Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
The problem is that the “look back” is built on an utterly false narrative. When people on the right parrot it uncritically, it undermines their arguments about Clinton’s corruption in particular and undermines their credibility as a whole.
Like I keep saying: The real stuff is bad enough, we don’t need to make up anything extra.
Does Ricochet have a moderator bat-signal they have to use when @fredcole posts? This is the most moderation I’ve seen outside of a post specifically about using words that violate the code of conduct. On the bright side, it does give me an idea as to which accounts are less inclined to debate in a respectful manner (and therefore which accounts I can ignore).
One question I have that really hasn’t been addressed, is whether Andrew McCarthy is discussing something different than (but related to) the OP.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/452972/uranium-one-deal-obama-administration-doj-hillary-clinton-racketeering
It seems like that is the case – McCarthy is saying that this is an Obama administration scandal and not one directly about the Clinton Foundation. The Obama swept the prosecutions under the rug because of the bad potential optics that could impact Clinton’s campaign. He does, however, imply that Clinton had some obligation to inform the CFIUS about her involvement with the Uranium One deal and failed to do so. Is that a misreading of what happened?
I did not expect that you would.
You are invited to explain.
I still think you’re focusing too tightly on the uranium itself. To me the issue here isn’t so much the uranium, it’s the payouts, the donations, the speeches, that gag order, and that fake Russian document about golden showers. Mueller’s entire appointment appears to be based largely on that document, along with Trumps association with Flynn and Manifort. That fake document was paid for by Hillary and the DNC. So is that all an attempt to cover-up her involvement with this Uranium 1 deal? Throw enough accusations of Russian collusion at Trump and a friendly press corps will happily oblige her wishes and dog Trump, and not bother Hillary or Bill’s own money making scheme with the Russians.
Is that far fetched? With the Clintons nothing is. I’m starting to tire of the Watergate comparisons, but the analogy holds here. Back then it wasn’t the break-in, it was the cover-up. In this unfolding scandal it’s not the uranium itself, but the cover-up.
From the news I read and watch on this brewing scandal, the uranium supply is mentioned yes, but also prominently talked about are the payments, the money, the FBI informant, that fake document. It’s all one giant lump of Clinton greed and mad power lust that needs to be sorted out over a long period of time, and I still don’t understand why you felt the need to rush out and defend her on any portion of this as new facts are still coming out.
This is a good contrarian post that I find quite thought-provoking. Certainly more so than the author’s previous contrarian defense of the Iran deal. I’m in the process of re-reading the material in Clinton Cash on Uranium One that is the go-to source on the topic. I’m assuming Fred has read it as well, so let’s see where we end up.
The Clinton Foundation was never in the business of selling uranium to hostile actors. It was in the business of selling influence.
That’s why I don’t care about the accuracy of Fred’s reporting. The timeline doesn’t fit, no one could have known she’d be secretary of state, blah, blah, blah…
Everyone outside of some die hard Trump fans — including the Russians — thought Hillary was going to be the next president, especially after Trump won the primary. She and Bill cashed in on it, and they didn’t give a rip how it hurt the rest of us.
Lock her up. The private server scandal would have anyone else in jail already.
I think this is right. Look at all the others who are going to be tainted for life as part of this.
And interestingly, the private server scandal is now connected to the Fusion GPS scandal via Perkins Coie. It’s Scandalpalooza, and it’s all connected. I need a graph.
You need a Venn Diagram but the intersections will all collapse to a single circle.
Sadly, this seems appropriate for a news organization’s Venn diagram.
I like this post. There are many false flags out there and this may well be one. It resists the tendency to pile on a dead horse. Still, the Clinton Foundation was a grasping scheme & exceptionally defensive. So much so that they lost the election hiding it- in part. The 500k to Bill is trivial and whatever $ to the foundation. Even if they collected only 1 million from a insignificant, non-decision re 10% of US uranium because foreigners thought they were buying influence, it deserves an investigation. No doubt it is perfectly legal, but we need to insure that those who establish this kind of shameless political fund raising scheme never hold public office again.
I hope that Fred will line up the $ transfers to the Clintons with the rest of his analyses.
No. I look at the same facts and see the Clinton Foundation as textbook example of Racketeering. I see Hillary as a living icon of corruption, who routinely uses her political power and connections to avoid prosecution – prosecution that would other wise have been called routine. Starting with the Cattle Futures scandal in the late 1970’s – to White Water in the 1980’s. The Clinton’s have cashed in on their public “Service” for self promotion, aggrandizement and enrichment, from the beginning of their careers.
She perfected the politics of smear and character assassination to deal with bimbo eruptions, but then decry republican ‘politics of personal destruction’ should anyone dare speak the truth about/to her.
I see the facts, and knowing who Hillary is, know what she has done. She is as predictable as the sun rise. Read “Clinton Cash” or watch the documentary on YouTube.
Here’s some evidence from Special Report pertaining to the Uranium One non-story that supports Fred’s analysis.
Susan Page explains (at 8:46) that the Uranium One non-story was caused by the Clintons’ carelessness in accepting all that money from Russians, which then made the Uranium deal look fishy. Bad optics, I guess. Then Hillary looked really bad when people learned that she was secretly paying Russians to dig up dirt on Trump during the 2016 election campaign. Those two things combined provide talking points for Republicans who are now saying that the FBI knew about all of this from the beginning, which suggests that maybe
TrumpHillary was colluding with the Russians with cover from the FBI. Poor Hillary. Her ineptitude cost her the election. That’s the story Ms. Page tells.Mollie Hemingway had a slightly different take, which isn’t as favorable to Fred’s analysis.
Then it occurred to me. Uranium One isn’t only about the uranium! It’s part of a bigger story. Maybe the Uranium One non-story is not a non-story after all.
Yep. It’s big and getting bigger, hard to keep it all straight. But going back to Freds OP, how do you explain his urge to write that at this time?
i think Fred could be right about the lack of importance of the Uranium One deal in and of itself because of its lack of any strategic importance. I think he could have gotten more positive response if he had approached the topic from the point of view that the Clinton’s set themselves up for trouble when they (1) took all these contributions from Russian uranium investors and (2) used the Clinton Foundation as a Clinton cash cow (3) allowed or sanctioned the quiet disposition of the bribery investigation and the NDA involving connection to these same players while the Obama Iranian deal was being negotiated. So it’s the optics of the Clinton Foundation’s affecting one of Obama’s big deals that led to the improper behavior by the FBI.
Then the ‘dossier’ followed by the Special Counsel Russia investigation and the same players in all three cases.
You’ll get no argument from me about the corruption of the Clintons or the ethical problems with the Clinton foundation. And I remember White Water, the cattle futures, etc.
My goal with the OP was to address and dismiss a specific claim that people were making: Hillary Clinton sold American uranium to Russia for bribes. That is not the case here.
Its too bad that liberals make honest cops rare.
Frank Giustra is a Canadian, and its unlawful (in Canadian law) to bribe a foreign official. Its called the “Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act”. A person found guilty under this act could earn up to 14 years in prison.
There is an avenue of attack on this scandal that doesnt put Hillary in the doc, but can unequivocally prove her guilt.
Yeah. “Liberals” don’t have a monopoly on corruption.
I am prepared to accept that the Uranium One story is not Exhibit A in treason. But even assuming it is not let me craft a story based on the classic “joke” variously attributed to George Bernhard Shaw, Lord Beaverbrook, or Winston Churchill:
Vladimir Putin and Hillary Clinton are riding alone in an elevator at the UN building in New York City. Vlad says to Hillary: “Hillary would you sell me the Wyoming uranium mine for $145 million?” Hillary: “Why, Vlad, I just might be able to do that.”
Vlad: “How about the US nuclear codes for $1?”
Hillary: “What do you think I am?!”
Vlad: “We’ve already established that, now we’re just haggling over the price.”
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.
And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.
Nope. nothing to see here. Move along Comrades.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRhVI46kVeQ
I am not saying this is related to anything, I just think it’s a hilarious Tweet:
The Dems are so dirty. I’m sure there’s corruption on the Republican side, but I think the Dems make them look like angels.
This isn’t the reason that the Uranium One story is “making the rounds again.” The story is making the rounds because it appears that Special Counselor Mueller and his team are delving into the role that Paul Manafort, the former head of Trump’s campaign, played while working as an agent for Russian business and government interests in his dealings with The Podesta Group – founded by Tony and John Podesta — to further the interests of Russian businesses and the Russian government before Hillary Clinton’s State Department for a number of business deals one of which happened to be the Uranium One transaction (see the video in Comment #142 above). Trump’s specific tweet wasn’t what initiated this renewed interest.
In what respect is this a “false legend”? Do you have definitive evidence to show that there under no circumstances that the money that was delivered to Bill Clinton for his speaking fee in Russia or that the $145 million donated to the Clinton Family Foundation was not a quid pro quo arrangement between Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, their foundation and the Russian individuals noted? Has this “legend” been debunked or tossed out by a grand jury at some point? Did I miss that news story? Did the FBI ever make their findings public on their investigation of the Clinton Foundation? Has Congress ever investigated this deal or the Clinton Foundation specifically? I’m not sure on what factual information that you are privy to that the rest of the country, including Congress, is not for you to proclaim that this is a “false legend”. Would it be Hillary and Bill Clinton’s <cough> spotless record of anything approaching scandal or graft for the last 30+ years?
You may want to read this piece from the New York Times, April 23, 2015 (seven years after the New York Times story you cite in your post. This is a much more damning piece about the Clintons’ involvement specifically and the circumstances leading up to and after the Russians obtained controlling stake in Uranium One):
Perhaps now that a key witness at the heart of the Russian bribery story is now free to speak, we may learn much more about the Obama administration’s attempt to keep the story under wraps.
New information about this story seems to be surfacing every couple of hours. The inner workings of the Podesta group may be at the heart of some of these transactions and relationships. I think it’s way too early to pronounce judgement that there’s no there there…particularly with such stellar and above-board individuals like Bill and Hillary Clinton.
There are a few exceptions Spiro Agnew and Brian Mulroney spring to mind.
Liberals do have a monopoly on favours. Those who are connected to the liberal/leftist cause have little fear of prosecution. Do you think Harvey would have been as well protected, if he where a republican donor? Or Jon Corzine who disappeared 1.6 Billion, without so much as a harsh word from the FBI.
Iam not saying that the liberal pols are doing a lot crime, Iam saying they let their donors get away with it.
Right. They say the same thing about you guys.
“you guys”? Not part of the “right” Fred?
One word: Story.
The difference being, is that they’re lairs who use character assassination as a normal debate tactic.