• • FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama administration approved controversial nuclear deal with Moscow
• • Russia tables turn, roping Clinton, Obama, Holder, not Trump

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 procee

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 benefiting 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.

Top

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The tables have turned and what was once the media's favorite message - President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election - has now grown silent.

Apparently, it's Bill and Hillary Clinton who've been doing the behind-scenes and suspicious dealings with Russia all along. Oh, and perhaps others in the Barack Obama administration, too.

You think special counsel Robert Mueller might switch the target of his investigation any time soon? Seems a bit time-wasting - not to mention taxpayer dollar-wasting - to keep on the Trump trail, desperately searching for signs of a collusion that just didn't happen.

Futile is a word that comes to mind.

Better to dig deeper into this, as reported by The Hill: "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."

Intercepted emails shows that Russia had actually gained an inroad in America and compromised a U.S. uranium trucking firm with bribes.

But this is the bigger news: The feds also found an eyewitness who provided documented evidence to show that these Russia nuke officials had sent millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation - at a time when Hillary was serving as secretary of state and on a government body that extended favor to Russia.

Of course, this isn't exactly new.

Way back in April of 2015, The New York Times ran this headline: "Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal." And among its many, many lines was this one: "As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation."

In fact, that "flow of cash" was actually four separate flows of cash, for a total amount of $2.35 million. And, we also learned from this New York Times piece, "those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons."

A lot of this was also uncovered a outlined by other writers, as well - John Rappoport, investigative journalist, comes to mind, as well as Peter Schweitzer, of "Clinton Cash" author fame.

But what is coming to light is what others knew, and when.

The feds suspected as early as 2009 that Russia was engaged in this dirty dealing. And the United States, under Barack Obama's administration, did nothing.

"Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice 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 benefiting [Vladimir] Putin's commercial nuclear ambitions," The Hill wrote.

The American people want to know - was U.S. security compromised by the Obama-Clinton deals with Russia?

Top

When was the last time you donated to TN Eagle Forum?

We do not charge for our daily e-newsletter, BUT as you might imagine, it takes money to carry on this important work.  We need YOUR HELP to raise the needed funding to continue the work of TN Eagle Forum.

As a subscriber, you received timely information from us that you don't get anywhere else.

Will YOU help us out??  You can go to our website, click on the green button and donate, or you can mail your check to 3216 Bluewater Trace, Nashville, 37217. [Donations are not tax deductible because we use them to lobby for YOU.]

The special counsel's (Robert Mueller's) investigation into alleged collusion between Russia's Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump - to secretly torpedo Hillary Clinton's presidential dreams - drags on with Mueller's investigators first having to find an actual crime committed by Trump or his campaign workers. But documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation not only show political corruption bordering on treason, but they reveal the likely perpetrators included the Clinton family's charity, the Obama White House, the Justice Department and the FBI.

Federal cops possessed proof that Russian operatives bribed, paid kickbacks and used corrupt tactics in order to allow Russia to control a substantial amount of U.S uranium. However, it was President Barack Obama who ultimately approved a controversial uranium deal benefiting Moscow in 2010, according to a report released by the news media on Tuesday.

Tens of millions of dollars from uranium investors flowed into the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton received a $500,000 speaking fee from a Russian bank tied to the Kremlin before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton helped decide whether to approve the sale to the Russian government of a company that held one-fifth of America's uranium capacity.

Published October 17, 2017

The FBI reportedly found 2,800 government documents on disgraced former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner's personal laptop computer that were related to his estranged wife's work as Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff during her tenure as secretary of state.

The conservative group Judicial Watch reported Tuesday that the State Department received the documents from the FBI after Judicial Watch sued the department when it failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The documents were sent to Weiner's computer by Huma Abedin, a revelation that came to light in the closing days of last year's presidential campaign.

"This is a disturbing development. Our experience with Abedin's emails suggest these Weiner laptop documents will include classified and other sensitive materials," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. "When will the Justice Department do a serious investigation of Hillary Clinton's and Huma Abedin's obvious violations of law?"

Judicial Watch initially sued the State Department in May 2015, after it failed to respond to a request to produce all official emails sent or received by Abedin using a non-government address.