The Unsavory Pattern of Cash Given to the Clintons & Hillary's Actions Favoring Donors as Secretary of State

The New York Times last month posted this article, describing how a Russian corporation, Roscom, acquired a dominant position in the world's uranium market when it received special approval from the US Government, including the State Department, to acquired a Canadian company with "uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West." Although it didn't get much attention in the media at the time (other than denunciation by other media outlets favorable to Clinton's candidacy), it exposes the web of corruption between Bill Clinton, The Clinton Foundation and then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who was uniquely situated to help or hinder Russia's ability to obtain control over a strategically important resource vital to our national security.

The headline on the website Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when its precursor served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.” [...]

But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

[T]he sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013 ... 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. [emphasis added] 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.

It gets worse. The Russians made several promises to the US Government to address our government's reasonable security concerns over allowing our former Cold War enemy to obtain these rights. However, since the deal was approved, those agreements have been "repeatedly broken" in the words of the NYT authors. It also should be noted that within a year after the deal was approved, an emboldened Putin invaded Crimea and contributed Russian forces and arms to rebels in Eastern Ukraine in what has become a civil war to break away from the rest of Ukraine and form an independent nation aligned with Russia.

While the Times' report will not go so far as to say that Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State intentionally greased the skids for this massive transaction that gave Russia control over much of the world's uranium, the evidence certainly suggests that such an implication is warranted. Millions of donations to the Clinton Foundation during the nearly four year period that Roscom gradually obtained these rights in three separate transactions, donations that, in violation of Secretary Clinton's agreement with President Obama, were never disclosed to the Obama administration. A separate $500,000 payment to Bill Clinton for a speech in Moscow (what else?) "shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One" paid to him by a Russian investment bank with "links to the Kremlin."

To assume that these transactions that benefited the Clinton Foundation and the Clintons personally occurred in a vacuum insults our intelligence. And this is just one of a number of "special ethical challenges" (the Time's euphemism for the millions of dollars of foreign cash that flowed into the coffers of the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was Secretary of State) that resulted in donors to the Clinton Foundation, or to Bill Clinton, who received approval of various business deals from the State Department while Hillary was in charge.

The increases in approvals of arms deals by Clinton foundation donors to sell advanced weaponry to despotic countries such as Saudi Arabia, the leading sponsor of extremist Islamic terrorist organizations in the world.

In 2009 email, she personally told her aide, Cheryl Mills to expedite a visa for an executive for the Blackstone Group, a large multinational hedge fund, investment banking, private equity investor and provider of financial services. In that same email, she also told Mills to help Honeywell Corporation cut through regulations that were delaying exports of a "dual use" engine (i.e., one that could be used for peaceful and military purposes). Honeywell is "an American multinational conglomerate company that produces a variety of commercial and consumer products, engineering services and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments". It goes without saying that both the Blackstone Group and Honeywell were major contributors to the Clinton Foundation.

In 2012, Clinton, who ran against large pharmaceutical companies during her 2008 campaign, met with the CEO of Merck, a major pharmaceutical company, who contributed to the Clinton Foundation. within four months of that meeting, the State Department announced a multi-million dollar public private global health partnership with Merck.

From promoting fracking in foreign countries on behalf of Clinton Foundation donors such as Chevron, to promoting the business of an online, for a for profit higher education company, Laureate Universities International, overseas, a deal which resulted in $16 million paid to Bill Clinton as the company's Honarary Chairman, Hillary used her position as Secretary of State to help companies that donated to the Clinton Foundation or directly put money into her husband's bank account.

But of all the deals that the State Department approved for Clinton donors, this one involving Russia (perhaps matched only by the arms sales to the terrorist sponsoring Saudis), shows a an astounding indifference and disregard for the best interests of our country and its national security. Yes, other agencies also needed to sign off on the deal, not just the State Department. However, Clinton, was one of the most powerful members of Obama's cabinet was a well known hawk on defense. She has received the endorsements of several prominent neoconservatives.

One would have expected her to take a tough line on this prorposed transaction, and also to have a large degree of influence over the heads of the other agencies whose approval was required, especially those that did not have cabinet level status. One would have expected that, all other things being equal, she would have been extremely cautious in granting a Russian company rights to one-fifth of America's uranium production. Yet, there is no indication she used her influence to stop this nuclear train from leaving the station. What is clear is that her family, through Bill's $500,000 speech, benefited personally. Was there any stated or unstated quid pro quo whereby she signed off on the deal in exchange for these monetary benefits. We can't know for certain, but it fits a pattern of her time in office, whereby those who gave money to the Clintons or their foundation, received favorable outcomes in their dealings with the State Department.

And again, we see evidence of duplicity by Hillary, in the breach of her agreement with the White House to disclose of such potential conflicts of interest. Again, it makes many people, myself among them highly suspicious of the separate server through which all of Secretary Clinton's email was run, a server outside the control of the Stare Department. We know she violated the requirement to tuirn over her emails to State upon leaving office until late 2014, and then only after Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit demanding they be produced as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. And of course, not all emails were turned over, since Clinton admitted she deleted over 30,000 emails she deemed private and personal, including emails such as the ones in which she communicated with Sidney Blumenthal, a paid Clinton Foundation staffer, and long time Clinton associate, regarding the crisis in Libya.

How many other emails were withheld or destroyed that may have related to official State department business? How many were related to discussions regarding the Clinton Foundation and its Donors? Unless the FBI has recovered all those lost emails we may never know. But one thing is clear. The Obama legacy of having a mostly scandal free administration, after 8 years of immense corruption and graft under George W. Bush, has been forever tarnished by the actions of the person he made his Secretary of State, and upon whom he relied to live up to her agreement to prevent even the appearance ethical conflicts resulting from donations to the Clinton Foundation while she acted as our Nation's highest Diplomat.

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is beyond unethical; beyond greed; beyond using high office for personal gain without regard for our country; beyond venality. It seems, from the article, that ingrained amorality is a prominent character trait. How can Trump be worse? How can anyone?

Actually, I thought the Clintons weren't this bad - seems I thought wrong.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Obama is OK with it all and still shills for her, indirectly, but unmistakably. Not the paragon of virtue heralded recently in the press as wildly popular. He's just as slimey, but more discreet.

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We all know things like this are at the heart of the "private server" issue. Could you repost your essay far and wide??? It needs many eyes, Steven.

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WindDancer13's picture

Statue of Liberty listed on ebay?

Clinton-foreign_0.jpg

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

pfiore8's picture

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“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"

pfiore8's picture

it's the server, it's the handling of classified material, and it most certainly its looking at the Clinton hallmark of pay-to-play.

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“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"

I'm hoping for an indictment before the convention. May the FBI agents be working all this holiday weekend. There's not a moment to waste

What the Clintons have done/are doing/will do is just pure, unadulterated, fucking Evil.

What will it take to make them go away? And why isn't Obama distancing himself from these psychopaths?

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Yahoo

Plain and simple. When the press (after Trump fires the starting gun) starts focusing their lens on The Clinton foundation, gave over for Hillary. The foundation is one of the most craven and corrupt charities to ever exist.

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wilderness voice's picture

to bring this to the country's attention. October perhaps. A co-ordinated attack with national security experts expressing "surprise", shock and horror. No way a candidate with this kind of baggage should have gotten anywhere near the nomination.

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edg's picture

There are so many October surprises regarding Hillary that Republicans are having trouble narrowing the list down to just the Top Ten.

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pfiore8's picture

but it did make me laugh

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“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"

...before people realize it's a duck?
From wiki :
Influence peddling:
"Influence peddling is the illegal practice of using one's influence in government or connections with persons in authority to obtain favours or preferential treatment for another, usually in return for payment. Also called traffic of influence or trading in influence. In fact, influence peddling is not necessarily illegal as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has often used the term "undue influence peddling" to refer to illegal acts of lobbying. [1] However, influence peddling bears the stench of corruption that may de-legitimise democratic politics with the general public."

The stench of corruption clings to the Clintons like the scent from a county fair out-house.

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Solidarity

KayCeSF's picture

that the Clintons via their Foundation have compromised our nation's security and taken it upon themselves to emasculate Obama's power to lead as President? This statement from Steven's post caught my eye:

Millions of donations to the Clinton Foundation during the nearly four year period that Roscom gradually obtained these rights in three separate transactions, donations that, in violation of Secretary Clinton's agreement with President Obama, were never disclosed to the Obama administration.

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Kaye

Wink's picture

there you go again besmirching Her Highness. I guess the question is, how is this not aiding and a bedding?

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Dhyerwolf's picture

but it's there for anyone to see with just a little googling. What's Hillary going to do when Donald Trump starts talking about the Clinton Foundation donations from countries that just happened to get massively increased weapon deals right afterward during the foreign policy section of a GE debate? And if he then goes into banking, energy...etc? It won't be pretty.

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this general election will be. In the end, we will end up with one of the two most unpopular people I know of. I think an Osama Bin Laden/ Satan ticket might have a chance in the general.

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Peace out, tmp.

Nearlynecessary's picture

She'll just refuse to debate him

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Any stained glass afficionados? Please check out my website: www.masterpieceglass.net

snoopydawg's picture

months. The reason she set up a private sever was so that she could combine the state department's business with the Clinton foundation's. And she has total control over who sees the emails. If they show proof of corruption, she could delete them. So we're they really just related to Chelsea's wedding and yoga?

And the amount of money that Bill first made for speeches, then the state department would sell weapons or give people access to government officials for contracts and other things, then even more money would be donated to the Clinton foundation.
How any of this is not illegal is mind boggling. And what did Obama and other government agencies know about this? And if they did, why was it allowed to continue?
So it's not just that she had a private email, it was the reason why she did.
And don't forget that Huma Abedin was on board both the state department and Clinton's foundation.
Hopefully, Bluementhal is going to be investigated too. His actions in Libya weren't above board and was he vetted for security clearance? If not, then that's where the espionage charges come into play. Either him, Huma or Hillary. And how much access to the state department emails did Bill have? Does he still have security clearance?

Stay on this, Stephen.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

They both chose, and stuck with, despicable sexist creeps. I would have dumped Slick Willy and Weiner in a flash. They, evidently, prefer power over integrity and self-respect.

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Peace out, tmp.

KayCeSF's picture

paying attention to any of this! I'm hoping the FBI is digging into details of the collusion between The Clinton Foundation and her emails, but when that investigation is done, will it all come out for all to see, or are they going to do the job on all of us as they did with Chris Christy when they saved his arse regarding Bridge-gate!

Thanks Steven! I agree with others ... stay on this and we all have to share the information. I've decided anything we know is only the tip of the iceberg. It just gets worser and worser as I read along......

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Kaye

left Cheney unfettered: and wondering if he isn't under perpetual threat: too many close calls that seem to come in relation to things like this.

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snoopydawg's picture

As I have said, if our justice system worked, then she would be charged under the espionage act. This article's author agrees.

http://observer.com/2016/05/game-over-emailgate-just-crippled-the-clinto...

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

KayCeSF's picture

I have wondered and wondered why President Obama did not appoint an Inspector General rather than an acting director. I think I read somewhere that this is the first time a President has not done so.

I'm disappointed to see Patrick Kennedy is one who enabled Hillary. wow.

It's tragically ill-timed and too disgusting that all of this is coming out so late in this election year, and

"raises serious questions about her fitness as commander-in-chief."

Thanks for the article. I did not realize that the Observer's publisher, Jarred Kushner, is the son-in-law of Donald Trump!

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Kaye

As I detailed in my piece about HRC's final paid speech to the American Camp Association... inevitably there is a lousy back story to all of these "transactions", even the most innocent sounding. The payoff for an industry looking to keep a source of cheap, foreign labor available was to enrich the former SOS so that, in the event she became President, no executive action on immigration reform would touch the SWT and camp counselor programs.

And that was worth $260K, 10% of the non-profit's entire annual budget.

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THIS is why she must be president. The plan was always to become president and sell off the country to the highest bidder via the Clinton Family Foundation. This is the stuff Hollywood thrillers are made of. Tom Clancy must be so proud.

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Fern's picture

Doesn't make it less true, sadly. Here's another on the same subject: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/01/30/clinton-system-donor-machine-201...

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Fern

Phoebe Loosinhouse's picture

when the internal rot of corruption simply becomes too enormous to sustain. We've seen a worldwide transfer of the wealth of nations conveyed to a small percent of the world's elites who are focused on creating dynastic wealth for a few privileged families and insiders such as hasn't been seen in centuries.

The Clintons have created their own disruptive economics of crony capitalism based on the ages old Tammany Hall type of wink wink nudge nudge you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours type of stuff. The unsaid bargain is that a donation to the Clinton Foundation is an entry fee to the club. If anyone is interested in the appearance of corruption that the Clinton Foundation presented during Hillary's years as SOS, your best bet is to simply read David Sirota of the International Business Times , article after article reports how their personal finances were possibly enhanced by co-mingling the influence of the Foundation donors and the affairs of State. Then consider that ALL of Hilary's email correspondence and those of her aides were maintained on a server that co-incidentally housed the Foundation communications. It appears that Bill Clinton's personal aide de camp had access and was tasked with running the server along with Pagliano. Things that make you go hmmmm. . .

When compared to the world-wide reach and implications of the Clintons, Trump almost seems like low level comic relief with the exception of the xenophia and hate-mongering. His reported transgressions are of the old-fashioned scammy type, like someone apparently telling enrollees of Trump University they would have access to his brilliance and expertise which somehow translated finally to a portrait with a cardboard cut-out. In a sense, that actually seems apt. Donald just educated them in the old school of hard knocks - "Next time do your homework! Where was my interaction with you specifically spelled out? You're fired! Now get oudda here! Loser!"

The Clinton Foundation and it's various sub-foundations and initiatives is like the largest, most opaque most multi-layered "non-profit" ever created. It will take years to unwind all the tentacles and chase down any criminal influence peddling or bribes or quid pro quos, if any. IMO IF Bill and Hillary go down due to the Foundation and the odor emanating from it, it will be for something very clear and understandable, along the lines of diverting State Department resources to benefit their private interests or the interests of their friends.

There's already a pretty clear case that if they wanted Pagliano to be their private IT guy, then they should have NOT have gotten him a political appointment as an actual government employee. There's a long track record for those kinds of cases - your city councilman has his assistant pick up his dry-cleaning and walk his dog on the county's dime. I found it interesting to read that Hillary's envoy to North Ireland in the DOS was also a founder of the Clinton related entity Teneo (which also employed Huma) BUT this guy took no salary and paid his own staff. Interesting, and I would have to say he strikes me as smart in seeing the simplest, most basic mistake he could make would be accepting official funds while pursuing private interests simultaneously (if he did, no evidence of that AFAIK). A fair number of Clinton aides appear to have had dual roles and employment - this is the path that Chuck Grassley is bloodhounding down in his roll of Congressional oversight. I don't have an issue with that, that's his job. If nothing untoward was going on, then nothing untoward will be found.

One thing this campaign has taught me is that if you want to read about the warts on your side and what impels the outrage of the opposition, read their journalism and commentary, because they will be digging the dirt while your own side throws the dirt back in the hole. The major take-away is that the state of the Fourth Estate in this country is beyond pathetic.

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" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "

Tell me a difference between TOP and msnbc. Well, tweety makes more sense than Kos, but both have their heads up their asses.

Kos's dream is to be the new establishment of the Dem Party. But it is fantasy. It is out of his league. Much on that blog is pretend.

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Phoebe Loosinhouse's picture

no comeback - it's BORING. It's predictable. And very often it's asinine and puerile. There's nothing to be learned from frequenting it anymore. They wanted an echo chamber, they got one.

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" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "

It is boring. Kos's temper tantrums are predictable. Open threads for Hillary.

I call it "The Twilight of the Faux Progressive Blog." Perhaps I will write that post on TOP. Or not. Maybe here. I have a title.

The real sin is not Kos's nasty attacks and demagoguery. It's that he and his blog is boring.

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stevej's picture

the first wave of big name progressive bloggers were only in it for the money. Recent events have shown us that much. Hopefully a second wave that is more policy/idealistically driven is on the rise.

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“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire

At YKos 2007, I sat a lunch table with Ezra Klein and others. Very arrogant and treated like stars. I had no idea who they were. Later learned he supported the invasion of Iraq.

Kos wants influence. Nothing wrong with that. I don't begrudge him making money off his site or creating an empire.

I do disagree with his views, however. He is wrong on much.

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I could listen all day to Noam Chomsky echoing..it would take me that long to understand what he was saying. But I'd learn something eventually.

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Yahoo

stevej's picture

is entitled to both his views and his empire. My problem with him is his lack of transparency. He is basically offering sponsored content on his platform without declaring his interests (illegal in the commercial world).

A side note: This from a post that he wrote about Steve McMahon, a Dean campaign operative, that stuck in my mind.

In my four years in politics, I haven't met a bigger asshole, a more unsavory character than McMahon. When we met, his first words out of his mouth were literally, "If you get us more clients, we'll give you guys a percentage." No "hello", or "nice to meet you", or "Nice day, huh?" No, it was, "If you get us more clients, we'll give you guys a percentage." No person was more excited at the money raised by the Dean campaign than him -- not because he believed in Dean or the cause, but because he saw dollar signs from the percentages he was pocketting by handling Dean's media.

MM - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/22/173844/-
pot meet kettle?

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“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire