6 Key Elements in Understanding the Tangled Uranium One Scandal

From The Daily Signal.com (Nov. 16):

Two House committees are investigating the tangled deal involving Russia, its acquiring of U.S. uranium, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. But the multiple layers that lawmakers, and potentially a special counsel, will explore take some unpacking.

The probe addresses unanswered questions about the Uranium One mining company’s ties to the Clinton Foundation, the nonprofit founded by the former president, during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

In a 2010 deal approved by a committee including Hillary Clinton and eight other members of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, a Kremlin-connected entity obtained 20 percent of America’s uranium production by acquiring Canada-based Uranium One.

Although a joint investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is just getting under way, many congressional Republicans already are calling for a special counsel to look into the facts.

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Here are six major elements to the scandal now known as Uranium One.

1. What Is the Deal, and Who Approved It?

Uranium One announced in June 2010 it was selling a majority of the mining company to ARMZ, part of Rosatom, a Russian-owned nuclear energy company. Promoters of the Russian company were involved in a $500,000 speaking engagement for Bill Clinton in Moscow.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a panel charged with approving any merger where national security questions emerge, approved the deal in October 2010.

National security came up in this case because uranium is the primary fuel for nuclear energy and can be used either to make weapons or produce electricity.

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Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by ranking member Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, warned against the sale in an October 2010 letter to then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, arguing:

The transaction could give Moscow control of up to 20 percent of the U.S. national uranium extraction capability and a controlling interest in one of the country’s largest uranium mining sites. … Russia’s record of transferring dangerous materials and technologies to rogue regimes, such as those in Iran and Syria, is very troubling.

2. What’s All This About Racketeering?

Most recently, The Hill news organization reported the foreign investment panel of Obama administration officials charged with approving the Russia-backed purchase of U.S. uranium resources was not made aware of an in-depth FBI criminal investigation related to Uranium One.

“I would hope the board and decisionmakers are as aware as possible of all factors, so they would know what they are voting on,” Ron Hosko, a former assistant director at the FBI, told The Daily Signal this week in a phone interview.

The FBI investigation appeared to be quite broad, The Hill reported that it found “substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion, and money laundering designed to grow [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States.”

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3. How Is the Clinton Foundation Involved?

Conservative author Peter Schweizer’s 2016 book “Clinton Cash,” as well as The New York Times, reported in April 2015 that the Clinton Foundation got millions from investors in Uranium One both before and after the government approved the deal, and the foundation didn’t disclose those donations.

The Clinton Foundation is a 20-year-old nonprofit charitable organization run by the former president along with his wife, Hillary, and their daughter, Chelsea.

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4. What’s the Case for a Special Counsel Probe?

Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee during testimony Tuesday that the Justice Department is reviewing requests from Congress to name a special counsel to investigate Uranium One and other legal questions surrounding Hillary Clinton.

However, the attorney general insisted a legal process exists to determine whether an independent investigator is needed.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., for one, is losing patience.

“I have been calling for three and a half months for an investigation on Uranium One and the Obama-Clinton era scandals, and have now reached the point that I am done with the DOJ’s smoke and mirrors,” Gaetz said in a written statement Thursday. “The time has come for Jeff Sessions to name a special counsel and get answers for the American people, or step down from his position as the attorney general.”

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5. Does a National Security Threat Exist?

Uranium, as a nuclear fuel, could be weaponized. However, under the rules of the deal, the Uranium One merger with the Kremlin-backed company Rosatom may not pose a national security threat, based on what the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has stated.

At the time, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said of two Uranium One facilities in Wyoming that “no uranium produced at either facility may be exported.”

In June 2015, the nuclear commission determined that Uranium One could export uranium from the Wyoming sites to Canada. The agency explained that Canada, where the mining company is headquartered, must obtain U.S. government approval to ship U.S. uranium to any country other than the United States.

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6. What About the Congressional Probes?

In late October, the two House committees announced plans to investigate.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the inquiry would focus on:

… regulatory approvals related to the U.S. uranium industry, foreign donations seeking to curry favor and influence with U.S. officials, whether a federal nuclear bribery probe developed evidence of wrongdoing connected to the Uranium One mining company, and Department of Justice criminal and counterintelligence investigations into bribery, extortion, and other related matters connected to Russian acquisition of U.S. uranium.

The two committees sent letters Tuesday to the FBI, the Treasury Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department.  [read more]

This is your real collusion.