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The Uranium One Thing Is a Non-Story and Here Is Why
It always amazes me how false legends get created, and soon, without any facts, they are cemented in everyone’s minds, the details get lost, and they become widely believed, even without evidence.
So it is with the Uranium One story, which is making the rounds again, thanks to a Tweet last week from the President who said, “Uranium deal to Russia, with Clinton help and Obama Administration knowledge, is the biggest story that Fake Media doesn’t want to follow!”
And so we have this false legend, already solidifying in people’s minds that Hillary Clinton sold off a large chunk of America’s uranium to Russia, probably in exchange for an enormous bribe to the Clinton Foundation. Because, when it comes to Hillary Clinton, people will believe almost anything. Look, I don’t like Hillary Clinton either, but the real stuff is bad enough, we don’t need to make up anything extra.
Now, there was a Russian bribery story involving uranium, but you have to go beyond the headlines to find the details. It involved a Russian named Vadim Mikerin. But the bribes weren’t paid by Russians to Americans, it was the other way around. Kickbacks were paid by an American trucking company to Russians get no-bid contracts to ship uranium. And the “scandal” is that the FBI allegedly kept this secret while the Uranium One deal was being approved.
So what is the Uranium One deal? It involves Willow Creek, a uranium mine in Wyoming. I keep seeing it reported (uncritically) that Willow Creek produces 20% of American uranium, but that’s not accurate. The amount varies from year to year, but in 2011-2016, Willow Creek put out less than 5% of us US domestic Uranium production capacity. And while I can’t pin it down, Willow Creek sits on something like 4% of US reserves.
However, the thing to understand is that the US doesn’t produce that much uranium. Only about 11% of the uranium delivered to American power plants is produced domestically. The rest, 89% comes from foreign sources. Who sells us uranium? A quarter of it comes from Canada, 24% from Kazakhstan, 20% from Australia, and the rest comes from a slew of other countries from Namibia to China. Oh, and we get 14% out of Russia.
Why do the Russians sell us uranium? Well, they used to sell us even more. We had a 20-year agreement that finished in 2013 known as the Megatons to Megawatts Program. The Russians sold us surplus uranium from retired nuclear weapons that had been blended down to low enrichment for use in our power plants. The truth is that they can sell us uranium because they have more of it than they’ll ever need. (I’ve heard it suggested, but couldn’t track it down, that transporting this uranium was what the Mikerin bribery deal was about.)
Okay, so the Willow Creek mine was bought by a Canadian company called Uranium One, which, like lots of other companies, ran into financial problems in 2009. At that time, Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear energy company, through a subsidiary, bought part of the company. They bought the rest in 2010.
A purchase like that requires approval from the US government, specifically something called the CFIUS as well as from the NRC, plus Canadian and Kazakh regulators. What is CFIUS? It’s the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. It is made up of representatives from 16 US agencies and departments, including the Commerce Department, DHS, DOD, and the State Department. They approved the Uranium One sale.
There’s no evidence that Hillary Clinton was involved or even knew. The State Department has a seat on the CFIUS committee, but even if they bribed Hillary Clinton to get this deal though, and Clinton ordered her CFIUS representative to approve the deal, there’s 15 other agencies that make up the committee, plus the NRC, plus Canadian regulators.
Nor is there evidence that Uranium One bribed anyone. They wouldn’t need to. The sale of Uranium One was not controversial because even if this was some nefarious Russian plot to steal America’s uranium, they’d still need a license to export it. The closest thing that anyone has found was a small donation to the Clinton Foundation in 2007, but in terms of bribing Hillary Clinton to approve the deal, the timeline doesn’t work. (This is not to say that Hillary Clinton is clean, she’s obviously as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. But as I said above, the real stuff is bad enough, we don’t need to make up anything extra.)
To recap: This was a foreign purchase of an American uranium mine that produces a small amount of the uranium the US uses. None of the uranium has been exported. None of it can be exported. We don’t need it because we can buy it from elsewhere. The Russians don’t need it because they have a surplus. And even if anybody did, nobody would care because this is a tiny amount of uranium.
So no, Hillary Clinton didn’t steal America’s vital uranium and sell it to the Ruskies. And no, the “Fake Media” isn’t covering it up. This whole Uranium One business is a non-story. Which makes you wonder why Donald Trump is bringing it up.
Published in Politics
Rostam’s movement upticked 6/2010 and Bill had his 500 K by the end of June 2010.
Timeline works.
Now Fred, how do you know what Trump’s actual concern is and what his needs are? How do you know what’s in his mind? Where is your evidence?
The timeline suggests that they were banking on her being President.
Well because you are claiming a pretty damning part of the book is wrong. Look if you are not saying it’s wrong, just say so. I’m just trying to get clarification here.
Well, if true, this story kind of harshes my schadenfreude about the Uranium One story. But I’d rather have the truth than just believe what I’d like. Thanks for writing this. It took guts
Lets look into it. And everyone forgive the lecture, but most mischief in these stories comes from guessing motives. Let’s stay with public events about who did what and avoid the whys till we have the facts.
Finally, I’d like to apologize for the phrase “harshes my schadenfreude” and announce that I’m entering rhetoric rehab somewhere really nice, until everyone forgets.
This is a fascinating exchange providing insights into media exaggerations and false sensationalism which distracts from the deeper problems by providing false understandings of how corruption really works in Washington especially with the Obama/Clintons. It’s scandalous that the Clinton foundation was created and became flush while Hillary was Sec State and likely President, as are oversized fees for speeches and books, and that the most the Clintons ever earned was the Presidential salary, but they emerged, along with their daughter as multi millionaires almost immediately. That may be the old fashion kind of corruption but highly skilled criminal enterprise called the Clinton family, run by two top lawyers with deep contacts throughout the upper echelons in government, media, entertainment and big liberal donors, don’t leave smoking guns any more than Obama did. It’s just a non indictable miasma coming off everything they touch. This needs smell detectors, lights shined and attempts to get hard evidence of wrong doing, but we must keep it tight and accurate to have sustainable credibility. The real problem is the abuse of excess Federal powers from IRS, DOJ, Fast and Furious, stacking the deep state with ideologues, unmasking, leaking, enriching, promoting false stories etc. manipulating a compliant media. If the Federal government which is simply not accountable and can’t be made accountable has the power to do these things, there will be Clintons and Obamas and Holders and Lynches in our future. The Trump Administration must in fact drain the swamp, not just talk about it and that means vast numbers of Obama appointed and promoted people throughout the government must be gotten rid of. These stories of corruption and abuse and use of Federal power for electoral politics are vital backdrop to firing vast swaths and gutting people and power throughout the government. So keep it up but keep it accurate or just about the stink. Of course someone needs to go to jail, but they’ll be scape goats.
There are reasons, other than legitimate business reasons, why Russia would want control of an American uranium source. They can’t export it, you say, but the truth is they can’t legally export it. Stuff gets exported illegally all the time. One thing that might help you do that is to have some influence over a US trucking company that helps you move the stuff around. Influence like being able to prove that the trucking company had paid kickbacks for contracts. People who sell, buy, and transport nuclear materials have to file a massive amount of paperwork related to any shipment, but at the end of the day, the regulators look at the paperwork — they don’t look for the uranium.
All right, so the Russians have made it possible to sneak some American uranium to somewhere without the Department of Energy knowing about it. Who cares? They don’t need it, they have a surplus. Right?
They have a surplus of stuff that can be traced back to Russia … scientists can identify the source of any uranium used in, say, a nuclear weapon by its unique radiation signature. What fun would it be if a terrorist weapon that exploded in New York harbor turned out to be from a U.S. source?
I say from experience that business dealings with Russians is like nothing else. They have( in general) absolutely no ethics or morals. I think it goes back to survival under communism. They scoff at honesty and fairness. They laugh at what we consider normal business customs. Without applying this knowledge before hand a normal American will get skinned every time. Trust by verify is naïve. I think Hillary Rodham’s chickens are coming home to roost.
Instead of Obama?
According to an article by NPR in an interview with NYT, the money always flows back to the Clintons and the people that benefitted paid up – and whoops, the Clintons forgot to disclose all that extra cash:
http://www.npr.org/2015/04/23/401781313/clinton-foundation-linked-to-russian-effort-to-buy-uranium-company
Apparently its enough of a concern for the House Intel Committee to launch an investigation:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/24/house-intel-committee-launches-probe-obamas-uraniu/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_campaign=pushnotify&utm_medium=push
Informants have been afraid to come forward:
https://www.infowars.com/doj-clears-fbi-informant-in-clinton-era-russian-bribery-scandal-to-testify/
It never made sense to me why we would allow an adversary like Russia access to something that is a part of nuclear weaponry – but this story is just getting started and the light of day will bring out the truth.
My wife coproduced a radio series on the Van Cliburn competition in the late 1980s. It won a local Emmy. There were strict rules about interaction with the judges. She said that the Russians cheated on a massive scale.
Infowars is a crank website. Anything on there should be treated with extreme skepticism.
Moderator Note:
Insinuation that Ricochet is also a crank website redacted.[Redacted.]
I’m not sure I catch your meaning.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The old fashioned kind of corruption? Meaning that no one gets hurt? Physically, anyway? (Doubts about that but my chapeau metallique is at the cleaners.) That such a concept even exists points toward a couple of meta layers of problematic. Somewhere around the TR and WW presidencies the constitutional limits on federally permitted activities fatally crumbled, which allowed the nose of the camel of overpowering federal control under the tent. Corruption of morals amongst the artsy-craftsy and the intelligentsia got rolling after WWI and subsequently bled into the populace. Pace #98, it’s not only dealings with Russians anymore in which assumptions of anything resembling the sort of “fair play” that once could be assumed are most unwise. The resulting corrupt stew of multi culti globalist kakistocracy has seriously affected government and both parties as well as entertainment and education.
The Rest of Us(tm) want our country back. Sorry, Mr. Cole.
This same story is in The Hill
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/357230-fbi-informant-in-obama-era-russian-nuclear-bribery-cleared-to-testify-before
That’s ironic!
Member note: such insinuation perceived was not intended to be as broad as the redaction assumes.
Carry on.
Obama wasn’t a lock until really May of 2008. All of these donations are either from 07 or earlier or March 08 when there was still the likelihood of Hillary being the nominee. At least that is what the timeline is suggesting; these folks did not think Obama was actually going to get the nomination and they were laying the ground work for getting payback after Hillary won. 08 was going to be an impossible year for any GOP presidential candidate, so securing the Dem nomination was winning the presidency.
Well, it appears to fit. From Wiki: “On January 20, 2007, [Clinton] announced via her website the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for the United States presidential election of 2008” – in the February 2008 Super Tuesday she was still doing fine. More than likely these “investors” didn’t think Obama was really going to win, that Hillary would get her second win and run the table.
It fits.
You know, I picked the most Russian name from my list and looked him up. It says: “Dr Sergey Kurzin is a Russian-born (1960) research engineer who moved to the United Kingdom in 1990 and has since played a key role in initiatives to acquire and progress several important Former Soviet Union mining assets.”
Forget the rest of this list. Someone please tell me why a guy with those credentials would donate a million dollars to the Clinton Foundation in the middle of Hillary’s Democrat Primary battle with Barack Obama? Seriously, what the heck? Only a far-Leftist would think there is no “there” there.
Many other commenters have provided the arguments and reports in this thread. I do not claim to be anything other than agnostic. Having a certain amount of mileage on me that includes being a fully-formed adult during the Clinton years in the White House, I am fully persuaded that the Clintons are a craven criminal enterprise. Whether Uranium One is the linchpin corruption case or not, I do not know. But like Al Capone going to jail for tax fraud instead of murder, I am happy for any slim reed that will bring an end to this criminal enterprise and sweep up as much of the swamp with it as can be managed.
The only message Sergey Kurzin would have needed was that a donation to the Clinton Foundation was as good as a donation to the Clinton Presidential Campaign, maybe even better.
That’s the message I get. It is illegal for a non-American to donate to a Presidential campaign, right? And bad optics for a Russian citizen to donate anyway, even if not illegal.
But don’t worry, they have a nice “Foundation” to which you can donate. The money goes to the same place, but it is laundered first by crippled children and Haitian single moms.
As the Obama years taught me, it is illegal for non-Americans to donate to a Republican Presidential campaign. Donations to Democrats from foreign entities or persons is merely given a wink and a nod, and the coffers fill up.
You’ll get no argument from me that the Clintons are criminals. But they’re also oily, and any case against them needs to be rock solid.
This isn’t it. I’ve busted this “Hillary sold our uranium to the Russians for bribes” myth several different ways.
If you want to believe Hillary and Bill are crooked as the day is long, I’ll agree with you. If you want to say that people donated to the Clinton Foundation in order to gain influence, I’ll also agree.
But if you want to say that that someone paid Hillary Clinton bribes so that two years later when she was Secretary of State, her department could be one of more than a dozen that was part of a one of several government regulatory bodies to approve the sale of a uranium mine to the Russians for some unspecified nefarious purpose, that strains credulity.
No. It’s the facts of the situation. See the OP.
I have no idea what this means in the context of your comment.
Maybe the value in publicizing the Uranium One deal is the look back it gives to those contributions by the same parties to the Clinton Foundation in lieu of the Clinton Campaign
Fred, you didn’t respond to this directly, you wanted a link, but it’s pretty much into the news now that the DOJ will allow the individual who signed the NDA to answer questions to limited congressional committees. The subject matter seems to be bribery crimes involving a Russian and trucking companies in the US hauling uranium related to Uranium One.
Here’s a quote from Thomas Lifson’s American Thinker piece:
‘Any criminal involvement at all was enough to have ruled out approval of the Uranium One deal by the CFIUS committee on which Hillary and Eric Holder both sat. That makes the approval process corrupt, even without regard to the national security stakes involved.’
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/10/nondisclosure_agreement_lifted_for_uranium_one_confidential_informant.html#ixzz4wdU9dd12
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I don’t know if that’s right or not, but if it is valid it presents a motive for the cover up.