uranium one controversy

Uranium One Story – Other Opinions/ Links

by Dave

Salon.com: How Steve Bannon and Sean Hannity ginned up the Hillary Clinton uranium story

Clinton Cash Author Peter Schweizer’s Long History Of Errors, Retractions, And Questionable Sourcing

(Media Matters was reporting just prior to the release of the Clinton Cash book)

The Clinton-Uranium “Scandal” Is Right-Wing Nonsense. Here’s Everything You Need to Know.

Reporters React To Trump’s Clinton Cash Citations By Noting “Widely Discredited” Book’s Factual Problems

(Reacti0n of book about 2 months after publication)

Factcheck.org: http://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/facts-uranium-one/

New York Times: What Is the Uranium One Deal and Why Does the Trump Administration Care So Much?

Politifact.com: What you need to know about Hillary Clinton, Russia, and uranium

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Does-Russia-Really-Own-20-Of-The-US-Uranium-Reserves.html

Wikipedia: Clinton Cash

Their should be a book entitled “Breitbart Cash”  and the connections between the Breitbart organization

Wikipedia:  General Accountability Institute 

Sounds like the General Accountability Office, but of course it’s not!

Wynton Hall (very interesting resume)

Any negative campaign really depends on knowledgeable experts in social media

Breitbart staff list reveals additional ties to Bannon and Mercer

Steve Bannon

Rebekah Mercer

There are more links of Uranium One executives in my prior blog.

Stay tuned,

Dave

 

Uranium One – It takes two

by Dave

The Uranium One accusations are meant to be a distraction by conservative Republicans in Congress.  Fox News through many commentators are attempting to make this into a scandal, when the facts argue otherwise-  no wrongdoing on the part of the Clinton Foundation,  Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton.  It is as if Fox News has taken up the book “Clinton Cash” as their bible with all of its false accusations.

The origins of the Uranium One story are an April 23, 2015 report in the New York Times,  and details from the Clinton Cash book.      As I have stated previously,  the problem with the accusation against Bill Clinton’s speaking fee at an investor’s conference, is the timing is all wrong.  Clinton was paid in June 2010 and approval occurred in October 2010.

What really puts the Uranium One controversy over the top, is it is  recycled trash, first leveled against Bill Clinton in 2008 involving a merger to buy Russian uranium mining rights for Uranium One,  then the facts are all re-arranged to make Hillary the target, for her approval of a sale of uranium to Russians.   The real  truth is not hard to find, as all my sources are out there on the internet.

It wouldn’t seem such a bad thing if uranium rights were bought from the Russian (allegation against Bill)  instead of sold to the Russians (allegation against Clinton).   But, the accusation that Bill Clinton fell apart as quickly as it was made.  The allegation against Hillary lasted longer because she was running for President.

Buy uranium mining rights in Russia, would be for export to other countries.  Buying uranium mining rights in the US, is completely different, as export would be prohibited without an export permit approved by the federal government.

A kickback scheme, as Fox News is alleging takes two:  One that has political influence or can do a political favor,  and another one that has money.    Two names you will never hear on Fox News is Frank Giustra or Ian Telfer.   Nor will you every hear on Fox News about the Clinton Giustra  Enterprise Foundation or the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa.  These are the two Canadians and  former CEO’s of Uranium One.

The more I researched Frank Giustra and Ian Telfer, the more I realized that they were  very involved in philanthropic activities – namely donating much of their wealth  for good non-political causes, such as health and education.

Frank Giustra, CEO of Uranium One in 2007 made the donation of 130 million dollars  to the Clinton Foundation, but in the fall of 2007,  he sold his stock in Uranium One.    Mr. Giustra had made a fortune in mining acquisitions, many of them in Brazil.    What both Giustra and Telfer do these days, is exactly what Bill Gates, and other rich people do – give away their money to charitable organization.     The  Clinton Giustra Enterprise Foundation is a great example of a long term strategy to help the poor of South America through developing their own industries.  I note that Carlos Slims, the Mexican billionaire,  is also a contributor to this foundation.

Please take a look at the link to theClinton Giustra  Enterprise Foundation at the end of this blog.

Following a New York Times article, Frank Giustra responded to this article and other unfounded attacks  as follows:

A book that has not yet been published has caused the New York Times to publish a wildly speculative, innuendo-laced article about the Clinton Foundation and my role in contributing money to it. There is not one shred of evidence to back up the Times‘ conclusions. This is not about me, but rather an attempt to tear down Secretary Clinton and her presidential campaign. If this is what passes for investigative journalism in the United States, it is very sad.

The facts do not comport with the story in the New York Times. The reporter, Jo Becker, wrote a similar piece in 2008, which was eventually debunked by Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/12/giustra-clinton-kazakhstan-pf-ii-in_rl_0912croesus_inl.html

I began working on financing the purchase of mining stakes from a private Kazakh company in early 2005. The purchase was concluded in late 2005.  In late 2005, I went to Kazakhstan to finish the negotiations of the sale. Bill Clinton flew to Almaty a few days after I arrived in the country on another person’s plane, not on my plane, as the Times reported. Bill Clinton had nothing to do with the purchase of private mining stakes by a Canadian company.

I sold all of my stakes in the uranium company – Uranium One – in the fall of 2007, after it merged with another company. I would note that those were sold at least 18 months before Hillary Clinton became the Secretary of State. No one was speculating at that time that she would become the Secretary of State.

Other media outlets have insinuated that I influenced the decision by the U.S. to sign a free trade agreement with Colombia. At one point, I was an investor in Pacific Rubiales, a Colombian energy company. I sold my shares in Pacific Rubiales several years before the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which, I will note, was approved by several U.S. agencies and the White House. To theorize that I had anything to do with that is sheer conjecture.

I hope that the U.S. media can start to focus on the real challenges of the world and U.S. society. Focus on poverty, homelessness, infrastructure, health care, education, or fractious world politics. You are a great country. Don’t ruin it by letting those with political agendas take over your newspapers and your airwaves.

I am extremely proud of the work that we have done at the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership. Thousands of people, all over the world, have been helped by this initiative. I plan to continue that work long after the harsh glare of this week’s media stories has faded.

Of course, once the charitable donation of 130 million dollars is seen as a proper donation,  there’s only 15 million dollars left, and most of these donations occurred long before the Uranium One deal.

However,  there is only one donor, who contributed at the time of the Uranium One deal, and that was Ian Telfer,  former CEO of Uranium One and currently Chairman of the Board of Goldcorp.  He donated 2.35 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation in 2010.  Like Giustra, he was impressed with Clinton’s world initiatives in the areas of health and poverty.

Ian Telfer  is one person that you really have to like.   His occupation as listed on Wikipedia is mining executive and entrepreneur.   But, it should include philanthropist,  as like Frank Giustra, he has made large donations, including a 25 million dollar contribution to the University of Ottawa, School of Management.

Ian Telfer had difficulty getting into any business school because of his low grades.  University of Ottawa accepted him.   Ian set up a scholarship program for the student admitted to the school,  with the lowest grades.   I couldn’t believe this when I first read it!

In conclusion,  from all research I’ve done,  large donations were made to the Clinton Foundation,  because what they were doing.  It is out of character for Bill Clinton to be bragging about what he has done,  but to publicize what has been accomplished by the Foundation.  Part of his job, is getting people with money,  be it Carlos Slim or Frank Giustra to believe and trust in the good work of the Clinton Foundation.

You are not going to know about any of this listening to Fox News, which seems to have nothing better to do than rerun the 2016 smear campaign against her.   Maria Bartiroma, Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs take turns suggesting a special prosecutor assigned to an investigation,  where there is no real evidence of wrong doing.

It is what Trump wants,  a diversion.   Fox News will never interview  Giustra and Telfer  because their contribution are so consistent with their other philanthropic activities, and they will have high praise for the good work of the Clinton Foundation.

Frank Giustra, recognize was a Canadian and this was US politics, but he gave good advice, which Trump and  Fox News should listen to:

I hope that the U.S. media can start to focus on the real challenges of the world and U.S. society. Focus on poverty, homelessness, infrastructure, health care, education, or fractious world politics. You are a great country. Don’t ruin it by letting those with political agendas take over your newspapers and your airwaves.

There will be no coverage of the good work of  the  Clinton Giustra Enterprise  Foundation on  Fox News.   It doesn’t fit with their official political  narrative directed at their base.

Link:

Giustra Clinton Enterprise Foundation

Frank Giustra Bio (Wikipedia)

Ian Telfer (Wikipedia)

Washington Post: The facts behind Trump’s repeated claim about Hillary Clinton’s role in the Russian uranium deal

Forbes: Clinton Commits No Foul In Kazakhstan Uranium Deal

Uranium One Controversy

by Dave

“Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?) … the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more,”  President Trump’s tweet.

(a) Lies can not be turned into the truth by a million repetitions. 

When solid facts run up against a statement, the statement is a lie, unless the facts are disproved.    This has not happened in the above allegations by Donald Trump.  There’s been a lot written in recent months how easy it is today, to string together a few facts and with a lot of unrelated events, to show almost anything.

Perhaps the “so much more” in Trump’s tweet is all the other accusations he’s made during the Obama years, including how Obama was never born in the US, how the Trump tower was bugged by the FBI,  how China invented global warming and how the liberal media altered video to make the crowd size at Trump’s inauguration look smaller.   Of course, we need a special prosecutor to investigate all this!

So much more would include how Ivanka Trump shoes were thrown out of the Norstrom’s in February 2017.

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!

Norstrom shoe gate scandal!  We never knew what evil forces were involved, but likely included Democrats and the liberal media.   White House Spokesperson Sean Spicer  got involved  saying, “There are efforts to undermine her name…because people have a problem with his policies.”  Norstrom responded they pulled her shoes from the store because they just were not selling.   A more reasonable explanation, I would think!

On the subject of the Uranium One Controversy, Wikipedia states in their summary:

The New York Times, FactCheck.org, and The Washington Post note that there is no evidence of wrongdoing concerning Clinton. F.B.I. agents and career public corruption officials who conducted preliminary investigations into the Clinton Foundation concluded that there was no evidence to move forward with a case in 2015.

I particularly like the detailed investigation of snopes.com, which labeled the story as False.   See links at the end of this blog.

(b) There are adults in the room!

If there is a scandalous behavior, it is from Donald Trump,  directing his hand-picked FBI Director, Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions,  to investigate controversies regarding the Clintons.  What he’s saying, in effect, is Hillary Clinton was the one breaking the law, not me.  Also, he wants a criminal investigation of James Comey,  who for most of his career with the government was a registered as a republican.

If there has been criminal activity by Hillary Clinton or the Clinton Foundation in the past, it is certainly within the powers of the FBI and the Justice Department to investigate.   AG Jeff Sessions seems cognizant of his position and duties,  to limit the DOJ to impartial investigations of criminal misconduct.

AG Jeff Sessions indicated to a House committee he would make an inquiry, evaluation or assessment of the Uranium One deal and whether this matter needed to be pursued within the Justice Department or with a Special Counsel.  He chose his words carefully, as he did not call it a criminal investigation.

If Congressman Jim Jordan has his way,  the Special Counsel would have an extraordinary broad scope of investigation,  which would include the Clinton Foundations dealings, Hillary Clinton’s use of a outside server including the subsequent FBI investigation,  the creation of the Trump dossier and the involvement of Fusion GPS and of course,  Uranium one controversy.  Jim Jordan actually just stated this on Fox News this morning (11/15/2017).

(c)  Uranium One sound bite and the truth

Just for the record, here’s the Republican sound bite: “In June 2010,   Hillary Clinton allowed the Russians to buy 20% of the US uranium production capacity in return for $500,000 kickback in the form of speaking fees for Bill Clinton from the Russians. In addition, the CEO of Uranium One donated  hundreds of million dollars to the Clinton Foundation.”  You can turn on Fox News almost at anytime and hear either Lou Dobbs or Sean Hannity repeating the same line.  Actually, I just heard this on a Fox News show featuring Lisa Kennedy Montgomery or “Kennedy” show about hundreds of millions of dollars going into the Clinton Foundation as a result of the Uranium One deal.   This  is all sound bites, aimed to please their audience.

At the end of this blog,  I have included several excellent summaries of the accusations and the facts which shows Hillary Clinton did nothing wrong.

Let me summarize a couple of facts, that really stand out for me.  It is best to begin with the words “to buy.”  If I buy a car,  I get the keys and drive it off the lot, and I can bring this car to any place in the world, given the proper permits.   Not true with US uranium resources.  Russia has no export permit.   Whatever uranium is produce stays in the US.  Some minor exceptions have been discovered, as noted in the links given below.

Hillary Clinton ultimately was not the one to approve or reject the deal.  This would be up to the president.   However, the State Department is one of 9 federal agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investments in the US (CFIUS)  to review transactions.   Factcheck.com  which labels Trump’s accusation as FALSE,  states:

The committee can’t actually stop a sale from going through — it can only approve a sale. The president is the only one who can stop a sale, if the committee or any one member “recommends suspension or prohibition of the transaction,” according to guidelines issued by the Treasury Department in December 2008 after the department adopted its final rule a month earlier.

For this and other reasons, we have written that Trump is wrong to claim that Clinton “gave away 20 percent of the uranium in the United States” to Russia. Clinton could have objected — as could the eight other voting members — but that objection alone wouldn’t have stopped the sale of the stake of Uranium One to Rosatom.

“Only the President has the authority to suspend or prohibit a covered transaction,” the federal guidelines say.

We don’t even know if Clinton was involved in the committee’s review and approval of the uranium deal. Jose Fernandez, a former assistant secretary of state, told the New York Times that he represented the department on the committee. “Mrs. Clinton never intervened with me on any C.F.I.U.S. matter,” he told the Times, referring to the committee by its acronym.

The CFIUS is a review board as stated on it’s website.

(d) The Payoff or Quid Pro Quo

The second part of this accusation, that Bill Clinton or the Clinton Foundation benefited financially from this approval,  has a real timing problem.   In a  kickback scheme,  a politician does a favor to someone, and then either simultaneous or soon after its done,  the person who benefited  pays off the politician for the favor.   It’s all backwards in this case.  Bill Clinton received a $500,000 speaking fee in June 2010 and the deal was reviewed by the CFIUS in October 2010.  He was not paid by Uranium One, but by Renaissance Capital, specializing in Russian investments.  Investment banks pay big speaker fees to have world leaders speak at their investment conferences.   Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britain also spoke at the conference.

The contribution to the Clinton Foundation by individuals associated with Uranium One was 145 million, and so this would seem at first  to be highly suspicious.  But, the lion’s share of this contribution,  131.5 million was from the CEO of Uranium One,  Frank Giustra, who sold all of his Uranium One stock in 2007,  three years before the deal.  Hillary Clinton wasn’t the Secretary of State at the time.   Only one individual contributed during the same timeframe as the deal was taking place, Ian Telfer, the company’s chairman.  According to snopes.com:

 His donations through the Fernwood Foundation included $1 million reported in 2009, the year his company appealed to the American Embassy to help it keep its mines in Kazakhstan; $250,000 in 2010, the year the Russians sought majority control; as well as $600,000 in 2011 and $500,000 in 2012. Mr. Telfer said that his donations had nothing to do with his business dealings, and that he had never discussed Uranium One with Mr. or Mrs. Clinton. He said he had given the money because he wanted to support Mr. Giustra’s charitable endeavors with Mr. Clinton. “Frank and I have been friends and business partners for almost 20 years,” he said.

(e) How much of Uranium One’s Production in the US is controlled by Russia?

The latest estimates are 5.9% of Uranium One’s production makes up the US supply of Uranium.   Russia could do little harm if they shut down the uranium mines owned by the US, as outside supplies are plentiful (Forbes.com)

(f) Concluding remarks

I’ve included a lot of online fact checking reviews in the links.  I did not go into the same level of detail as they did.

A report published by “The Hill” last month said the FBI was investigating possible Russian attempts to influence the U.S. nuclear sector at the time the CFIUS was considering the sale of Uranium One to Rosatom. The Justice Department receives FBI reports when there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing  and it could have raised objections to the deal through the CFIUS in their review.  It would be up to the president to block the deal.

The accusation of approval of the Uranium One deal for any monetary gain is just as baseless as it was in 2015.  This new information has no effect on this conclusion.  See  Politifact.com link.

Hillary Clinton has recently stated the Trump administration and members of Congress (James Jordan in particular) are using this as a diversion from the Mueller investigation.  See link at the end.

My prediction is there will be no special counsel to investigate the Uranium One controversy.   AG Jeff Sessions may draw out his “assessment”  of a need for a criminal investigation for as long as he  wants.

As for the list of Trump’s tweet, I will end this blog with the very appropriate comment of Senator Bob Corker,  “The President has great difficulty with the truth on many issues.”

Stay tuned,

Dave

Links:

There are many other good links available.

Forbes article

Wikipedia: James Comey

Factcheck.org   The Facts on Uranium One

Snopes.com:  Hillary Clinton Gave 20 Percent of United States’ Uranium to Russia in Exchange for Clinton Foundation Donations?

Politifact.com: What you need to know about Hillary Clinton, Russia, and uranium

Wikipedia:  Uranium One

Hillary Clinton’s Interview with Mother Jones