Posted on 10/31/2017 9:42:09 AM PDT by gattaca
Hillary Clinton is back in the news. But the reason is a big nothing burger.
In a 2015 book, Breitbart News editor Peter Schweizer claimed that donations to the Clinton Foundation were behind the Obama administration’s approval of the 2010 sale of a Canadian mining company to a Russian state-controlled firm. The sale gave Russia control of a large swath of American uranium interests.
And by large, we really mean small.
The allegations are back in the news after a report in The Hill last week claimed, citing anonymous sources, that at the time U.S. officials were weighing whether to approve the deal, the FBI was investigating evidence of bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering by Russian nuclear industry officials designed to help further Russian President Vladimir Putin's commercial nuclear ambitions inside the United States.
The Hill article was seized on by right-wing media ― and the President ― as evidence backing up a conspiracy theory that they've pushed amid the investigations into Russia's efforts to swing the presidential election to Donald Trump. The real collusion scandal, they claim, involves Russia and Hillary Clinton. The implication of the piece is that the FBI investigation should have been known to those who approved the deal in question.
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Clinton's State Department and several government agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the 2010 partial sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, supposedly giving Moscow control of more than 20% of America’s uranium supply.
Obama and Clinton colluding to hand over 20% America’s strategic uranium to the Russians? On cue, Fox News gabber Sean Hannity said this could be 'the biggest scandal' in American history.
But here's the thing ― by 20%, we really mean almost zero.
Those U.S. facilities obtained by Russia produce almost nothing. The uranium deposits are of relatively poor grade and are too costly to compete on the uranium market. But the facilities do have good milling capacity to process ore, if anyone gives it to them, which hasn’t happened in about 10 years. Theoretically, they could process 20% of our ore, but that will never happen. Uranium One couldn’t give these facilities away.
Besides, Russia can’t export any uranium they produce in the U.S. They do not possess a Nuclear Regulatory Commission export license.
The real reason Russia wanted this deal was to give Rosatom’s subsidiary Uranium One's very profitable uranium mines in Kazakhstan ― the single largest producer of commercial uranium in the world.
Then, in 2011, the administration approved a Rosatom subsidiary to sell commercial uranium to U.S. nuclear power plants in partnership with the U.S. Enrichment Corporation. Up until then, Russia had been limited to selling our nuclear power plants uranium reprocessed from old Soviet nuclear weapons under the 1990s Megatons to Megawatts peace program. Nothing strange here, either. Finally, in 2013, Russia obtained 100% interest in Uranium One.
Rather than take action against this deal, the Department of Justice just continued investigating the matter for years, essentially leaving the American public, Congress, the secretary of state and the administration in the dark about more Russian meddling in the United States, this time involving nuclear.
Candidate Trump jumped on this issue during the 2016 campaign trail last year, but as secretary of state, Clinton was not involved in the committee review and never intervened on the matter, and there were several other agencies involved in the recommendation.
It is still not clear why no one at the FBI alerted the Obama administration to the Russian kickbacks, extortion threats and money laundering before these decisions were made. One theory is that the United States was still seeking to 'reset' its relationship with Russia and was also trying to get Putin on board with our Iran nuclear deal. But in the end, this Russian deal just wasn’t that important and had no national security ramifications.
As Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute, described it, Russia’s purchase of the company 'had as much of an impact on national security as it would have if they set the money on fire. That’s probably why (all the U.S. agencies involved) approved it.'
The key to this issue’s resurgence this week is that Hillary Clinton was secretary of state at the time, Bill Clinton was getting lucrative speaking fees in Russia, and Russian money was finding its way to the Clinton Foundation, although the amount turns out to be small. However, even if there was no wrongdoing on the part of the administration or the Clintons, and no national security reason for anyone to oppose this deal, some still want to make it another Benghazi.
As a scandal, this issue lacks relevance since Clinton is now a private citizen and Russian meddling in our 2016 election has become a bigger issue. In fact, all the attention now being paid to the uranium deal seems to have more to do with Robert Mueller’s present investigation of Russian collusion than with Clinton.
The political ramifications aside, what is the reality of our uranium supplies, and how much does Russian meddling affect them?
Short answer – not at all.
There’s lots and lots of uranium in the world, and more keeps being discovered. Just look at the 2017 AAPG EMD Committee Report that covers uranium, other nuclear minerals and rare earth elements.
According to the lead author, Michael Campbell at I2M Associates, 'we are awash in uranium, not to mention all energy minerals – oil, coal and especially natural gas.' (Disclosure: I am a member of that committee and a co-author of the report.)
This is especially true in North America, which contains the highest-grade uranium deposits in the world. The Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan is known as the 'Saudi Arabia of Uranium.'
Which is critical since we need to double nuclear power to address climate change and replace coal, even as we ramp up renewables. We also need to provide an extra 300 billion kWhs each year to charge the 100-million-plus fleet of fully electric vehicles America needs by 2040 to have any chance of putting a real dent in our petroleum use.
So yes, North America is essentially uranium-independent. And no, this Russian deal had, and will have, no impact, aside from showing that the FBI is lax in its prosecution of Russians who break our laws, and lax in alerting us to their meddling in time to do anything about it.
You know what’s a real empty barrel?
Tax reporting beefs that the IRS has with Paul Manafort from 2012.
So, on the one hand, the Clinton Foundation got something like $145M from Russia?
But it’s OK because she basically ripped them off? The uranium is worthless?
I am ... skeptical ...
About this U1 deal......just what did we get out of it Hill? Your fk’in reset
button?
“So yes, North America is essentially uranium-independent. And no, this Russian deal had, and will have, no impact, aside from showing that the FBI is lax in its prosecution of Russians who break our laws, and lax in alerting us to their meddling in time to do anything about it.”
So this a$$hole conveniently leaves out where that “insignificant amount” of uranium is ending up? It really “doesn’t compute” that “so long as it’s not affecting our own weapons programs and other domestic needs, that we should not be concerned if any of it gets to Iran, North Korea, or just some Middle East terrorists?
I've noticed a lot more non intuitive trends lately on Twitter. Perhaps it's their new algorithms.
Somewhere in the middle of the article they ask, gee, why didn’t the FBI tip off the Obama Administration to Russian extortion and bribery? Then they dismiss it because Hillary was trying to reset a relationship with Russia. That makes sense? Why did the guy give her foundation 145 million dollars?
Nothingburgers don't generate $500K speaking fees and $146 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation.
And no, this Russian deal had, and will have, no impact, aside from showing that the FBI is lax in its prosecution of Russians who break our laws, and lax in alerting us to their meddling in time to do anything about it.
No problem. OK. FBI is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC. Got it.
This BS article will be proven to be a load of cr*p when the FBI undercover informant testifies to the bribery, kickbacks and illegal payoffs that occurred.
Strange. Russia paid $1.3 billion for something they can’t even use.
And, coincidentally, at the same time multiple Russian players were putting $145 million into the Clinton Foundation and into Bill’s back pocket.
And coincidentally, Russian agents were all around the edges with bribes, kickbacks, and other nefarious activities.
Maybe the Russians weren’t entirely interested in uranium? Hmm?
The very laxity of the FBI in reporting what was going on in the middle of the negotiations simply demonstrates that, whatever the Russians were really buying, the FBI was unwilling to stop it. That then goes to the more recent events involving the same FBI.
Mueller may be dirty, who knows. But it’s what he does right now that matters, even if it is for the wrong reasons, like to protect himself.
I expect much better our of Forbes’ writers. This sounds more like NYT and WP propaganda.
A number of media outlets make a big deal about this "unanimous approval" by the CFIUS, but they conveniently fail to point out that every one of the nine agencies is led by a political appointee -- all of them appointed by Obama at the time.
The most damning thing about that CFIUS approval was that it was troublesome enough to involve an FBI investigation after the fact, but Congress was kept completely in the dark about it.
MSM busy as usual pooh-poohing Clinton’s crimes and making up their happy crappy about President Trump.
They deal in ****.
You can’t polish Hillary but now I have to go polish my feed ramps ,,,,
No one will be charged with anything except maybe Trump and people in his administration and campaign.
Seriously ,,,,,, can any one be that blind ,,, they must know ,,,, just another rightwing conspiracy ,,,, right .
Forbes is now shilling for Hillary? Very sad.
nevermind that it’s Russia who is fueling Iran.
“There’s lots and lots of uranium in the world, and more keeps being discovered. Just look at the 2017 AAPG EMD Committee Report that covers uranium, other nuclear minerals and rare earth elements.”
True statement, but look at the map. Do you or can you mine in Niger or Afghanistan? China and Russia want to keep their uranium. What about S. African?
Lots of variables.
5.56mm
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