The Corruption Continues Part 5

 

In my continuing research on Uranium One, I have come across a lot of new information. I went back and re-read my first 4 parts, and still stand by all of it, but I do have new details that seem to be important in understanding the criminality that took place. This story is very complicated. Sorry for the length, and it may seem disjointed….there just are a lot of moving parts, that all connect to a culture of mass corruption in our government.

The first thing to consider is just what is Rosatom. Rosatom is the fairly, newly, created wholly, controlled nuclear agency in Russia. It controls some 360 businesses and research units of which the American subsidiary, TENEX, is one. It produces in excess of $300 billion in revenue a year to the Russian government. It currently is constructing 40% of all new reactors in the world, 40% of all enriched uranium and 17% of the world’s nuclear fuel. In other words, Rosatom is responsible for a huge chunk of the Russian economy. I have learned from several sources, that Uranium is running out in Russia and one of Rosatom’s strategic goals was to increase their availability to the world’s uranium supply….as selling enriched uranium is a huge part of what Rosatom does. Thus the purchase of Uranium One was a strategic move to control more uranium production. I firmly believe acquiring Uranium One, was much more about the Kazakh mines than it was about the American supply, but either way it was about controlling more.

If I might digress for just a minute…..everything in Russia is corrupt by our standards. What I have come to understand is that Russians think very differently about economics and law than we do. We have learned from childhood that the rule of law is of the highest consideration when doing anything. We call it playing within the rules. We fully expect that contracts must be honored, and if they are not, we have a legal recourse to receive a remedy. We have to understand that is not how business is done in Russia or any of their satellites, like Kazakhstan. Who has the most money and power makes the rules. If you don’t like it you could die. They will pay to get what they want, and if they can’t get it, they will use whatever method necessary to get what they want. They put on a charade when working with the West that they are law abiding, but it’s just for show. They firmly believe we are weak and our laws are simply obstacles to work around, using money and intimidation. Anyone working with the Russians must understand this difference. And if you believe for a minute that Frank Giustra, Bill Clinton, or any of the others working with them didn’t understand this, then you miss a large portion of what happened. A close friend of mine is from Russia and is in business. He confirmed that the Russian government operates like a mob family. There is a hierarchy, run by the Don….Putin, the oligarchs are the lieutenants. They run things how they want, using the laws they make to punish their enemies. If that doesn’t work they simply put them in prison or take them out permanently. My friend told me, that anyone working with a Russian, should expect bribes, kickbacks and extortion. This is how normal business is conducted. Russians are simply amoral criminals.

They are “governed” by a myriad of what we call oligarchs. These are the billionaires that were created immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s not complicated to understand how this happened. Boris Yeltzen was elected after Gorbechev left. The economy had collapsed and Yeltzen was trying desperately to save it. He pushed for a new free market system. But these kinds of changes take decades to implement…..he couldn’t wait. So he immediately privatized almost all of Russian industry. In communism, the state owns everything. So who would own it? The stated goal was for the people to be able to buy into companies….not unlike our private stock market. He issued vouchers to every citizen that they could use to buy stock. Very quickly after this, a black market was created. The vouchers were being gobbled up for cash by a few, shall we say, “Entrepreneurs” . Many of these investors were criminals that had acquired large sums of cash illegally. They soon learned that they could use their ill gotten gain to acquire an entire industry. After just a few years, Russia’s entire economy was in the hands of a few rich men, which now became the oligarchs. They had accumulated great power by being able to control large swaths of the economy. This was the environment Bill Clinton faced during his tenure as president. He understood Russia and their system better than most. He made a lot of friends there during the 90s.

Back to Rosatom.

If you will recall in 2008-2009, the FBI had opened an investigation into the dealings of TENEX, the subsidiary of Rosatom in America. An employee of TENEX, Vadim Mikerin, had been discovered extorting his customers. This was discovered when an American he was extorting went to the FBI. His name was William Campbell. He owned a small lobbying firm that was hired in 2008 to lobby the American government to buy more uranium from Russia. He contracted with Rosatom for $50,000 per month. Mikerin extorted Campbell by telling him he would send half that money to an offshore bank account in Belize and Switzerland. Campbell went to the FBI. He became an informant to gather information concerning the corruption. This investigation continued for another 5 years, and it is unknown whether this investigation by the FBI into Russian corruption was ever made known to CFIUS while it was considering the Russian purchase of stock in Uranium One in 2009 and again in 2013. You can read more about the case here:   This is important because if Rosatom, through its TENEX subsidiary, was conducting illegal acts in its dealings with the uranium industry, why would this not be made known to CFIUS. Remember that the DOJ is part of CFIUS. It begs the question of why? Did CFIUS know and ignore the corruption, or was it quashed by the DOJ or the FBI under Comey’s control? Either way it points to massive corruption or incompetence at the highest levels. I, for one, am not buying any incompetence. I believe there lack of knowledge was purposeful…..that they knew, and chose to ignore it so money from Rosatom and Uranium One investors could continue to flow into the Giustra and Clinton Foundations. Just how you prove such an allegation is difficult. In my next post, I will lay out a pattern of corruption by Hillary Clinton that leads me to my conclusion. Only by seeing the pattern, can you prove just how criminal the entire Uranium One episode was. Without seeing this pattern, good luck proving any crimes. For every apparent crime, there is a counter explanation that can and will be made to defend the action. It’s an old business tactic called “plausible deniability” and is used almost daily in Washington. It has been reported that the criminal behavior and ultimate investigation and conviction of Mikerin was separate from the Uranium One acquisition. You can read about the FBI investigation into Mikerin here. Never mind that TENEX was bribing and extorting its customers, but are they separate issues? In my post, INTO THE WEEDS 11, I outlined John Podesta’s involvement in a company called Joule.

He was given 75,000 shares of stock and a seat on the board of directors. He served on that board with Reuben Vardanyan, an oligarch in Russia and a co-founder of the newly created, at the time, SKOLKOVO project. Skolkovo was an attempt to acquire US technology. Also seated on that board was Anatoly Chubais, the head of Rosatom. So here we have John Podesta, Anatoly Chubais, and Reuben Vardanyan all seated at the table of a company that received $35 million dollars from the Russian government as a “grant” and a mysterious shell company, Klein, Ltd, set up by the same agents that created Joule paying Podesta’s group, Center for American Progress, millions. All while Hillary Clinton is pushing 17 American tech companies to invest in Skolkovo. Coincidently, all 17 American companies “donating” some $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. By the way, in case you haven’t read the background on Joule in my piece INTO THE WEEDS 11, Joule is an energy company based in New Jersey.

You see, it is one of those so called front companies that Russia uses to defeat our laws.
In a sort of side story to all of this is the “Magnitsky Act”. Its a long story so I won’t relay it here, but you can read about it here. Tony Podesta, John’s brother and owner of the lobbying firm,The Podesta Group, Contracted with Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia, to lobby congress to repeal this sanctions act against Russia. Watch this blockbuster video describing The Podesta Groups involvement in Uranium One. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVkCbHe-Dm8

The Mikerin episode was reported as an attempt for Russia to gain more business in America selling uranium. The question still remains….was it connected to the Uranium One purchase? It defies credulity to believe otherwise. Rosatom put all the pieces in place. Starting as far back as 1993 with the sale, to the US of its uranium assets, all the way up to the acquisition of Uranium One. Bribes, extortion, money laundering in order to secure control over the US uranium purchases by American energy companies. And at the heart of the corruption is John Podesta, his brother Tony who was the lobbyist working for Rosatom in America, And Bill and Hillary Clinton using their foundation as a cash register. You may have read that during the period of time in question….2009-2013, $145 million flowed into the Clinton Foundation from undisclosed sources, purportedly from sources connected to the Uranium One purchase. Some of this is a guess, but all evidence points in that direction. As I reported in another part of this continuing saga, Frank Giustra and Bill Clinton created the CGEP in 2007. (Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership) It was established by Frank Giustra and two aids to the former president, Eric Nonacs and Bruce Lindsey, both employees of the Clinton Foundation. On the Clinton Foundation website it states the purpose of this enterprise: “combining the best of non-profit and for-profit approaches to create new enterprises that capitalize market opportunities to generate social impact by addressing existing market gaps in developing country supply or distribution chains.” The only for profit goal was for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Giustra pledged $100 million to this enterprise. But the CGEP was simply a money laundering mechanism. You see, US law, and an agreement Hillary made with the US government when she became SOS, declares that donors to the Foundation must be disclosed. The CGEP was chartered in Canada where no such law exists and Hillary believed didn’t apply to her agreement. This allowed the CGEP to accept millions and millions from undisclosed foreign donors. Then CGEP is free to donate to the Clinton Foundation in the US, only disclosing that the donation came from the CGEP in Canada. Mission accomplished, money successfully laundered. I suppose we will never know who all the donors were to the CGEP, but would you like to take a wild guess that there might be a few Russians on the list? Let’s now take a look at some of the donors that we know about, according to Clinton Foundation records. But first, know this. The Clinton Foundation has reworked and resubmitted their tax returns for this period several times. Many donors were undisclosed or under reported by millions. One of those donors, APCO Worldwide lobbied on the US government, on behalf of Rosatom/TENEX while giving money to the Clinton Global Initiative Fund, and arm of the CF. Records show APCO donated $50K when it was actually $1 million. How we can ever know for sure who or how much was donated is anybody’s guess.

 

First we have Viktor Pinchuk. A Ukrainian Oligarch, the second richest man in Ukraine, reported to have given $25 million to the CF. A close friend of Bill and Hillary, they each attended the others birthday parties. He is the owner of Interpipe, the largest steel producer in Ukraine. He has defied US sanctions and sold steel to Iran. Sound familiar? This is what Bill’s friend Marc Rich did for a living. It’s another similar story. Everybody knows he is doing it, but if you give enough to the Clinton Foundation, $25 million, the SOS will simply look the other way. Here is more information on Viktor Pinchuk: https://www.rt.com/usa/243017-ukraine-clinton-foreign-donors/

Marc Lasry. Mark Lasry is the current owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, which he purchased for $500 million. He also owns Avenue Capital, a 12 billion dollar hedge fund that nets Lasry $280 million a year. He is a billionaire and huge donor to the Democratic Party and personal friends with Bill and Hillary. He also has many Russian friends. Lasry was recently linked to Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who is a known Russian mobster, currently on the run for gambling and money laundering. Seems like Lasry loves to gamble and play for millions. Lasry has unlimited access to Hillary Clinton and has donated at least $100,000 to the foundation and has raised millions for her campaigns.

 

Viktor Vekselberg, according to CF reporting, Mr. Vekselberg, and his companies donated over a quarter million dollars to the CF. In June of 2010, Bill Clinton met with Vekselberg, in Russia, along with several other Russian oligarchs…..reasons unknown. Shortly after that meeting, Bill Clinton gave a speech in Moscow where he was paid $500,000. My educated guess is that Bill Clinton’s involvement with Vekselberg has everything to do with an American technology transfer to Russia. Vekselberg was placed in charge of the Skolkovo project; I’ve spoken about several times. Back in March of this same year, Hillary invited Medvedev to Silicon Valley, In July; Vekselberg announces Cisco will commit 1 billion dollars to the Skolkovo project. 3 months later Cisco pays Bill Clinton $260,000 for a speech. Cisco also donates $1 million to the CF. You can read more about Hillary’s involvement with Vekselberg here: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/emails-show-clinton-ties-to-russian-oligarch-under-investigation/article/2601514

Mikhail Prokhorov, another sports enthusiast, Prokhorov owns the Brooklyn Nets basketball team. Prokhorov is another Russian oligarch who owns Renaissance Capital, the firm that paid the $500,000 for Bill Clinton’s speech in Moscow in June of 2010. I might add that the founding CEO of Renaissance was Michael Madden. Madden left Renaissance in 2007, when Prokhorov paid $500 million for the venture. Oddly enough, Madden now is the CEO of Teneo Capital, the company that works hand and glove with the CF.

 

 

Lukas Lundin, in 2010, congress passed the Dodd-Frank reform bill. Within that law was a provision for mining companies in the Congo to respect human rights through a new certification process.

Although then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Congo in 2009, she unexpectedly delayed implementation of a landmark “certification” program designed to assure human rights were respected by mining companies like Lundin’s in Africa. Lundin donated $5 million to the CF.

Ian Telfer, chairman of Uranium One and close friend of Frank Giustra donated several million to the CF while the Russian purchase was being made. ¾ of his donations of $8.6 million came through his family foundation….Fernwood, which was not disclosed. When this was discovered the CF said they made a mistake and would refile once again. The Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership further donated another $33 million to the CF that came as a “bundle” with undisclosed donors. We may never know where all the money came from. You can read more about some other interesting donors to Clinton here: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/chelsea-clinton-foundation-marc-husband-230859

 

Finally, I would like to add one more large piece to this puzzle. The so-called “Trump Dossier”. Just how does this figure into all this corruption. About a year before the election of 2016, The Washington Free Beacon hired a company to do candidate research on the front running republican candidates. The company they hired was Fusion GPS. By April of 2016, it was clear Trump would win the nomination and that research was stopped. In that same month, Fusion GPS was hired by a law firm named Perkins-Cole to do opposition research on Donald Trump. Fusion GPS then hired a man named Christopher Steele.

Mr. Steele is a former MI 6 employee that worked in Russia and had many contacts in the Russian government. He produced a report that became to be known as the Trump Dossier. This report contained information about Trump’s business and personal dealings with Russia. It was selacious and disturbing in its content. The problem with the report, was nothing in it could be verified. The report was presented to Marc Elias, an attorney for the DNC, days before the election. Fusion was paid some $9 million for this work by Perkins Cole, who worked directly for the DNC and the Hillary campaign. After the election the report was leaked to the press. On a side note, I discovered, that the plan to tie Trump to the Russians was hatched at the DNC at the same time to attempt to remove him from office. The press, even though they had the report in November, did not publish it. Nothing in the report could be verified, and to their credit did not make it public. That is until a small website decided to publish it on January 10, 2017. After it came out, the rest of the media jumped on board. OK, so that’s the background. Before the dossier was made public, sometime in December of 2016, it came into the possession of John McCain. He then passed it on to the FBI as secret information from British Intelligence. Now this next part is very, very important. First I would like to say, that this cannot be independently verified. It’s a conclusion, but it is the only conclusion that can be made based on all the facts that are known. The FBI used that unverified and untrue report to acquire a FISA warrant in order to conduct surveillance on the Trump Tower and of the president elect. Stop and think about that. The FBI conducting surveillance on the president of the United States, and a court gave them a warrant to do it, based on a report that was merely made up! But Ken, you would say, what does this have to do with Uranium One? In two words….not much! But I am attempting to clarify a connection between Hillary and the Russians. Someone in that crime syndicate in Russia, at the behest of the Clintons, provided false information on Donald Trump that could potentially remove him from office. When we consider the point that CFIUS signed off on the Russian purchase of Uranium One, we must look at this warrant that was obtained by the FBI. If the DOJ could be persuaded to do this, is it then, a huge leap that they would hold back the Mikerin investigation, and then sign off on the sale of Uranium One? You see, Hillary was supposed to win. I venture to speculate that Clinton was selling anything she could, to create a fortune and a dynasty. She was willing to work with the Russians in any way to get what she wanted. Her and Bill knew who the Russians were, they knew what they could do for her….and she didn’t care. American Uranium, American technology, American law….none of it mattered…..they would keep the money flowing no matter what.