Read Online Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Peter Schweizer
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she condemned administration officials for failing to consider the national security implications of the ports deal. She was particularly concerned because the deal involved not just a foreign company, but a foreign government. “For many of us,” she said, “there is a significant difference between a private company and a foreign government entity.” 76
In 2007 Hillary led the charge to pass legislation to significantly strengthen CFIUS. And during her 2008 presidential bid, it was Hillary alone among the major candidates from either party who raised the case for strengthening CFIUS as an important way to protect America’s economic sovereignty and national security. Her presidential campaign rightly described her as “an outspoken proponent of strengthening CFIUS.” 77
When she became secretary of state, Hillary Clinton continued to support a robust CFIUS and led efforts by the panel to block Chinese companies from buying a mining business, a fiber-optic company, and even a wind farm in Oregon. 78
But however hawkish Hillary might have been on other deals, this one sailed through. The Russian purchase of Uranium One was approved by CFIUS on October 22, 2010. Hillary’s opposition would have been enough under CFIUS rules to have the decision on the transaction kicked up to the president. That never happened.
The result: Uranium One and half of projected American uranium production were transferred to a private company controlled in turn by the Russian State Nuclear Agency. Strangely enough, when Uranium One requested approval from CFIUS by the federal government, Ian Telfer, a major Clinton Foundation donor, was chairman of the board, a position he continues to hold.
In 2010, in reporting to the US government, Russian officials said they were looking to buy just slightly more than 50 percent of the company and promised “not [to] increase its share in Uranium One, Inc.” 79 But by the beginning of 2013, the Russian government moved to buy out the company’s other shareholders entirely. Today it owns the company outright. 80
T he Russian purchase of a large share of America’s uranium assets raised serious national security concerns for precisely the same reasons Hillary had condemned previous deals. A foreign government would now have direct control over a very valuable commodity; the Russian government would reap hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues every year; and it would allow the Russian government to use Uranium One assets to honor supply contracts with US reactors while freeing up other uranium assets to send to more dangerous regions of the world—where Russia was already known to be involved. Lawmakers in Washington had raised these concerns.
Still, despite a long record of publicly opposing such deals, Hillary didn’t object. Why the apparent reversal? Could it be because shareholders involved in the transactions had transferred approximately $145 million to the Clinton Foundation or its initiatives? Or because her husband had profited from lucrative speaking deals arranged by companies associated with thosewho stood to profit from the deal? Could it be because Bill—and possibly she herself—had quietly helped build the uranium assets for the company to begin with? These questions can only be answered by Hillary herself. What is clear is that based on State Department ethics documents, she never revealed these transactions to her colleagues, the Obama White House, or to Capitol Hill.
For Moscow, the approval was a major victory. Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom, told Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that the United States would now become “a key market” for Rosatom. 81 Because Uranium One also owned the rights to those large mines in Kazakhstan, uranium flows to Russia increased. As one Uranium One official put it in a corporate presentation, the company’s operations “facilitate substantial exports of uranium to Russia.” 82
In 2013 Rosatom announced plans to take 100
In 2007 Hillary led the charge to pass legislation to significantly strengthen CFIUS. And during her 2008 presidential bid, it was Hillary alone among the major candidates from either party who raised the case for strengthening CFIUS as an important way to protect America’s economic sovereignty and national security. Her presidential campaign rightly described her as “an outspoken proponent of strengthening CFIUS.” 77
When she became secretary of state, Hillary Clinton continued to support a robust CFIUS and led efforts by the panel to block Chinese companies from buying a mining business, a fiber-optic company, and even a wind farm in Oregon. 78
But however hawkish Hillary might have been on other deals, this one sailed through. The Russian purchase of Uranium One was approved by CFIUS on October 22, 2010. Hillary’s opposition would have been enough under CFIUS rules to have the decision on the transaction kicked up to the president. That never happened.
The result: Uranium One and half of projected American uranium production were transferred to a private company controlled in turn by the Russian State Nuclear Agency. Strangely enough, when Uranium One requested approval from CFIUS by the federal government, Ian Telfer, a major Clinton Foundation donor, was chairman of the board, a position he continues to hold.
In 2010, in reporting to the US government, Russian officials said they were looking to buy just slightly more than 50 percent of the company and promised “not [to] increase its share in Uranium One, Inc.” 79 But by the beginning of 2013, the Russian government moved to buy out the company’s other shareholders entirely. Today it owns the company outright. 80
T he Russian purchase of a large share of America’s uranium assets raised serious national security concerns for precisely the same reasons Hillary had condemned previous deals. A foreign government would now have direct control over a very valuable commodity; the Russian government would reap hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues every year; and it would allow the Russian government to use Uranium One assets to honor supply contracts with US reactors while freeing up other uranium assets to send to more dangerous regions of the world—where Russia was already known to be involved. Lawmakers in Washington had raised these concerns.
Still, despite a long record of publicly opposing such deals, Hillary didn’t object. Why the apparent reversal? Could it be because shareholders involved in the transactions had transferred approximately $145 million to the Clinton Foundation or its initiatives? Or because her husband had profited from lucrative speaking deals arranged by companies associated with thosewho stood to profit from the deal? Could it be because Bill—and possibly she herself—had quietly helped build the uranium assets for the company to begin with? These questions can only be answered by Hillary herself. What is clear is that based on State Department ethics documents, she never revealed these transactions to her colleagues, the Obama White House, or to Capitol Hill.
For Moscow, the approval was a major victory. Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom, told Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that the United States would now become “a key market” for Rosatom. 81 Because Uranium One also owned the rights to those large mines in Kazakhstan, uranium flows to Russia increased. As one Uranium One official put it in a corporate presentation, the company’s operations “facilitate substantial exports of uranium to Russia.” 82
In 2013 Rosatom announced plans to take 100