FBI Found Evidence of Russian Bribes…During Obama Administration

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Democrats should be careful what they wish for. A story on The Hill details a sinister plot by the Russians to damage American interests and maximize the former Soviet Union’s control of one of the most important markets to national security through bribes, extortion, and money laundering.

Far from the smoking gun Democrats have been clamoring for to justify their fantasy that Donald Trump is a subversive agent of the U.S.S.R., the report actually implicates negligence, at the very least, by the Obama Administration and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“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.”

So from the very beginning of President Obama’s first term, Russians were using mob tactics to corner the market on American uranium? It was suspected that Bill Clinton was essentially being bribed with exorbitant speaking fees while deals to sell American uranium assets to the Russians were being considered by the State Department under his wife, but this report highlights how the FBI actually had evidence of such things and conveniently stayed quiet on the topic for years.

“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.”

So, either Obama and Clinton were woefully ignorant of national security threats posed by Russian ownership of a large chunk of American nuclear fuel sources, or investigators were told to pipe down so key players like Hillary Clinton could make good on pay-to-play schemes that have become common allegations against the couple’s Clinton Foundation.

Obama and Clinton skirted the issue by claiming there was no evidence of wrongdoing and no reason to believe the uranium deals were counter to national security interests. The latter is laughable on its face when considering the other party to the deals and their history of hostility toward the United States.

The former proves to, simply, not be true.

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.

Again, if decision makers on the Council or in the administration were never informed, it represents a break down in transparency that threatens national security interests. If the FBI and DOJ did inform those decision making bodies, then Obama, Holder, and Clinton wantonly neglected the security of the American people amounting to the worst kind of malfeasance.

The Trump/Russia collusion narrative has died down as the Democrats’ witch hunt was shown time and again to have no real merit. Perhaps the entire issue was a collective case of projection – drawing from their own experiences wallowing in corrupt cronyism at the expense of our nation’s security.

For all of the details in this bombshell report, click here.

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