FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama nuclear deal

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.

Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.

They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.

The racketeering scheme was conducted “with the consent of higher level officials” in Russia who “shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks, one agent declared in an affidavit years later.

Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued investigating the matter for nearly four more years, essentially leaving the American public and Congress in the dark about Russian nuclear corruption on U.S. soil during a period when the Obama administration made two major decisions benefitting Putin’s commercial nuclear ambitions.

The first decision occurred in October 2010, when the State Department and government agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the partial sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, giving Moscow control of more than 20 percent of America’s uranium supply.

When this sale was used by Trump on the campaign trail last year, Hillary Clinton’s spokesman said she was not involved in the committee review and noted the State Department official who handled it said she “never intervened ... on any [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] matter.”

In 2011, the administration gave approval for Rosatom’s Tenex subsidiary to sell commercial uranium to U.S. nuclear power plants in a partnership with the United States Enrichment Corp. Before then, Tenex had been limited to selling U.S. nuclear power plants reprocessed uranium recovered from dismantled Soviet nuclear weapons under the 1990s Megatons to Megawatts peace program.

“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials.

The Obama administration’s decision to approve Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One has been a source of political controversy since 2015.

That’s when conservative author Peter Schweitzer and The New York Times documented how Bill Clinton collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in Russian speaking fees and his charitable foundation collected millions in donations from parties interested in the deal while Hillary Clinton presided on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

The Obama administration and the Clintons defended their actions at the time, insisting there was no evidence that any Russians or donors engaged in wrongdoing and there was no national security reason for any member of the committee to oppose the Uranium One deal.

But FBI, Energy Department and court documents reviewed by The Hill show the FBI in fact had gathered substantial evidence well before the committee’s decision that Vadim Mikerin — the main Russian overseeing Putin’s nuclear expansion inside the United States — was engaged in wrongdoing starting in 2009.

Then-Attorney General Eric Holder was among the Obama administration officials joining Hillary Clinton on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States at the time the Uranium One deal was approved. Multiple current and former government officials told The Hill they did not know whether the FBI or DOJ ever alerted committee members to the criminal activity they uncovered.

Spokesmen for Holder and Clinton did not return calls seeking comment. The Justice Department also didn’t comment.

Mikerin was a director of Rosatom’s Tenex in Moscow since the early 2000s, where he oversaw Rosatom’s nuclear collaboration with the United States under the Megatons to Megwatts program and its commercial uranium sales to other countries. In 2010, Mikerin was dispatched to the U.S. on a work visa approved by the Obama administration to open Rosatom’s new American arm called Tenam.

Between 2009 and January 2012, Mikerin “did knowingly and willfully combine, conspire confederate and agree with other persons … to obstruct, delay and affect commerce and the movement of an article and commodity (enriched uranium) in commerce by extortion,” a November 2014 indictment stated.

His illegal conduct was captured with the help of a confidential witness, an American businessman, who began making kickback payments at Mikerin’s direction and with the permission of the FBI. The first kickback payment recorded by the FBI through its informant was dated Nov. 27, 2009, the records show.

In evidentiary affidavits signed in 2014 and 2015, an Energy Department agent assigned to assist the FBI in the case testified that Mikerin supervised a “racketeering scheme” that involved extortion, bribery, money laundering and kickbacks that were both directed by and provided benefit to more senior officials back in Russia.

“As part of the scheme, Mikerin, with the consent of higher level officials at TENEX and Rosatom (both Russian state-owned entities) would offer no-bid contracts to US businesses in exchange for kickbacks in the form of money payments made to some offshore banks accounts,” Agent David Garden testified.

“Mikerin apparently then shared the proceeds with other co-conspirators associated with TENEX in Russia and elsewhere,” the agent added.

The investigation was ultimately supervised by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointee who now serves as President Trump’s deputy attorney general, and then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, now the deputy FBI director under Trump, Justice Department documents show.

Both men now play a key role in the current investigation into possible, but still unproven collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election. McCabe is under congressional and Justice Department inspector general investigation in connection with money his wife’s Virginia state Senate campaign accepted in 2015 from now-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe at a time when McAuliffe was reportedly under investigation by the FBI.

The connections to the current Russia case are many. The Mikerin probe began in 2009 when Robert Mueller, now the special counsel in charge of the Trump case, was still FBI director. And it ended in late 2015 under the direction of then-FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired earlier this year.

Its many twist and turns aside, the FBI nuclear industry case proved a gold mine, in part because it uncovered a new Russian money laundering apparatus that routed bribe and kickback payments through financial instruments in Cyprus, Latvia and Seychelles. A Russian financier in New Jersey was among those arrested for the money laundering, court records show.

The case also exposed a serious national security breach: Mikerin had given a contract to an American trucking firm called Transport Logistics International that held the sensitive job of transporting Russia’s uranium around the United States in return for more than $2 million in kickbacks from some of its executives, court records show.

One of Mikerin’s former employees told the FBI that Tenex officials in Russia specifically directed the scheme to “allow for padded pricing to include kickbacks,” agents testified in one court filing.

Bringing down a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme that had both compromised a sensitive uranium transportation asset inside the U.S. and facilitated international money laundering would seem a major feather in any law enforcement agency’s cap.

But the Justice Department and FBI took little credit in 2014 when Mikerin, the Russian financier and the trucking firm executives were arrested and charged.

The only public statement occurred an entire year later when the Justice Department put out a little-noticed press release in August 2015, just days before Labor Day. The release noted that the various defendants had reached plea deals.

By that time, the criminal cases against Mikerin had been narrowed to a single charge of money laundering for a scheme that officials admitted stretched from 2004 to 2014. And though agents had evidence of criminal wrongdoing they collected since at least 2009, federal prosecutors only cited in the plea agreement a handful of transactions that occurred in 2011 and 2012, well after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States’s approval.

The final court case also made no mention of any connection to the influence peddling conversations the FBI undercover informant witnessed about the Russian nuclear officials trying to ingratiate themselves with the Clintons even though agents had gathered documents showing the transmission of millions of dollars from Russia’s nuclear industry to an American entity that had provided assistance to Bill Clinton’s foundation, sources confirmed to The Hill.

The lack of fanfare left many key players in Washington with no inkling that a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme with serious national security implications had been uncovered.

On Dec. 15, 2015, the Justice Department put out a release stating that Mikerin, “a former Russian official residing in Maryland was sentenced today to 48 months in prison” and ordered to forfeit more than $2.1 million.

Ronald Hosko, who served as the assistant FBI director in charge of criminal cases when the investigation was underway, told The Hill he did not recall ever being briefed about Mikerin’s case by the counterintelligence side of the bureau despite the criminal charges that were being lodged.

“I had no idea this case was being conducted,” a surprised Hosko said in an interview.

Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee during the time the FBI probe was being conducted, told The Hill that he had never been told anything about the Russian nuclear corruption case even though many fellow lawmakers had serious concerns about the Obama administration’s approval of the Uranium One deal.

“Not providing information on a corruption scheme before the Russian uranium deal was approved by U.S. regulators and engage appropriate congressional committees has served to undermine U.S. national security interests by the very people charged with protecting them,” he said. “The Russian efforts to manipulate our American political enterprise is breathtaking.”

Even for those who support the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in principle, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry’s post-JCPOA serial concessions and excuse-making for the sake of “preserving” the deal have been troubling. First, Congress discovered delivery of cold hard cash as ransom for Americans held in Iran. Then came Kerry’s efforts to open up the U.S. banking system so that Iran could get the “benefit” of the deal. Kerry followed up by acting as Tehran’s chamber of commerce, trying to cajole businesses to set up in Iran. Coupled with the lack of response to Iran’s illegal missile tests, continued support for terrorism, actions to abet genocide in Syria and putrid human rights record, the administration’s behavior surely has given both Iran and our Sunni allies the impression that Iran is in the driver’s seat.

On Monday, we saw just how lopsided the U.S.-Iran relationship has become. “The 2015 nuclear deal obligated Iran to keep no more than 130 metric tons of heavy water, a material used in the production of weapons-grade plutonium,” explains Iran analyst Omri Ceren. “But the Iranians have continued to produce heavy water, and they exceeded the cap in February and November. The violations [are] functionally blackmailing the Obama administration: Either someone would purchase the excess heavy water, allowing Iran to literally profit from violating the deal, or the Iranians would go into formal noncompliance, endangering the deal.”
So now the Associated Press has reported:

Iran is to receive a huge shipment of natural uranium from Russia to compensate it for exporting tons of reactor coolant, diplomats say, in a move approved by the outgoing U.S. administration and other governments seeking to keep Tehran committed to a landmark nuclear pact.

Two senior diplomats said the transfer recently approved by the U.S. and five other world powers that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran foresees delivery of 116 metric tons (nearly 130 tons) of natural uranium.

Rather than police the deal to ensure compliance, the Obama administration is assisting Iran in violating the JCPOA. Ceren remarks, “That’s enough for more than 10 nuclear bombs.” We both allow the Iranians to exceed the heavy-water limits in the deal — and then richly compensate them with uranium that can be used for bombs. Our allies would be excused for thinking we are now promoting Iran’s interests, not the West’s.

In a rare on-the-record comment, Marshall Whitman, a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, told Right Turn, “There is absolutely no justification to provide further benefits to the Iranian regime as it fails to comply with the nuclear agreement. Instead, it should be pressured to stop its malign behavior and live up to its commitments.” That was supposed to be the policy of this administration.

Also on Monday, Reuters reported, “Iranian lawmakers approved plans on Monday to expand military spending to five percent of the budget, including developing the country’s long-range missile program which U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to halt. The vote is a boost to Iran’s military establishment –– the regular army, the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and defense ministry — which was allocated almost 2 percent of the 2015-16 budget.” This, of course, refutes the notion peddled by Iran and echoed by the administration that the deal would empower “moderates” and without the deal “hard-liners” would get the upper hand. It seems that the deal has empowered the hard-liners (the IRGC), just as critics of the deal anticipated. The report noted:

[Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei supported last year’s nuclear deal with world powers that curbed Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting of international sanctions. However, he has since called for Iran to avoid further rapprochement with the West, and maintain its military strength.

Iran has test-fired several ballistic missiles since the nuclear deal and the U.S. Treasury has imposed new sanctions on entities and individuals linked to the program.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last year that the missile launches were “not consistent with the constructive spirit” of the nuclear deal, but did not say whether they actually violated the U.N. resolution.

And if that were not enough, the secretary general has concluded that “Iran may have violated an arms embargo by supplying weapons and missiles to Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, according to a confidential report, seen by Reuters on Sunday. The second bi-annual report, due to be discussed by the 15-member council on Jan. 18, also cites an accusation by France that an arms shipment seized in the northern Indian Ocean in March was from Iran and likely bound for Somalia or Yemen.” Once again, the administration has been mute when it comes to Iran’s blatant disregard of international obligations.

And with all of this, Kerry made his final U.N. push not to get tough on Iran, but to pummel Israel for housing construction. From all appearances, Obama does seem to have made every effort to shift to a policy of one-sided detente (i.e. appeasement policy) with Iran and of open hostility toward our closest ally in the region.

The Trump team has made clear that it intends to take a different approach to Iran. While “ripping up the deal on Day One” does not seem to be in the cards, Iran’s recent behavior and the Obama team’s acquiescence have helped unify Congress, which passed an extension of the existing sanctions laws. Trump will enjoy the opportunity to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis and with our allies to reverse the Obama concessions, begin to enforce the deal and ratchet up pressure on Iran for its non-nuclear conduct. The one hitch: Trump will soon realize that Russia is Iran’s most important ally and will almost surely oppose a return to sanctions. Trump must choose between getting tough on Iran and continuing to lavish praise on Vladimir Putin. The most recent concession handed over by the Obama team may be the last one Tehran sees in a very long time — and the last straw for Democrats who have been obliged to support a Democratic president’s flawed policy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/01/10/one-final-iran-blunder-by-obama/?utm_term=.1ec9d5c3a9cb
Jennifer Rubin January 10, 2017

You are dead on. Sessions is not the enemy. He is trying to drain the swamp.

Here are what some of the enemies of Jeff Sessions are saying (go to the articles for the specific accomplishments):

Jeff Sessions has done more damage in his first 100 days than his boss

US attorney general Jeff Sessions may not be part of the biggest investigation in the Department of Justice, but as he reaches 100 days in office, there’s little doubt that he’s had an important impact on the American criminal-justice system—potentially for years to come.

Despite the political turmoil of the Trump administration, Sessions has moved to reverse a tide of progressive reform and to fulfill his boss’s law-and-order agenda, a collection of concepts loosely articulated during the 2016 presidential campaign. Sessions’ biggest actions, from undermining federal oversight of police departments to cracking down on undocumented immigrants, have worried a wide array of lawmakers, law-enforcement leaders, advocates and scientists.

“Of all the cabinet members, maybe even the president, he has to this point had the most significant impact as to policy changes,” said Jesselyn McCurdy, the deputy director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Washington Legislative Office told Quartz.

Unlike his boss, Sessions is delivering on what he has promised—sometimes on causes he has championed for decades.

“There’s been a great bipartisan movement by organizations on the ground and members of Congress to reform the federal criminal-justice system, based on successes that have happened in the states, but the leader of opposition to that reform was Jeff Sessions, as a senator from Alabama,” McCurdy said. “These are all things that [Sessions], as a criminal justice reform opponent, had on his radar already.

McCurdy said Sessions was “definitely” living up to the ACLU’s concerns, and in some areas, fulfilling the worst-case scenarios.

Jeff Sessions ushers in 'Trump era' at the Justice Department

In just over two months, Sessions has proved to be a central figure in effectuating Trump's vision for America in tangible ways on immigration, crime, police reform and civil rights.

And while the White House searches for new messaging to frame what Trump has accomplished in the first 100 days in office, Sessions has single-handedly managed to make several significant domestic policy changes -- from pressing pause on implementing police reforms to withdrawing Obama-era protections for transgender students in public schools.

His radical transformation of the Justice Department's role is no accident.

Many of the changes Sessions has made thus far track a familiar principle of federalism: the notion that the federal government's powers are limited and it can't coerce states into action. In other words, the federal government should get out of the states' way.

Sessions' critics worry that he is well on his way to undoing many of the major progressive achievements of his predecessors, often by withdrawing from court cases or previous directives that fail to align with his views. Yet Trump supporters cheered Sessions on during the presidential campaign when he said, "the American people are not happy with their government."

Now that Sessions is the nation's top law enforcement officer, his defenders and critics universally agree: he's been busy fulfilling the President's campaign promises and he's just getting started.

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