid to former President Clinton by a Russian bank promoting Uranium One stock. The speech took place shortly after Russia announced its intention to buy a majority stake in the company, a move that would require approval by Secretary Clinton’s state department.
The same Times editorial board that endorsed Clinton for president last year also admonished her in 2015 for the appearance of impropriety, citing dealings with Uranium One in particular.
The lack of transparency and conflicts of interest reported by the Times were widely covered by outlets like NPR , Slate and MSNBC . The Washington Post wrote its own investigative piece in 2015 examining the Clinton-Giustra relationship, and back in 2008, a WaPo op-ed remarked how “the appearance of a conflict is unavoidable.”
Allegations began to circulate again last week after The Hill reported that Russian nuclear officials sought to financially benefit the Clinton Foundation and that former President Clinton had planned to meet with a key Russian official around the time of the deal. In addition, The Hill reported that the Justice Department allegedly prevented an FBI informant from disclosing Russian nuclear corruption to members of Congress.
Despite the suspect nature of the dealings, there’s no hard evidence of quid pro quo between Secretary Clinton and Uranium One investors. The Clinton Foundation has repeatedly denied allegations of wrongdoing.
Clinton did not have unilateral authority to approve the Russian takeover of Uranium One either. She was one of nine members on a committee that reviews foreign investments in the U.S. for national security risks. The committee makes recommendations, but the president has ultimate authority to approve or deny an investment.
However, Clinton did have a seat at the table. The committee seeks consensus from its members before issuing a recommendation, so if even one member raises a national security concern, it could imperil an investment.
Regardless of whether Clinton actually influenced the outcome, donations from Uranium One presented a conflict of interest.
“Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown,” writes the Times. “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 conflict of interest inherent in the Clinton family’s longstanding ties to Uranium One as well as a lack of transparency from the Clinton Foundation in the past is enough to warrant reasonable scrutiny even today. While unsubstantiated, the allegation of a quid pro quo exchange has not been “debunked” as Clinton claimed.
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Why Is The Press Ignoring The Exploding Clinton-Russia-FBI Scandal?
Ru ssia Collusion: In one of his Thursday evening tweets, President Trump complained once again about the "Fake Media," this time for not covering a fresh scandal involving an Obama-era uranium deal with Russia. Does Trump have a legitimate beef? You be the judge.
By any objective measure, the story that The Hill broke on Tuesday was shocking. According to documents unearthed by the news outlet, in 2009 the FBI had uncovered evidence of a sweeping, illegal Russian scheme to boost Vladimir Putin's atomic energy business, which included bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering.
The FBI had also obtained an eyewitness account that Russian nuclear officials "had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit (the Clinton Foundation)."
That's eye-opening in and of itself. But the findings are even more alarming when you understand the context. While the FBI was learning about these illegal Russian activities, Russia's state-owned nuclear company Rosatom was trying to acquire mining rights to 20% of the uranium in the United States through its purchase of Canadian-based Uranium One.
To do so, however, they needed to get approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. Sitting on that committee were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder. In 2010, the committee unanimously approved the sale of Uranium One to the Russian nuclear company.
In other words, while top Obama administration officials were deciding whether to hand over control of one-fifth of the nation's uranium supplies to Russia, the FBI had piles of evidence that officials at Rosatom were flagrantly violating U.S. laws and possibly compromising national security. The FBI also had evidence that officials had directed millions of dollars to Hillary Clinton's family charity, creating a clear conflict of interest.
But as the Hill notes, none of this information was made public before the Obama administration approved the sale.
Even more intriguing, key people at the FBI at the time of the Uranium One deal are now spearheading the special counsel probe into allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to swing the November election.
Needless to say, this raises a lot of important questions. Did the FBI keep the Committee on Foreign Investment in the dark about its findings? If so, why? Did Clinton, or Holder, or anyone else involved in the sale's approval know about this investigation? Why did the FBI wait until after Hillary had stepped down from State before taking action on the case? What role did those donations to Hillary's charity — as well as lucrative speaking fees to Bill — play in all this?
Keep in mind, too, that neither The Hill, nor the key reporter on this story, John Solomon, can be dismissed as conservatives with an ax to grind. The Hill has a sterling reputation for fairness in Washington. And Solomon's career includes stints as assistant Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press and as a national investigative correspondent for the Washington Post.
Yet despite all this, the mainstream press has completely ignored this story.
As of Friday, we couldn't find a single mention of it on the websites of ABC News, NBC News, CBS News or CNN or USA Today. MSNBC devoted a few minutes to the story on air on Thursday.
The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post ran a perfunctory AP story that was focused not on The Hill's revelations, but on Trump's tweet about the lack of media coverage. The AP story contained a one paragraph summary of The Hill's new findings.
The Washington Post ran a separate piece, but it was aimed at dismissing the significance of what The Hill had uncovered, while complaining that conservatives were "jumping waaay ahead of the facts."
That complaint is amusing coming from the Washington Post, which has repeatedly jumped waaay ahead of the facts, to the point of repeatedly getting them wrong, on the wafer-thin Trump-Russia "collusion" story.
But, OK, let's concede that there's still a lot we don't know about this story.
How does that explain that utter and complete lack of interest on the part of the mainstream press in getting those facts? It's not as if they don't have the resources and passion to pursue complex scandals that involve top political officials. You'd think some of that talent could be spared to determine whether the Obama administration ignored evidence of criminal activity in order to hand Russia a major strategic asset.
Instead, we're reading commentaries about why the press is right not to cover this because there "is lots of smoke, but not a bit of fire." That hasn't stopped the press from falling all over itself in pursuit of a puff of smoke — which has yet to materialize — on the Trump-colluding-with-Russia story. Isn't it the job of reporters to dig out the facts, rather than ignore a story until all the facts are in?
The reason for the media's silence on this story has nothing to do with its merits, and everything to do with who might be hurt by it.
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The FBI is causing problems with letting the witness testify. He has recordings. He had better watch his back. It's not unusual for these folks to knock off the people who may get them in trouble.
Well, that's all the left needs. Clinton said it so it's an absolute undeniable fact. And we all should bow down.