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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
Woah. Let me stop you right there. That I don’t care for Donald Trump has nothing to do with the question of whether or not Hillary Clinton sold America’s uranium to Russia for bribes. To be clear: she didn’t.
So a few things:
To be fair and balanced Hillary will look good in orange.
Pointing out that Donald Trump mentioned the story last week (which I did do) is different from claiming that Trump “conjured this ‘nonstory’ out of whole cloth,” which I did not do.
“The donations” doesn’t tell me anything. If you’re referring to something specific, please specify and provide links and I can address it.
In all fairness to Fred, he might have sources National Review doesn’t have.
Dude, are you freakin’ serious? There’s 800 words there. Read them. There’s links to back it up. That piece is all meat.
Look, if you have an actual disagreement with what I said, then say it.
It’s difficult to believe that you really think just because a story has been around for some time that it’s complete and nothing new can surface.
The sources there are all linked to. You’re welcome to examine them for yourself. That’s why I included the links.
I’m not “defending the Clinton Machine,” I pushing back against a BS non-story which is being uncritically parroted all over right-wing media.
I refer you to the following line, which is in the piece twice for emphasis:
I’m confused.
Fred needs this because he doesn’t read conservative sources or if he does he evidently doesn’t believe them. So he wants others to do his homework for him. Then he’ll find something else for you to do.
Lot of holes in the meat — not very substantial.
Me too but that happens when dealing with the Clintons. Just ask Fred.
I’m just saying I don’t know what to think. So, you disagree with National Review’s story?
Mr. Cole, don’t you think this is a bit disingenuous? The issue is not the amount of uranium the mine produces, where else we can purchase it, nor the size of the bribes paid out.
The issue is two fold;
1) It appears that HRC received bribes via her husband’s speaking fee and donations to their foundation in exchange for a favorable decision on letting Rosatom purchase Uranium One.
2)It also appears that the Obama administration and Federal officials colluded to hide this from the public.
Again, I don’t see how Uranium One’s share of domestic production, or the size of the Russian bribe, could make this a non-story. It may mean that from the standpoint of national security the sale, in and of itself, is not significant. You aren’t clear in you article as to the exact dollar amount of the “small donation” to the Clinton Foundation. What makes this a story is that there was a bribe at all, plus a coverup.
It depends on the source. Not all “conservative” sources are created equal.
@bryangstephens‘ mention of “the donations” was vague. That’s why I asked for clarification.
But I’m going to go ahead and assume it referrers to the $145 million dollars donated to the Clinton Foundation by various people connected to Uranium One.
If you’re looking for a quid pro quo here, the timeline just doesn’t work. Politifact put together the list of those people, based on Clinton Cash and other reports. You can find that list here. The latest donations on that list are March 2008. The overwhelming majority came from Frank Giustra, who says he divested completely from Uranium One in fall of 2007. The sale of Uranium One happened in 2009, with the Russians buying a majority in 2010.
So in order for there to be some kind of quid pro quo (donations in exchange for Clinton approving the deal), those donors would have had to (1) anticipated Uranium One’s financial problems a year before they happened and (2) known that Clinton would be in a position two years later to approve the deal. Frankly, if they had those scrying abilities, they could have made a killing almost anywhere else instead of farting around with a piddly uranium mine in Wyoming.
And that completely ignores that the State Department is one of more than a dozen agencies that’s part of CFIUS, and that CFIUS is only one of the bodies that needed to approve the deal. It also ignores the fact that the mine in question is only responsible for a tiny fraction of American uranium needs.
Okay, so
So are you saying Clinton Cash is wrong? If so, I gotta pass. Schweiker has been doing this a long time. He’s pretty good. You are just some dude with “contributor” under your name.
Would half a million dollars make you more or less likely to rule in favor of the donor? This isn’t a hard question.
So covering up crimes and intimidating witnesses is like totes cool if you’re AG?
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/10/do_private_uranium_investors_have_a_3b_claim_against_obama_administration_officials.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452972/uranium-one-deal-obama-administration-doj-hillary-clinton-racketeering
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2017/10/22/the_obama_administration039s_uranium_one_scandal_424418.html
40 million dollars over a few years to Clinton friends , money from Russia , regarding this deal.
500 K and a Putin meeting for Bill a few weeks after the wheels started turning toward Hilary.
140 million plus to the Clinton Foundation.
There is zero doubt bribery occurred There is zero doubts the Clintons orchestrated their terms.
Yellow cake left the US to Canada then to other countries Per the Nuclear regulatory commission.
I think the analysis in the OP is immensely flawed and the conclusions erroneous.
Well, Fred, I am going to buck the trend and give you a vote of confidence on this, even though I sometimes find you slightly annoying(!?)
I checked some of your data on Uranium production in the U.S. and Uranium Imports to the U.S. and it is all just as you said. I did not know this before. The only substantive drawback to this story I was aware of was the fact that removing Uranium from the U.S. still needs approval from our Government no matter who owns the mines. It does not make sense that buying the Willow Creek Mine will be of much benefit to Russia.
Your point about the State Department being only one of 16 agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in theUnited States also throws cold water on the idea of bribing only Hillary to vote for the deal.
Having said all that, the many commenters are correct in pointing out the large sums of money donated to the Clinton Foundation and “Bubba” by Russians or Russian Enterprises around the time of this deal. It could turn out that there is something even worse than the Uranium Story, or maybe not. I think these latest revelations about the Russian bribery are too recent with which to jump to any conclusions. We don’t know enough yet.
I suspect there may very well be a big story here, though not necessarily about the Uranium. It is easy to get excited about this stuff as we are conditioned by the short news cycle, but we have to be patient and wait until witnesses get questioned and things get sorted out. I can’t wait!
Idk how you got that from what I said.
Yes. I deal with that in comment #76. The timeline just doesn’t work.
Addendum: By the way, thank you for reading the piece and following the links. It took a lot of time and I’m glad someone looked at them.
So, I’ve been pondering this for several hours now. There cannot (for reasons specified in the OP) be a national security element to this.
I think Occam’s Razor applies here. Probably just to make money. They saw a distressed company and an investment opportunity.
I just want to know why these “Investors” dumped their bank accounts into the Clinton Foundation, that’s all.
Its the Clinton’s long history of virtue that convinced you of this?
Lets say, that my niece needs an organ transplant … Now I give $145 Million dollars to the Hospitals Charitable Foundation… And Bob’s yer uncle the kid moves to the top of the list and gets a new kidney… It was all just co-incidence, the doctor who performed the surgery got no kickbacks, the administrator didn’t … The system worked as intended the best candidates moved up the organ lists and matches where found… But a dollar to donuts those set of facts become known, an FBI investigation would be launched…
Ummm. Looking at Andrew McCarthy’s recent article I find that the case revolves around Mikerin and Rosatom’s US subsidiary, Tenex, using their leverage in the uranium market to extort bribes from US uranium firms with federal investigators finding evidence from 2004 on supporting charges of racketeering, extortion, and money laundering. Part of the play is that US firms dealing in uranium do not want to be caught in illegal activities like paying bribes. In play during this period was the ownership of Uranium One, the company supplying 24% of the US annual uranium requirement from its holdings in Kazakhstan. Russia wanted a majority stake to control that portion of US requirements.
No Willow Creek in sight. No Wyoming.
As Putin was dismembering Ukraine, DoJ finally pulled the trigger and brought charges against Mikerin, but the Obama Administration bent over backwards to reduce the charges against Mikerin to one count of “conspiracy” carrying a sentence of 0-5 years. A single charge on the money laundering would have meant 20 years.
In addition to the $145,000,000 donated to the Clintons by sources linked to Uranium One, there is also the “tip”, as Bill Clinton received a career highest $500,000 speaking fee for one appearance by Renaissance Capital, a Russian bank close to the Putin regime, in 2010.
The profits from the acquisition of Uranium One to the Russian interests are projected to be tens of billions of dollars.
Not a nothing burger.