Tag Archives: Bill Clinton

Thanksgiving 2017 – Why There Is No Peace On Earth, by David Stockman

Posted on November 26, 2017 | Leave a comment

It looked like close to a sure thing when the Soviet Union folded in 1991: the end of the Cold War would be the beginning of peace. It hasn’t panned out that way, thanks to the United States. This is an oustanding summary of the period since 1991. From David Stockman at ronpaulinstitute.org:

After the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989 and the death of the Soviet Union was confirmed two years later when Boris Yeltsin courageously stood down the red army tanks in front of Moscow’s White House, a dark era in human history came to an end.

The world had descended into what had been a 77-year global war, incepting with the mobilization of the armies of old Europe in August 1914. If you want to count bodies, 150 million were killed by all the depredations which germinated in the Great War, its foolish aftermath at Versailles, and the march of history into the world war and cold war which followed inexorably thereupon.

To wit, upwards of 8% of the human race was wiped-out during that span. The toll encompassed the madness of trench warfare during 1914-1918; the murderous regimes of Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism that rose from the ashes of the Great War and Versailles; and then the carnage of WWII and all the lesser (unnecessary) wars and invasions of the Cold War including Korea and Vietnam.

We have elaborated more fully on this proposition in “The Epochal Consequences Of Woodrow Wilson’s War“, but the seminal point cannot be gainsaid. The end of the cold war meant world peace was finally at hand, yet 26 years later there is still no peace because Imperial Washington confounds it.

In fact, the War Party entrenched in the nation’s capital is dedicated to economic interests and ideological perversions that guarantee perpetual war; they ensure endless waste on armaments and the inestimable death and human suffering that stems from 21st century high tech warfare and the terrorist blowback it inherently generates among those upon which the War Party inflicts its violent hegemony.

In short, there was a virulent threat to peace still lurking on the Potomac after the 77-year war ended. The great general and president, Dwight Eisenhower, had called it the “military-industrial complex” in his farewell address, but that memorable phrase had been abbreviated by his speechwriters, who deleted the word “congressional” in a gesture of comity to the legislative branch.

To continue reading: Thanksgiving 2017 – Why There Is No Peace On Earth

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Linda Tripp: ‘It’s a Day Late, and It’s a Dollar Short’, by Peter J. Boyer

Posted on November 24, 2017 | Leave a comment

Other than the women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual predation, no woman got as thoroughly and undeservedly trashed by the Clinton’s minions and the mainstream media as Linda Tripp. Here’s her take on the current situation. From Peter J. Boyer at weeklystandard.com:

As the reckoning over sexual abuse finally reaches Bill Clinton, with handwringing by some of his former defenders in the press and in politics, one Clinton White House veteran is following developments with particular interest—and a large measure of skepticism.

“It’s a day late, and it’s a dollar short,” says Linda Tripp, who, 20 years ago, was thrust into the center of the sex scandal that led to Clinton’s impeachment. It was Tripp who revealed the president’s sexual relationship with a 21-year-old White House intern and, for her troubles, was painted as the villain of the sordid episode.

Tripp has a quiet life in Northern Virginia horse country, avoiding the public attention that was so unwelcome in the late 1990s. But the unending flow of headlines about the bad behavior of powerful men, she says, “is forcing me to relive a lot of it.” She’s unconvinced by recent calls in the press for Clinton’s deeds to be reconsidered in a more critical light. “They have nothing to lose, and this is now permissible,” she says. “The fact that the Clintons are dead in the water gives [the media] tacit approval to act like human beings. . . . It’s disingenuous.”

She finds it particularly galling to hear former Clinton defenders attributing their latter-day awakening to evolving social mores. In a November 16 interview with the New York Times, New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand said that she now believes that Bill Clinton should have resigned because of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. “Things have changed,” she said.

“What information do they have at their fingertips today that they didn’t have 20 years ago?” Tripp asks. “What information has changed?”

There were people back then—Linda Tripp, for instance—who reflexively knew that when a president of the United States repeatedly summons a star-struck young White House intern to sexually service him, it is more than a private romantic dalliance. “I’m so weary of hearing that society’s mores have changed,” she says, “when I knew that this was an abuse of, essentially, a kid.”

To continue reading: Linda Tripp: ‘It’s a Day Late, and It’s a Dollar Short’

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Sebelius: The Clinton White House doubled down on ‘abusive behavior’ and it’s fair to criticize Hillary Clinton, by Pete Jones

Posted on November 23, 2017 | Leave a comment

When Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, and CNN start ganging up on the Clintons, you know things have changed for the worse for the former first couple. From Pete Jones at cnn.com:

Kathleen Sebelius testifies as HHS Secretary before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2013.

Kathleen Sebelius testifies as HHS Secretary before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2013.

As a wave of stories unfold about sexual harassment and assault by men in power, a senior Democratic leader says her party should reflect on how it handled such charges when they were leveled against former President Bill Clinton.

“Not only did people look the other way, but they went after the women who came forward and accused him,” says Kathleen Sebelius, the former secretary of Health and Human Services and Kansas governor. “And so it doubled down on not only bad behavior but abusive behavior. And then people attacked the victims.”
Sebelius extended her criticism to Hillary Clinton, and the Clinton White House for what she called a strategy of dismissing and besmirching the women who stepped forward—a pattern she said is being repeated today by alleged perpetrators of sexual assault—saying that the criticism of the former first lady and Secretary of State was “absolutely” fair. Sebelius noted that the Clinton Administration’s response was being imitated, adding that “you can watch that same pattern repeat, It needs to end. It needs to be over.”
The comments came during a conversation with David Axelrod on the latest episode of “The Axe Files,” a podcast produced by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.
While Sebelius was critical of both Clintons, she questioned whether the impeachment pursued by Republicans in Congress was the appropriate vehicle for addressing his transgressions.

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What if Ken Starr Was Right? by Ross Douthat

Posted on November 19, 2017 | 1 comment

It’s about twenty years too late, but democrats and their media organs are getting around to admitting that there might have been something to all those women’s allegations against Bill Clinton. From Ross Douthat at nytimes.com:

In the longstanding liberal narrative about Bill Clinton and his scandals, the one pushed by Clinton courtiers and ratified in media coverage of his post-presidency, our 42nd president was only guilty of being a horndog, his affairs were nobody’s business but his family’s, and oral sex with Monica Lewinsky was a small thing that should never have put his presidency in peril.

That narrative could not survive the current wave of outrage over male sexual misconduct.

So now a new one may be forming for the age of Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump. In this story, Kenneth Starr and the Republicans are still dismissed as partisan witch hunters. But liberals might be willing to concede that the Lewinsky affair was a pretty big deal morally, a clear abuse of sexual power, for which Clinton probably should have been pressured to resign.

This new narrative lines up with what’s often been my own assessment of the Clinton scandals. I have never been a Clinton hater; indeed, I’ve always been a little mystified by the scale of Republican dislike for the most centrist of recent Democratic leaders. So I’ve generally held what I’ve considered a sensible middle-ground position on his sins — that he should have stepped down when the Lewinsky affair came to light, but that the Republican effort to impeach him was a hopeless attempt to legislate against dishonor.

But a moment of reassessment is a good time to reassess things for yourself, so I spent this week reading about the lost world of the 1990s. I skimmed the Starr Report. I leafed through books by George Stephanopoulos and Joe Klein and Michael Isikoff. I dug into Troopergate and Whitewater and other first-term scandals. I reacquainted myself with Gennifer Flowers and Webb Hubbell, James Riady and Marc Rich.

After doing all this reading, I’m not sure my reasonable middle ground is actually reasonable. It may be that the conservatives of the 1990s were simply right about Clinton, that once he failed to resign he really deserved to be impeached.

To continue reading: What if Ken Starr Was Right?

 

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Bill Clinton: A Reckoning, by Caitlan Flanagan

Posted on November 14, 2017 | 1 comment

Ever since the Harvey Weinstein story broke, there’s been an elephant in the room. From Caitlan Flanagan at theatlantic.com:

Feminists saved the 42nd president of the United States in the 1990s. They were on the wrong side of history; is it finally time to make things right?

The most remarkable thing about the current tide of sexual assault and harassment accusations is not their number. If every woman in America started talking about the things that happen during the course of an ordinary female life, it would never end. Nor is it the power of the men involved: History instructs us that for countless men, the ability to possess women sexually is not a spoil of power; it’s the point of power. What’s remarkable is that these women are being believed.

Most of them don’t have police reports or witnesses or physical evidence. Many of them are recounting events that transpired years—sometimes decades—ago. In some cases, their accusations are validated by a vague, carefully couched quasi-admission of guilt; in others they are met with outright denial. It doesn’t matter. We believe them. Moreover, we have finally come to some kind of national consensus about the workplace; it naturally fosters a level of romance and flirtation, but the line between those impulses and the sexual predation of a boss is clear.

Believing women about assault—even if they lack the means to prove their accounts—as well as understanding that female employees don’t constitute part of a male boss’s benefits package, were the galvanizing consequences of Anita Hill’s historic allegations against Clarence Thomas, in 1991. When she came forward during Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing and reported that he had sexually humiliated and pressured her throughout his tenure as her boss at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it was an event of convulsive national anxiety. Here was a black man, a Republican, about to be appointed to the Supreme Court, and here was a black woman, presumably a liberal, trying to block him with reports of repeated, squalid, and vividly recounted episodes of sexual harassment. She had little evidence to support her accusations. Many believed that since she’d been a lawyer at the EEOC, she had been uniquely qualified to have handled such harassment.

To continue reading: Bill Clinton: A Reckoning

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Hillary Is America, by Robert Gore

Posted on November 5, 2017 | 38 comments

National Review

Psychologically, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about Hillary in contemporary America.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky would have been the right author to illuminate the inner world of Hillary Clinton. He had the imaginative power to show the psychological deterioration—the rickety castle of lies she’s built to shut out threatening realities and the truth.

For all of Dostoyevsky’s skill, it probably would have been beyond him to dramatically render America’s degenerate descent. Hillary’s supporters believe she’s extraordinary; her detractors believe she’s a tragic anomaly. They’re both wrong. The real tragedy is that in contemporary America, there’s nothing exceptional about her other than her criminality, and how exceptional is that? Shutting out reality and the truth are national pastimes. She’s not psychologically differentiated in any way from the crowd, and her access to platforms allows her to peddle what it wants to hear.

Many people’s first impression of Hillary came from her and Bill’s famous 60 Minutes interview after the 1992 Super Bowl. She said she wasn’t Tammy Wynette, standing by her man, as she stood by her man despite allegations of a 12-year affair with Gennifer Flowers. She may have saved her man’s presidential campaign. Hillary’s 60 Minutes performance garnered a consensus 5-star rating. Only later would it be reconsidered.

In 10 minutes of television, she projected a set of complicated, even conflicting images—forthright but defensive, feisty but dutiful—triggering the mix of skeptical, antagonistic feelings that have defined her with a share of the American public ever since.

“The TV Interview That Haunts Hillary Clinton,” Politico, 9/23/16 (LINK)).

At the time, Bill’s philandering wasn’t widely documented. The Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Juanita Broaddrick, and Kathleen Willey allegations and revelations would surface during his presidency. Nevertheless, Hillary had to have numerous clues, if not outright knowledge, of Bill’s relaxed attitude towards his marriage vows. Was she in denial?

That relatively charitable explanation became less plausible as accusations about Bill’s liaisons, attempted liaisons, and sexual assaults filled the alternative media and even on occasion the mainstream media, where they were usually dismissed. The accusations fueled Hillary’s fury…against the accusers. She spearheaded the effort to discredit them, contrary to her claim that women don’t lie about sexual harassment.

By the end of Bill’s presidency, it was clear that Hillary’s support was not rooted in love or denial, but crass opportunism at the cost of self-respect. She kept her wagon hitched to her husband’s star because he was her ticket. A woman of modest gifts and almost no political skill, everything she had achieved had been through Bill. She would need him to launch her political career.

How do you account for the American people’s long infatuation with government? Is it love coupled with denial? How many are like the cuckold who repeatedly finds his wife in bed with other men? They remain smitten even as the government goes from lie to lie, betrayal to betrayal. Consider a list of political prevarications, by no means exhaustive.

A “modest” income tax will only be levied on the very rich. A central bank will smooth out economic fluctuations, stop financial crises, and maintain the value of the dollar. President Wilson will keep us out of Europe’s War. World War I will be the war to end all wars and make the world safe for democracy. The New Deal will end the Great Depression. President Roosevelt will keep us out of Europe’s war. World War II will be the war to end all wars and make the world safe for democracy. Dropping atomic bombs on Japan is necessary to save a million American lives. The Communists want to rule the world. The president was killed by a lone gunman. There is light at the end of the tunnel in Vietnam. “I am not a crook.” Whip Inflation Now. Wars against poverty, drugs, and terrorism will eradicate poverty, drugs, and terrorism. Legally mandated racial, ethnic, and gender preferences are not discriminatory. The Muslims want to rule the world. Invading foreign countries, fighting undeclared wars, and regime changes will make the world safe for democracy. Spying on you full-time will make you safer and preserve your freedom. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor; if you like your plan you can keep your plan.

Yet, faith in government runs deep, there’s still that substantial segment who believes whatever it tells them.

However, like Hillary’s support of Bill, most of those who now back the government do so opportunistically, a nice way of saying they’ve been bought off…at the cost of self-respect. The millions receiving redistributed and vote-buying largess are told they have more right to it than the people from whom it was taken. The string-pullers at the top of the lucrative military-industrial-intelligence complex, the medical, education, and welfare rackets, the government debt and central bank swindles, and other sundry scams abandoned morality in their formative years. Bill boinks bimbos; the government is organized crime, so what? A juxtaposition of The Godfather, Part 2 and an infamous Hillary quote offers what passes as rationalization: We’re all part of the same hypocrisy, what difference does it make?

Besides such opportunism and rationalization, Hillary is the template for another psychological dodge: escape into fantasy. Up to her eyeballs in charges of illicit and illegal Russian collusion, her oft-repeated claims that Russia stole the election sound like the bizarre ravings of a street-corner crazy.

Aren’t the unshakeable tenets of American denial just as crazy, if not more so? We can continuously spend more than we earn. In stocks, bonds, debt, and central banks we trust. Underfunded pensions and medical funds will take care of the elderly, even as their numbers steadily increase relative to the number of younger workers who will supposedly support them. The US must maintain global order. The rest of the world likes it when the indispensable nation tells it what to do. Invading foreign countries and instituting a police state at home make us safer. Terrorism and refugee migration are not blowback from our own policies. People’s race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preferences are more important than their merits as individuals. And so on and so on and so on.

It’s tragic when a drunk hits bottom, in a gutter somewhere covered in his own vomit. If, when he regains consciousness his disgust and self-loathing prompt him to acknowledge and address his alcoholism, something good can come from something bad. America has a looming rendezvous with a brick wall. Afterwards, those who have feasted on government will find there’s little to scavenge. Those who denied the impending crash won’t emerge from the wreckage.

The few who do emerge will do so with psychological defenses breached and illusions shattered. Awakened, they’ll offer a hope of recovery and redemption. As with the chastened drunk in the gutter, however, it will be a long, slow slog and there are no guarantees.

You’ll Wish It Was Longer

AMAZON

KINDLE

NOOK

 

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Posted in Collapse, Crime, Cronyism, Government, History, Investigations, Politics, Psychology, Society

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Emails Reveal Bill Clinton Met With Vladimir Putin Just Before Uranium One Deal, by Tyler Durden

Posted on October 20, 2017 | Leave a comment

The Uranium One scandal is not going away. First, it’s simple. Nefarious Russians who were under investigation by the FBI gave the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton a lot of money while Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was on a committee that okayed the sale of 20 percent of US uranium capacity to a Russian firm. Second, the Democrats and the press have been demonizing Russia for so long that they can’t turn around and say, “But the Russians are okay when Hillary and Bill take a lot of money from them.” Third, the Clintons have had an incredible run, since the 1990s, of scandals they’ve managed to sweep under the rug. Everybody’s luck runs out sooner or later, and the Clintons have been living on borrowed time. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

If President Trump or anyone even remotely close to his presidency, including his best friend from 2nd grade that he hadn’t seen in 40 years, sought to meet with key Russian nuclear officials, in Moscow, just months before the federal government approved a very controversial deal handing Vladimir Putin 20% of U.S. uranium reserves, despite an ongoing investigation into Russian fraud, bribery, extortion and money laundering, it would be the only story played on a 24 x 7 loop on CNN and MSNBC.

Ironically, that is exactly what new emails dug up by The Hill show that Bill Clinton did in June 2010, just months before the Uranium One deal was approved by a committee on which his wife, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sat.  Oh, and did we mention that Bill’s Clinton Foundation just happened to collect millions of dollars in bribes donations from Russian sources and Uranium One shareholders shortly after his Moscow meetings?

As you will recall, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), approved the Uranium One transaction in October 2010.  According to new emails revealed by The Hill, just months before that approval, Bill Clinton sought permission from the State Department, run by his wife at the time, to meet Arkady Dvorkovich, a top aide to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and one of the highest-ranking government officials to serve on Rosatom’s board of supervisors, the company which was ultimately approved to purchase Uranium One.

As he prepared to collect a $500,000 payday in Moscow in 2010, Bill Clinton sought clearance from the State Department to meet with a key board director of the Russian nuclear energy firm Rosatom — which at the time needed the Obama administration’s approval for a controversial uranium deal, government records show.

Arkady Dvorkovich, a top aide to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and one of the highest-ranking government officials to serve on Rosatom’s board of supervisors, was listed on a May 14, 2010, email as one of 15 Russians the former president wanted to meet during a late June 2010 trip, the documents show.

“In the context of a possible trip to Russia at the end of June, WJC is being asked to see the business/government folks below. Would State have concerns about WJC seeing any of these folks,” Clinton Foundation foreign policy adviser Amitabh Desai wrote the State Department on May 14, 2010, using the former president’s initials and forwarding the list of names to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s team.

To continue reading: Emails Reveal Bill Clinton Met With Vladimir Putin Just Before Uranium One Deal

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Trump: Russian Uranium Deal “Is The Biggest Story That Fake Media Doesn’t Want To Follow”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on October 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

By tweeting about the Russian uranium scandal, President Trump has just made it harder for the mainstream media to ignore. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

As we reported yesterday, as the media continues to lose their collective minds over $100,000 worth of Facebook ads allegedly purchased by Russians during the 2016 election, the Senate Judiciary Committee has finally decided they’re going to take a look into a shady Russian deal – first  profiled here last summer – that handed Putin 20% of America’s uranium reserves, was approved by the Obama administration during an ongoing FBI investigation into charges of bribery, extortion and money laundering by the Russian buyer and netted the Clintons millions of dollars in donations and ‘speaking fees.”

Recall that on Wednesday it was reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee launched a full-scale probe into a Russian nuclear bribery case, demanding several federal agencies disclose whether they knew the FBI had uncovered the corruption before the Obama administration in 2010 approved a controversial uranium deal with Moscow. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee chairman, gets his first chance to raise the issue in public on Wednesday when he questions Attorney General Jeff Sessions during an oversight hearing.

“It has recently come to the Committee’s attention that employees of Rosatom were involved in a criminal enterprise involving a conspiracy to commit extortion and money laundering during the time of the CFIUS transaction,” Grassley wrote in one such letter addressed to Sessions.

“The fact that Rosatom subsidiaries in the United States were under criminal investigation as a result of a U.S. intelligence operation apparently around the time CFIUS approved the Uranium One/Rosatom transaction raises questions about whether that information factored into CFIUS’ decision to approve the transaction,” the chairman added.

Fast forward to this week when thanks to newly released affidavits from a case that landed one of the Russian co-conspirators, Vadim Mikerin, in jail, we learned on Tuesday that not only was the Obama administration aware the Russians’ illegal acts in the U.S. but it may have also been fully aware that “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.”

To continue reading: Trump: Russian Uranium Deal “Is The Biggest Story That Fake Media Doesn’t Want To Follow”

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FBI – With Robert Mueller As Head – Uncovered Russian Bribery Plot Benefiting Obama, the Clintons As Early As 2009, by Jon Hall

Posted on October 18, 2017 | 2 comments

Robert Mueller, who’s investigating the fake Russian influence allegations, was head of the FBI when it investigated and sat on a real Russian influence story involving Obama and the Clintons. From Jon Hall at fmshooter.com:

According to government documents and interviews, before approving the controversial Uranium One deal with Russia, the Obama administration participated in bribery, kickbacks, extortion, and money laundering with Russian officials – all with the aim to expand Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the U.S.

This, and more, comes from a bombshell report from The Hill that details the corruption via eyewitness accounts and internal documents. As early as 2009, emails showed that Moscow compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks – which is in direct violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices act.

Eyewitness account, also backed by documents, indicated Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. for former President Bill Clinton’s foundation during the time Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State.

Notably, while Bill Clinton was routed millions from Russia, Secretary of State Clinton served on a government body that provided favorable decision to Moscow – a clear conflict of interest. In an affidavit years after the scheme, an FBI agent claimed the racketeering was conducted “with the consent of higher level officials” in Russia “who shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks. 

However, instead of bringing charges immediately after the scandal broke in 2010, Obama’s Department of Justice continued to investigate the matter for four years, enacting and performing a cover-up of massive proportions. On top of that, per The Hill, The DOJ:

…left 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 Uranium One deal was, of course, just one of those two decisions made to benefit Putin – giving control of more than 20 percent of American’s total uranium supply to Russian nuclear giant Rosatom. Trump, on the campaign trail last year, hit Hillary Clinton for being involved with the deal; however, her spokesman claimed Clinton wasn’t involved in the committee review and the State Department official who handled the transaction said Clinton “never intervened … on any [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] matter.”

The second decision made by the Obama admin that favorably benefited Putin was another deal for Rosatom:

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…

Documents from the FBI, Energy Department, and U.S. courts show the FBI had gathered evidence long before any of the wrongdoing – extortion, bribery, kickbacks – started in 2009. Eric Holder, infamous Obama-era Attorney General, was among the administration officials who joined Hillary Clinton on the Committee on Foreign Investment at the time the Uranium One deal was approved.

To continue reading: FBI – With Robert Mueller As Head – Uncovered Russian Bribery Plot Benefiting Obama, the Clintons As Early As 2009

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FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama administration approved controversial nuclear deal with Moscow, by John Solomon and Alison Spain

Posted on October 18, 2017 | 1 comment

This story, which is a real story of Russian influence on the Obama administration and the Clintons, would, in a just world, push the fake Russiagate story out of the public eye. It’s not a just world, but this story may stir things up a bit. From John Solomon and Alison Spann at thehill.com:

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 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.

To continue reading: FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama administration approved controversial nuclear deal with Moscow

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