Inside Judicial Watch: The Politicized DOJ — Mueller, Comey, Strzok, Yates, & More! Judicial Watch via YouTube, December 5, 2017
Posted tagged ‘Clinton Dept. of State’
Inside Judicial Watch: The Politicized DOJ — Mueller, Comey, Strzok, Yates, & More!
December 7, 2017DOJ Sources: Sessions Has Not Recused Himself from Potential Uranium One Probe
November 4, 2017DOJ Sources: Sessions Has Not Recused Himself from Potential Uranium One Probe, Washington Free Beacon, Susan Crabtree, November 3, 2017
Attorney General Jeff Sessions / Getty Images
Department of Justice (DOJ) sources disputed reports late Friday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from decisions involving potential investigations into alleged corruption surrounding a deal that gave Russia control of a large portion of U.S. uranium-mining capacity.
DOJ officials told the Free Beacon that Sessions has not recused himself from deciding how the Justice Department should respond to recent reports raising questions about the Obama administration’s approval of a 2010 purchase of Uranium One, which controlled 20 percent of U.S. uranium, by Russian energy company Rosatam.
Sessions, in his role as attorney general, could recommend an internal DOJ investigation into the matter or appoint an outside special counsel to handle it.
For months, President Donald Trump has blasted Sessions for recusing himself from the probe into Russian meddling in the election and Moscow’s alleged ties to the Trump campaign. Sessions’ recusal led to the appointment of former Robert Mueller as special counsel in charge of the Russia probe.
Following Mueller’s first round of indictments in the Russia probe this week, Trump expressed frustration over his inability to get involved in Justice Department decisions and what investigations it launches.
On Friday morning he tweeted: “Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn’t looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems…”
By week’s end, conservatives who support Sessions became increasingly concerned that Trump would decide to fire Sessions if the attorney general did not provide clarity about his recusal and whether he would be involved in decisions regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and any improper role she might have played in the Uranium One deal.
Sessions’ defenders point to his decision last week to lift a gag order on an FBI informant with detailed knowledge of a Russian bribery scheme linked to the Uranium One deal as evidence that is has not recused himself from the issue. The Obama-era DOJ had imposed the non-disclosure agreement and reportedly threatened the informant with litigation if he broke it.
Rick Manning, the president of Americans for Limited Government, a conservative nonprofit, on Friday issued a statement, saying that Sessions “is in the game” on Uranium One and knocking down reports claiming otherwise.
Manning, citing what he called an “unimpeachable source,” said Sessions is on the Uranium One case.
“The fact that the attorney general ended the non-disclosure agreement for the Uranium One whistleblower provides the proof that Sessions is actively involved in the Uranium One case,” he said. “Unfortunately, the attorney general cannot conduct any investigations through press releases and sound bites allowing the rest of us to receive a blow-by-blow description of every action that might be under way.”
GOP lawmakers have launched their own investigations into the matter after the Hill and Circa News reported new details of an extensive Russian bribery scheme aimed at expanding Moscow’s control of U.S. nuclear energy supplies. Three congressional committees are now looking into the bribery scheme and whether it influenced then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s decision to sign off on the acquisition.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, was the first lawmaker to press the Justice Department and other federal agencies for information about the Uranium One deal, asking Sessions during an Oct. 19 hearing whether the agency was investigating the deal and the surrounding Russian bribes.
At the time, Sessions responded that it would be inappropriate to disclose whether Justice is looking into to the matter but tried to assure Grassley that his concerns would be addressed.
He also said he doubted Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would be the right person to look into the matter because he had handled the prosecution of those implicated in the Russian bribery scheme while he was serving as a U.S. attorney in Maryland before he became a top DOJ official.
Last week, Grassley appeared exasperated by the lack of clarity about whether Sessions could launch an investigation into Uranium One.
“Whoever in DOJ is capable w authority to appoint a special counsel shld do so to investigate Uranium One ‘whoever’ means if u aren’t recused,” he tweeted.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) said earlier this week that Sessions met with House Judiciary Committee Republicans in late September and told them that his recusal prevented any involvement in potential investigations into Uranium One or anything that involved the 2016 campaign, the candidates, or Russia.
According to a Breitbart report, when Gaetz asked Sessions to appoint a special counsel to look into the Uranium One deal, the attorney general abruptly stood up and said he couldn’t discuss the matter because of the recusal and left the room.
That left the House Judiciary Republicans with a group of aides to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who Gaetz said showed “no interest” in discussing a potential Uranium One Justice Department investigation.
Gaetz said Sessions’ “broad” interpretation of the recusal puts Rosenstein in charge, which he called “troubling.”
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, as well as Reps. Ron DeSantis, (R., Fla.), Louis Gohmert, (R., Texas), and Jim Jordan, (R., Ohio), all members of the panel, also were at the late September meeting with Sessions.
Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores earlier this week said she did not believe that others remembered Sessions making the statements about his recusal that Gaetz claimed but would not comment directly or not about whether Sessions was recused from the Uranium One issue.
Sessions, an early Trump supporter and frequent campaign surrogate, in early March recused himself from any Department of Justice investigations into President Trump’s campaign and any alleged ties to Russia. It is unclear, however, how far the recusal extended.
The recusal came after a storm of criticism over Sessions’ failure to disclose two instances in which he met Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, during his Senate confirmation hearings.
Trump and other Republicans pushed back, pointing to numerous contacts Kislyak had with high-profile Democrats, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and several Democratic senators.
The Hill newspaper and Circa News reported new details of a sweeping multimillion dollar racketeering scheme by Russian nuclear officials on U.S. soil that involved “bribery, kickbacks, money laundering and extortion.”
The report indicated that an FBI informant had information that FBI agents suggested that political pressure was exerted during the Justice Department probe of the bribery scheme and that there was specific evidence that could have scuttled approval of the Uranium One deal.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved the controversial Uranium One deal in 2010. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-Attorney General Eric Holder served on CFIUS at the time the agency approved the deal. She has said she knew nothing about the Russian racketeering.
Grassley and other GOP lawmakers have questioned the propriety of millions of dollars the Clinton Foundation received from “interested parties” in the uranium deal and have highlighted a $500,000 payment Bill Clinton received for a speech in Moscow before a Russian-government aligned bank. That speech took place the same month the Russians began the process of acquiring Uranium One.
The nuclear blast of Russian collusion
October 29, 2017The nuclear blast of Russian collusion, Israel National News, Barry Shaw, October 27, 2017
Democrats unleashed a nuclear storm when they went after Trump on trumped up charges of Russian collusion. Now they are about to reap the storm they created. It is likely to burn and destroy several Establishment figures.
Watch out for the names Comey, Rosenstein, Wiseman, Mueller, Lynch, maybe Holder, two Clintons, and Obama.
If this is part of draining the swamp, so be it.
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When President Donald Trump tweeted “Firm involved with discredited and Fake Dossier takes the 5th. Who paid for it, Russia, FBI, the Dems, or all?” people assumed it was one of Trump’s midnight rants. But, he exposed what looks likely to become the greatest political scandal in America’s history.
For a year, the Democrats, aided and abetted by a Hillary Clinton supporting media and a Deep State Establishment which includes Obama hangovers in the new Trump Administration as well as ‘Never Trump’ Republicans, have been searching under every rock and stone for evidence of a Trump collusion with the Russians.
Before leaving office, FBI head, James Comey contrived to appoint his friend, Robert Mueller, to be the Special Counsel to investigate links between the incoming president and the Russians, portrayed as the greatest evil on the face of the planet.
Now, it seems, the nuclear storm they unleashed of Russian collusion has suddenly changed direction and is blasting the Democrats and the Establishment fully in their own faces. In a two-pronged attack their demons have turned against them in what Trump calls “the Washington swamp.”
Christopher Steele, a British intelligence agent, offered the anti-Trump opposition information that could sink the Trump Campaign. The information came out of the Kremlin. This fake Russian intel was offered through a Russian-infected NGO named Fusion GPS. It was designed to help the Clinton Campaign defeat Donald Trump.
There was a price to be paid for this dossier. James Comey, the head of the FBI considered paying for it but, despite recent denials, it was revealed that the price was paid to Fusion GPS by the Hillary Clinton Campaign and the DNC. Millions of dollars were paid in several payments to Fusion GPS through law firms as cut-outs to cloak where the money was ending up. The dossier was shared with the FBI who sat on it rather than bringing it, as they should, to the attention of Congress.
An FBI informer wanted to bring the details of the dossier and name those involved in the scandal to Congress, but he was threatened by the FBI and by Loretta Lynch’s Depart of Justice with criminal, not civil, charges including serving jail time. The whistle-blower’s lawyer has been campaigning that it was the FBI and the Attorney-General’s duty to bring this matter to Congress, and that they had no jurisdiction to threaten this employee with criminal charges and incarceration.
Congress Oversight and Government Reform Committee member, Ron DeSantis, pressed the current Attorney-General, Jeff Sessions, to release this FBI agent and allow him to testify before Congress. The Attorney-General has now authorized this agent to speak with Congress. DeSantis said on the Lou Dobbs Show on Fox News TV that he is confident that the agent will not only give them details and names, but also offer supporting documents.
The affair is likely to include the breaking news of a huge multi-million-dollar scandal involving the Obama Administration, the FBI, the Department of Justice under the Obama presidency, Hillary and Bill Clinton and their Clinton Foundation.
Democrat Adam Schiff once said of a fake Trump collusion, without one iota of evidence, that it was “one of the most shocking betrayals in history.” Now he is going to witness what will truly be the most shocking betrayals in American history but, to his dismay, it will be Democrat-induced betrayals.
Under Obama and the Clintons, the United States sold 20% of its vital uranium reserves to America’s most evil enemy, Putin in the Kremlin. Uranium is the prime ingredient for a nuclear bomb. Today, the United States has to import uranium to power its nuclear power plants – from Russia. Part of the agreement stated that none of this uranium could leave the United States but there is evidence that much of it has left America for Europe and, almost certainly to Russia. Russia also supplies Iran with much of their uranium for their nuclear projects. That is why this issue has important security connotations for Israel.
And, in a pay to play quid pro quo, $145 million made its way from the Russian actors in this deal (acting for the Kremlin) into the coffers of the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was acting Secretary of State. Her husband, Bill, travelled to Moscow to give a $500,000 speech before having a private chat with Putin himself in his Moscow mansion. This, after Obama was recorded on an open mic in 2012 telling Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, “tell Vladimir that after my election I have more flexibility.” This was matched by Hillary Clinton pantomiming with Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, that they could press a plastic ‘Reset’ button.
This was the jovial atmosphere that accompanied the Obama Administration’s collusion with Russia which is now being revealed to have sold off one of America’s most vital strategic and security assets to “the greatest threat to any nation” according to FBI’s James Comey, or “Russia is at the top of America’s threat list,” according to Obama’s Defense secretary, Ash Carter, in 2016, or to a country that “engages in hostile acts,” according to Hillary Clinton.
Either way, the Democrats unleashed a nuclear storm when they went after Trump on trumped up charges of Russian collusion. Now they are about to reap the storm they created. It is likely to burn and destroy several Establishment figures.
Watch out for the names Comey, Rosenstein, Wiseman, Mueller, Lynch, maybe Holder, two Clintons, and Obama.
If this is part of draining the swamp, so be it.
Barry Shaw is a Senior Associate at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
Hillary’s very own Russian collusion connection
October 28, 2017Hillary’s very own Russian collusion connection, Washington Times, Wesley Pruden, October 26, 2017
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
The Clinton can is as full of worms as her harshest critics ever imagined it was, and now the worms are turning. Washington is agog, liberal and conservative alike, as the details of the spreading story of confusion, chicanery and crime in Hillary’s campaign for president emerge from the dark and fetid places so abundant in the capital.
Hillary thought she had the presidency in the can, as her friends in Hollywood might have put it, but it turns out that there was no room in the can for a mere presidency. There were too many interesting worms.
It’s turning out that there was in fact Russian meddling in the election last year, and it was not meddling in behalf of Donald Trump, as Hillary and the Democrats have been so loudly decrying for months, but meddling in behalf of the little lady late of Little Rock.
Two tales of chicanery are hotly pursuing Hillary and prominent figures in her campaign. The first is the uranium scam, the purchase of certain assets, arranged and managed by Canadian “facilitators” who greased the path of these assets to the Russians with enormous donations (the grease) to the Clinton Foundation, and even a speech for Bubba in Moscow. He pocketed a cool half-million dollars for reworking an oldie and not even necessarily a goodie. This was a transaction that had to be approved by the State Department, and who better to approve it than a secretary of State.
The FBI discovered this grease moving back and forth in a vast bribery scheme — bigger even than the vast right-wing media that could make up sleazy stuff about a president and a White House intern. The existence of this vast bribery scheme was not disclosed to the agencies of the government examining the details of a transfer in 2010 of American commercial nuclear assets to Russia.
There was no attempt by the FBI to break up the bribery scheme, and five years later, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and President Obama’s Justice Department disclosed a plea bargain to settle the case with the Russian managing the bribes on a convenient Friday afternoon when the story could be put quietly to sleep, where it slumbered until the Hill, a daily newspaper on Capitol Hill, shook it awake last week.
Conveniences, if not conspiracies, had to be served. Mr. Obama and his secretary of State were hard at work “resetting” U.S.-Russian relations, and the FBI, then under direction of Robert Mueller, was going easy on the investigation. Hillary and her campaign were saved from exposure lest national interests be compromised. What was good for Hillary was good for America. It’s a continuing source of amazement how coincidences like this work in a swamp.
Not that Mr. Mueller, a rampart of rectitude in the nation’s capital, famous as the lawyer who never emasculates an ethic, would suffer anything questionable, but as Holman Jenkins Jr. observes in The Wall Street Journal, “Mr. Mueller has the means, motive and opportunity to obfuscate and distract from matters embarrassing to the FBI, while pleasing a large part of the political spectrum. He need only confine his focus to the flimsy, disingenuous but popular (with the media) accusation that the shambolic Trump campaign colluded with the Russians.” And so it came to pass.
The uranium scam, which requires concentration to follow all the twists and turns, leads inexorably to “the dirty dossier,” which, being about sex, does not require such concentration, because sex is never about technicalities.
This is the dossier retailing lurid tales about naked ladies cavorting with the Donald without interruption even when nature called. Just as Bubba educated inquiring minds about the mechanics of oral sex, so Hillary now educates a later generation about golden showers that require no plumbing.
Hillary’s campaign had a high old time with the tales, spinning them along to eager media just before the inauguration of President Trump. Hillary and the Democrats were outraged, of course, aghast at details of the Russian romp, with endless tut-tuts at Donald Trump for so defiling traditional values with such untraditional behavior. Distraught Democrats hardly knew what to say, but said it anyway.
But such stories rarely survive the light of day, and it turns out that Hillary’s campaign lawyer, one Marc Elias, brokered a deal between the Hillary campaign and the Democratic National Committee and Fusion GPS, a Washington dealer in campaign dirt, to make up the smarmy stuff. Now a lot of reporters, some at The Washington Post and some at The New York Times, are complaining that Hillary’s lawyer lied to them. Heaven forfend!
Did somebody say collusion with Russians?
• Wesley Pruden is editor in chief emeritus of The Times.
DOJ lifts gag order; former FBI informant can tell Congress about 2010 uranium deal
October 26, 2017DOJ lifts gag order; former FBI informant can tell Congress about 2010 uranium deal, Washington Times, , October 26, 2017
Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, Friday, Oct. 20, 2017, in Austin, Texas. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
The congressional investigations could also have implications for Hillary Clinton, who served as secretary of state at the time the deal was made.
The New York Times reported in 2015 that at least one individual involved in the transaction donated some $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. Those donations weren’t publicly disclosed by the Clintons despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had with the Obama White House to identify all donors to the foundation.
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The Justice Department has lifted a gag order on a former FBI informant who had been blocked from speaking to congressional investigators about a 2010 deal that allowed a Kremlin-backed company to gain control of a substantial amount of America’s uranium supply.
Two House committees opened investigations into the controversial deal this week, but said a key informant was unable to discuss the matter because he was bound by a confidentiality agreement with the Justice Department.
In a statement issued Wednesday evening, DOJ spokesman Ian Prior said the informant was authorized to disclose to the congressional leaders of three committees “any information or documents he has concerning alleged corruption or bribery involving transactions in the uranium market, including but not limited to anything related to Vadim Mikerin, Rosatom, Tenex, Uranium One, or the Clinton Foundation.”
The Republican chairmen and ranking Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and limited staff members were all cleared to speak with the informant.
Lawmakers have sought to learn more about the circumstances surrounding the U.S. approval of the partial sale of Canadian mining companyUranium One, which had some U.S. mining assets, to Russia’s atomic energy giant Rosatom.
The State Department and eight other U.S. agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the deal, but lawmakers have questioned to what end officials were informed at the time of the FBI’s investigation into bribery, kickbacks and money laundering within the Russian nuclear industry.
Four years after the deal was approved, the Justice Department criminally charged Mikerin, an executive for the Russian nuclear firm Tenex, a subsidiary of Rosatom. Mikerin pleaded guilty in money laundering in which U.S. authorities said he arranged for more than $2 million in bribes to be paid in exchange for lucrative no-bid uranium trucking contracts.
The Hill reported that the informant’s work helped secure Mikerin’s conviction.
The congressional investigations could also have implications for Hillary Clinton, who served as secretary of state at the time the deal was made.
The New York Times reported in 2015 that at least one individual involved in the transaction donated some $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. Those donations weren’t publicly disclosed by the Clintons despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had with the Obama White House to identify all donors to the foundation.
Hillary Calls Uranium One Stories ‘Debunked’
October 23, 2017Hillary Calls Uranium One Stories ‘Debunked’, Daily Caller, Robert Donachie, October 23, 2017
While Clinton says that anyone who believes that she helped Russia is in the wrong, The New York Times report details how she and her husband directly helped Russia get a vested interest in the U.S. oil market.
The New York Times reported in April 2015 that the Clinton’s had a hand in helping a Russian energy company obtain drilling rights in the U.S. The Russian company had to get State Department help to purchase the Canadian company Uranium One, which made the Russian agency — Rosatom — one of the largest uranium producers in the world. Rosatom purchased the Canadian company — UrAsia — in January 2005, obtaining its uranium stakes stretching from Central Asia to Western America.
Clinton did not back up her assertion the reports are bogus with hard evidence.
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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the stories about her and former President Clinton helping Russia obtain drilling rights in the U.S. through Uranium One have been “debunked” and are just people peddling “bologna.”
“I would say it’s the same bologna they’ve been peddling for years, and there’s been no credible evidence by anyone. In fact, it’s been debunked repeatedly and will continue to be debunked,” Clinton said in an October interview with C-SPAN.
WATCH:
While Clinton says that anyone who believes that she helped Russia is in the wrong, The New York Times report details how she and her husband directly helped Russia get a vested interest in the U.S. oil market.
The New York Times reported in April 2015 that the Clinton’s had a hand in helping a Russian energy company obtain drilling rights in the U.S. The Russian company had to get State Department help to purchase the Canadian company Uranium One, which made the Russian agency — Rosatom — one of the largest uranium producers in the world. Rosatom purchased the Canadian company — UrAsia — in January 2005, obtaining its uranium stakes stretching from Central Asia to Western America.
Clinton did not back up her assertion the reports are bogus with hard evidence.
“But here is what they are doing and I have to give them credit,” Clinton said on C-SPAN. “Trump and his allies, including Fox News, are really experts at distraction and diversion. So the closer the investigation about real Russian ties between Trump associates and real Russians, as we heard Jeff Sessions finally admit to in his testimony the other day, the more they want to just throw mud on the wall. I’m their favorite target. Me and President Obama, we are the ones they like to put in the cross hairs,” Clinton said.
Leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have donated in excess of $25 million according to the Clinton Foundation’s website, built and eventually sold the Russians the aformentioned company that is today known as Uranium One.
Before the Rosatom acquired the Canadian mining stakes, UrAsia had to obtain the vast uranium stakes it held at the time of the merger.
Frank Giustra, a major mining investor in Canada and owner of UrAsia, won a landmark uranium deal in Kazakhstan just days after visiting with Mr. Clinton. The two men boarded Mr. Giustra’s private jet to Kazakhstan where they met with the country’s autocratic president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. Mr. Clinton, in addition to helping Giustra, undermined American foreign policy by expressing his personal support for Nazarbayev’s desire to head an international elections monitory group, reports The New York Times.
Shortly after the former president and Mr. Giustra visited the nation, the then embryonic UrAsia signed a preliminary contract “giving it stakes in three uranium mines controlled by the state-run uranium agency Kazatomprom.” Following this very private visit, Mr. Giustra donated some $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation and five months later Mr. Giusta held a fundraiser for the joint Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative where he alone pledged $100 million dollars.
UrAsia merged with Uranium One and almost immediately the new company began picking up uranium holdings in the United States. The company soon purchased in excess of 38,000 acres of across Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, and other western states as well. Following this large acquisition, Uranium One stated it’s intent on making itself a “powerhouse in the United States uranium sector with the potential to become the domestic supplier of choice for U.S. utilities,” reports the New York Times.
Some $8.65 million dollars in donations were made to the Clinton Foundation by Uranium One and former UrAsia investors between 2008 and 2012.
The new rising global uranium conglomerate experienced a sharp and decisive blow when it’s stock fell 40 percent. Fearing the loss of their holdings in Middle East, Uranium One looked to the US embassy in Kazakhstan to negotiate for them with the nation’s officials, reports the New York Times. These discussions would have gone directly through Secretary of State Clinton, but the Clinton campaign did not respond to inquiries about this deal.
A few days after these negotiations, a subsidiary of Rosatom purchased “17 percent of Uranium One.” Not even a year later the Russian government offered Uranium One stakeholders a “generous offer,” that would give the Russian agency a “51 percent controlling stake.”
The US government had to sign off first, a decision that must go through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which includes executive members of the cabinet, the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, and the secretary of state.
John Barrasso, a Senator from Wyoming where Uranium One had its largest operation, wrote President Barack Obama, saying it “would give the Russian government control over a sizable portion of America’s uranium production capacity.” During this time, a Russian bank that would assign a “buy rating to Uranium one stock” paid Mr. Clinton $500,000 dollars to speak in Moscow.
The decision had to go through the Committee, which included Secretary Clinton. At the time, her husband, in addition to the speaking arrangements, was “collecting millions in donations from people associated with Uranium One.” The Committee approved the deal in October of 2010.
The only reported Uranium Official to give to the Foundation was the chairman, Ian Tefler, who gave in 2007 less than $250,000. Mr. Tefler’s family charity the Fenwood Foundation, however, donated millions of dollars from 2009 to 2013, reports the New York Times.
The Committee approved sale of the Canadian mining stakes provided the Russians with direct control of “one-fifth of all uranium production” in the United States, reports the New York Times. While the Russians were taking control of Uranium One between 2009 and 2013, Canadian records highlight a “flow of cash made its way” into the pockets of the Clinton Foundation.
Rosatom took 100 percent stake in Uranium One in 2013 and shortly thereafter privatized the company.
FBI Arrested Russian Spies Getting Close to Hillary Clinton in Lead-Up to Uranium One Deal
October 21, 2017FBI Arrested Russian Spies Getting Close to Hillary Clinton in Lead-Up to Uranium One Deal, PJ Media, Tyler O’Neil, October 20, 2017
(Please see also, Hillary Clinton, Uranium and a Russian Spy Ring. — DM)
Bill Clinton’s speech, and the Renaissance Capital report, came while the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was considering the sale of Uranium One to Rosatom, a Russian company which had been under FBI investigation at the time.
The FBI kept the investigation secret, even when it would have stopped the disastrous Uranium One approval. There is still no explanation as to why it was kept secret at this vital point. Robert Mueller, the current head of the investigation into Russian connections to President Donald Trump, led the FBI at the time, and some have started calling for his recusal from the Trump-Russia investigation, because he kept the Rosatom investigation quiet.
Despite the FBI investigation, CFIUS fast-tracked the Uranium One approval, finishing it in 52 days, rather than the mandatory 75-day review process.
To make matters worse, Uranium One’s chairman directed $2.35 million in contributions to the Clinton Foundation.
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In 2010, the FBI arrested ten Russian spies as part of “Operation Ghost Stories.” According to a top FBI official, the agency had to act quickly because the “deep cover” agents had come very close to “a sitting US cabinet member.” They had already infiltrated then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s inner circle, befriending a Democratic fundraiser close to Clinton.
Clinton’s Russian connections have attracted more scrutiny following recent revelations of an FBI investigation into Russian company Rosatom, which gained control of 20 percent of U.S. uranium in the 2010 Uranium One deal. The fact that the Russian spies attempted to infiltrate Clinton’s network just before the Uranium One deal has been previously reported by PJ Media’s Pat Poole, and the connection to the recent revelations of the FBI investigation into Rosatom was reported by Center for Security Policy analyst J. Michael Waller in The Daily Caller Friday.
“We were becoming very concerned,” Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI’s assistant director of counterintelligence, told the BBC in 2012. “They were getting close enough to a sitting US cabinet member that we thought we could no longer allow this to continue.”
There are many reasons to suggest Clinton was this “sitting US cabinet member.” In June 2010, Barbara Morea, president of Morea Financial Services in Manhattan, confirmed that “Cynthia Murphy,” Russian External Intelligence Service (SVR) spy Lidiya Guryeva, was a longtime employee and vice president at the company. The company managed the finances of Alan Patricof, one of New York’s top Democratic donors, who fundraised for Clinton’s Senate and presidential campaigns.
Federal court documents reported that Guryeva had “several work-related personal meetings” with “a prominent New York-based financier.” The complaint added that Guryeva and her husband reported back to Moscow that the financier was “prominent in politics,” “an active fundraiser for” a major political party, and a “personal friend” of a current Cabinet official. Patricof fit every one of these descriptions.
Orders from Moscow suggested Patricof might “provide [Guryeva] with remarks re US foreign policy, ‘roumors’ [sic] about White house internal ‘kitchen…'” Worse, the court document also noted that Guryeva “explained to [her husband] that he would not be able to work at the top echelons of certain parts of the United States Government — the State Department, for example.”
While the documents never mention Hillary Clinton by name, the evidence all points in her direction. Guryeva was focused on Patricof, a close friend of Clinton’s, sought to gain information about the White House from a source close to Clinton, and expressed a familiarity with the State Department, the agency Hillary Clinton ran.
Patricof confirmed that he appeared to have been the target, and said he had never talked politics with Guryeva.
Clinton spokesmen at the time insisted that the secretary of State was not the Russian spy ring’s target, but Figliuzzi’s comment suggests a fear that the SVR agents would get too close to a certain cabinet member.
The FBI arrested the Russian spies on June 28, 2010, one day before Bill Clinton gave a speech in Moscow to a Kremlin-connected investment bank, Renaissance Capital. Clinton received $500,000 for this speech.
At the time, Renaissance Capital analysts suggested investors place their money on Uranium One, a Canadian company with control over 20 percent of U.S. uranium. In a July 2010 research report, Renaissance analysts called the company “the best play” in uranium markets.
Bill Clinton’s speech, and the Renaissance Capital report, came while the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was considering the sale of Uranium One to Rosatom, a Russian company which had been under FBI investigation at the time.
The FBI kept the investigation secret, even when it would have stopped the disastrous Uranium One approval. There is still no explanation as to why it was kept secret at this vital point. Robert Mueller, the current head of the investigation into Russian connections to President Donald Trump, led the FBI at the time, and some have started calling for his recusal from the Trump-Russia investigation, because he kept the Rosatom investigation quiet.
Despite the FBI investigation, CFIUS fast-tracked the Uranium One approval, finishing it in 52 days, rather than the mandatory 75-day review process.
To make matters worse, Uranium One’s chairman directed $2.35 million in contributions to the Clinton Foundation.
As Center for Security Policy analyst J. Michael Waller pointed out at The Daily Caller, Clinton had even more questionable ties to Russia. As secretary of State, she pledged to “reset” relations with Russia. She opposed what would become the Magnitsky Act to sanction Russian oligarchs. She also told Russian television that “our goal is to help strengthen Russia.”
At the very beginning of her tenure at State, Clinton arranged for 28 American tech CEOs and venture capitalists (17 of them Clinton Foundation donors) to visit a Russian high-tech hub called Skolkovo. The U.S. military calls this hub “an overt alternative to clandestine industrial espionage.” This visit happened in May 2010, a month before the Ghost Stories arrests.
The Obama administration wasted no time in sending the ten spies back to Russia. The U.S. exchanged them for four Russian nationals on July 10, less than two weeks after their arrest.
Waller charged that Clinton “folded America’s strong hand of cards. The US had ten relatively young, highly trained Russian spies in custody with immense, fresh knowledge of SVR statecraft.”
In exchange, the U.S. got Igor Sutyagin (an arms control researcher whom Amnesty International classified as a political prisoner), Sergei Skripal (a Russian military intelligence official convicted of spying for Britain), Aleksandr Zaporozhsky (a Russian intelligence operative imprisoned for cooperating with the U.S.), and Gennady Vasilenko (a KGB officer suspected of being a double agent).
“Clinton didn’t want leverage,” Waller argued. “She wanted the issue to go away. She toiled feverishly to get the 10 Ghost Stories spies back to Moscow as quickly as possible. She accepted whatever Putin would give her to pass off as a face-saving swap.”
This quick swap raises questions, especially when compared to the last spy exchange with Moscow. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan exchanged four Soviet bloc spies for five Polish prisoners and 20 alleged American spies in the Soviet bloc. This spy exchange was carefully orchestrated over a period of years, not days.
Normally, the FBI would want to keep its prize captures to either prevent them from reentering the spy business, to turn them and get information, or to use them for bargaining. It is notable that the U.S. got rid of these spies in less than two weeks.
Given Russian (and Uranium One) contributions to the Clinton Foundation and the “reset” Clinton spearheaded, it stands to reason the secretary of State wanted to suppress the fact that Russian spies tried to infiltrate her network. The story of Clinton’s ties to Russia could not be allowed to see daylight.
Now, not only has it been revealed that Rosatom executives were under FBI investigation while CFIUS was approving the Uranium One deal and that Mueller — hilariously the man investigating Trump‘s connections with Russia — and others kept that investigation secret, but also federal documents show Russian spies attempted to infiltrate Clinton’s inner circle, just as she took money from Kremlin-linked banks.
As the true story of Russia’s U.S. infiltration unravels, every thread traces back to one extremely disliked former presidential candidate, and it isn’t Donald Trump.
Hillary Clinton, Uranium and a Russian Spy Ring
October 20, 2017Hillary Clinton, Uranium and a Russian Spy Ring, Power Line,
J. Michael Waller, writing in the Daily Caller, says that new FBI information about corruption in a Clinton-approved uranium deal with Russia raises questions about Clinton’s actions after the FBI broke up a deep-cover Russian spy ring in 2010. The FBI ran an elaborate and highly successful operation called Ghost Stories to monitor and rip apart a deep-cover Russian agent network. It tracked a ring of Russian spies who lived between Boston and Washington, D.C. under false identities.
In 2010, thanks to the Ghost Stories operation, the FBI arrested 10 spies. According to Waller, “Secretary of State Clinton worked feverishly to return the Russian agents to Moscow in a hastily arranged, lopsided deal with Putin.”
If this is true, why did Clinton do so? Waller ties her actions to the Russia uranium deal:
For the Clintons, the FBI’s biggest counterintelligence bust in history couldn’t have come at a worse time. . .It all happened as the uranium deal was in play: An arrangement to provide Moscow’s state Rosatom nuclear agency with 20 percent of American uranium capacity, with $145,000,000 to pour into the Clinton Family Foundation and its projects.
Indeed, the day the FBI arrests occurred the day before Bill Clinton was to give a speech in Moscow. A Kremlin-connected investment bank, Renaissance Capital, paid the former president $500,000 for the hour-long appearance.
At the time of the arrests, a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton told told ABC News that there was “no reason to think the Secretary was a target of this [Russian] spy ring.” But this statement appears to have been false.
Waller notes:
Redacted evidence that the FBI submitted to a federal court shows that Russia’s External Intelligence Service (SVR), the former KGB First Chief Directorate, targeted Clinton in 2008 and tried to burrow into her inner circle the next year when she was secretary of state. (Press reports often confuse Russia’s main internal security entity, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, with the SVR.)
It’s natural that a Russian spy ring might target the Secretary of State regardless of who held that position. Thus, Team Hillary’s false denial that the spies targeted her seems like a case of “the lady” protesting too much.
Indeed, Waller reports an extraordinary level of targeting aimed at Hillary Clinton, considered an easy mark due to her “blind ambition” and “insatiable desire for cash to enrich her family, friends, and political machine.”:
From New York, SVR agent Lidiya Guryeva had Clinton in her sights. Guryeva had a real-life job, under the assumed name Cynthia Murphy, as vice president of a high-end tax services company in lower Manhattan. Guryeva’s prime targets, FBI evidence and later news reports show, were Clinton and no fewer than five members of her inner circle. . . .
While the FBI’s unclassified information is vague, it is clear that Guryeva’s target was an early Obama administration member from New York who handled foreign policy after having run for high-level public office. Clinton is the only person fitting that description.
One can’t blame Hillary Clinton for being the target of spies. But it is fair to examine the State Department’s posture towards Russia, as well as her Foundation’s dealings, during the time its spies were trying to influence her. Waller reminds us:
Clinton pledged at Foggy Bottom to “reset” relations with the Putin-controlled regime. She blamed the former George W. Bush administration for the bad feelings. To the Kremlin’s relief, she opposed what would become the Magnitsky Act to sanction Russian criminal oligarchs and regime figures. . . .
In addition, says Waller:
[Clinton] immediately used her position as America’s top diplomat to pour Russia-related money into her family foundation. One of her earliest acts as secretary of state was personally to authorize the State Department to arrange for 28 American tech CEOs and venture capitalists – 17 of them Clinton Foundation donors – to visit a Russian high-tech hub called Skolkovo. With Skolkovo, the SVR doesn’t need to steal when it can arrange legal purchases.
The US military calls Skolkovo “an overt alternative to clandestine industrial espionage.” The Skolkovo visit, which reportedly began as a Clinton Foundation initiative, occurred in May, 2010, a month before the arrests.
When the FBI broke up the Russian spy ring, Eric Holder claimed the sudden arrests were made to prevent one of the spies from fleeing the United States. However, FBI counterintelligence chief Frank Figliuzzi later gave a different reason: “We were becoming very concerned they were getting close enough to a sitting US cabinet member that we thought we could no longer allow this to continue.”
According to Waller, Hillary Clinton, almost certainly the cabinet member is question, had her own concern:
Hillary Clinton was mining Kremlin cash for her personal benefit while secretary of state, at the exact time Putin’s SVR spies were targeting her and penetrating her inner circle. She had every personal motivation to make the spy problem disappear and deny that she had been a target. . . .
She toiled feverishly to get the 10 Ghost Stories spies back to Moscow as quickly as possible. She accepted whatever Putin would give her to pass off as a face-saving swap.
The swap occurred during the Fourth of July weekend, when few in Washington were paying attention.
All Putin gave up, according to Waller, was an SVR officer who had been an American double agent, an open-source researcher whom Amnesty International considered a political prisoner, a Russian military intelligence colonel who spied for the British, and an elderly ex-KGB man from Soviet times.
In exchange, Putin received ten relatively young, highly trained Russian spies in custody with immense, fresh knowledge of SVR statecraft.
Waller concludes by asking these questions:
Precisely what did the FBI know about Russia’s spy service targeting Hillary Clinton and her inner circle? Why did Clinton deny through spokespersons that she had been a Russian target? Why did she work so feverishly to get the spies out of the United States and back to Russia?
Why has the FBI leadership not been more vocal in touting one of its greatest counterintelligence successes ever? And why did nobody in the FBI leadership raise this issue during the 2016 Russian election meddling controversy?
It would be premature to say that the answer to any of these questions lies in the Russia uranium deal and the “Clinton cash” associated with it. But, if Waller has reported accurately, it is not too early to entertain, and to investigate, the possibility.
House Intelligence Panel is Reviewing Uranium One Deal Amid New Evidence of Russian Bribery
October 20, 2017House Intelligence Panel is Reviewing Uranium One Deal Amid New Evidence of Russian Bribery, Washinton Free Beacon, Susan Crabtree, October 20, 2017
Getty Images
Grassley on Thursday called on the Justice Department to lift a gag order on an FBI informant barring him from speaking to Congress about the Russian bribery scheme and any links to the Obama administration’s decision to approve the Moscow takeover of a U.S. uranium mine.
The Justice Department during the Obama administration reportedly threatened to prosecute the informant if he disclosed details of his involvement in the investigation to Congress.
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The House Intelligence Committee has started asking federal agencies about the Obama administration’s approval of a Russian acquisition of a large uranium mine—a deal that is now under new scrutiny amid revelations about a sweeping Russian bribery scheme from an FBI informant.
The panel so far is only making “preliminary inquiries” and has not launched a formal, full-scale investigation, according to a knowledgeable GOP source.
Information from the FBI informant and court documents about a criminal investigation and prosecution of Russian officials for bribery—and whether key U.S. government agencies knew about the probe—are raising new questions about the uranium deal and whether the United States should have approved it.
New details about the extensive Russian bribery scheme and the U.S. government’s prosecution of it, reported by the Hill newspaper and Circa News, also has drawn renewed attention to millions of dollars the Clintons received from Russians with ties to the state-owned entity involved in the acquisition.
The House Intelligence panel’s questions follow public statements this week from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who said on Wednesday he started investigating the new information about the uranium deal last week and pressed Attorney General Jeff Sessions about it during a committee hearing Wednesday.
Sessions would not say whether the Justice Department had launched an official investigation into the matter but told Grassley that his concerns about the deal “would be reviewed.”
Grassley during the Wednesday hearing said the Clinton Foundation had received millions of dollars from “interested parties” in the uranium deal and highlighted a $500,000 payment former President Bill Clinton received for a speech in Moscow before a Russian-government-aligned bank.
Grassley on Thursday called on the Justice Department to lift a gag order on an FBI informant barring him from speaking to Congress about the Russian bribery scheme and any links to the Obama administration’s decision to approve the Moscow takeover of a U.S. uranium mine.
The Justice Department during the Obama administration reportedly threatened to prosecute the informant if he disclosed details of his involvement in the investigation to Congress.
Grassley said he said he also questioned the circumstances surrounding the uranium deal in 2015.
Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) asked the Justice Department this week for documents related to the FBI’s investigation into the uranium deal, as the Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday.
Barrasso’s concerns about the deal first began in 2010, when he learned that Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear arm, would be acquiring up to 20 percent of U.S. uranium, in a deal with Canada-based Uranium One.
The senator, a senior member of the GOP leadership who sits on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, says the Obama administration never responded to his requests for information after reports that Bill Clinton had received the $500,000 sum for speaking to a Moscow state-aligned bank and several Uranium One officials donated $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Key House Republicans provided some of the harshest public warnings about the deal in 2010 before it was approved.
Four top House Republicans raised the alarm about the Uranium One deal with Russia, citing “widespread and continuing” Russian corruption and urging a top Obama official to block it.
The lawmakers sent a letter to then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in October 2010 urging him not to approve the sale of the U.S uranium mine to a subsidiary of Rosatam, Russia’s state-owned energy firm that serves as its main nuclear agency. They released the letter in a press release Oct. 5, 2010. The U.S. government moved forward and approved the deal later that month.
The GOP lawmakers who signed the letter are: Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Peter King of New York, along with then-Reps. Spencer Bachus of Alabama and Howard “Buck” McKeon of California. The lawmakers at the time served, respectively, as the ranking members of the House Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security, Financial Services and Armed Services Committees.
“Rosatom is a state-owned entity, overseen by a government that has shown little if any inclination to effectively address the widespread and continuing corruption within Russia, particularly its energy sector,” the lawmakers wrote at the time.
The Republicans said the deal also raises serious questions because “Russia has a record of transferring dangerous materials and technologies to rogue regimes, such as those in Iran and Syria.”
“Its willingness to provide nuclear assistance to any regime with cash and its repeated attempts to undermine U.S. nonproliferation efforts disqualifies Russia from being regarded as a reliable partner,” they wrote.
As treasury secretary, Geithner served on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the federal interagency that considers the national security implications of foreign investments. He served alongside some of the most powerful members of President Obama’s cabinet, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Members of Congress now want to know if CFIUS and other U.S. agencies that signed off on the transaction were aware of the FBI’s criminal probe into the Russian bribery scheme. As attorney general, Holder would have known about the FBI probe.
In addition to the Russian corruption issues, the GOP lawmakers warned that Rosatom also had a history of training Iranian scientists and designed and built Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, which they said had just become operational a few months prior, in August, 2010.
Russia, they asserted, was already supplying that nuclear plant with enriched-uranium fuel rods, and has signaled its interest in building further nuclear reactors in Iran.
“This cooperation has caused great distress that it could advance Iran’s nuclear ambitions, be it through the extraction of weapons-grade plutonium from the reactor or the use of Bushehr (and any future additional reactors) as a cover for the prohibited transfer of other sensitive technology,” they wrote. “It has also undermined longstanding efforts to compel Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.”
Officials for Uranium One USA, the entity that owned the U.S. uranium mine, said before the deal went through that they were skeptical the transaction would result in the transfer of any mined uranium to Iran.
The lawmakers pushed back on that idea, arguing that they “remain convinced” that Iran could receive uranium supplies through direct or secondary proliferation.
Just a few years earlier, in 2007, Rosatom had signed an agreement to help build nuclear facilities in Burma and train Burmese scientists, despite U.S. concerns about the Burmese government.
Weekly Update: It’s amateur hour at State
September 16, 2017Weekly Update: It’s amateur hour at State, Judicial Watch, September 15, 2017
(The second part of the article deals with the failure of the Department of Justice to prosecute former IRS head Lois Lerner. I have not corrected typos in the article because my internet keeps going down and I want to get this posted promptly.– DM)
Clinton Emails Reveal Additional Mishandling of Classified Information
We continue to accumulate details of the communications abuses in the Hillary Clinton State Department, but after you read the following report pause and consider the big picture. For four years the inner workings of her department were porous to prying eyes. Is it just a coincidence that Hillary Clinton’s diplomatic efforts so often failed?
This week we released 1,617 new pages of documents revealing numerous additional examples of classified information being transmitted through the unsecure, non-state.gov account of Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, as well as many instances of Hillary Clinton donors receiving special favors from the State Department.
The documents included 97 email exchanges with Clinton not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date to at least 627emails that were not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over, and further contradicting a statement by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails had been turned over to department.
The emails are the 20th production of documents obtained in response to a court order in a May 5, 2015, lawsuit we filed against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)). We sued after State failed to respond to a March 18, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking: “All emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non-‘state.gov’ email address.”
On September 11, 2009, the highly sensitive name and email address of the person giving the classified Presidential Daily Brief was included in an email forwarded to Abedin’s unsecure email account by State Department official Dan Fogerty. The State Department produced many more Clinton and Abedin unsecured emails that were classified:
- On March 8, 2009, Clinton sent classified informationusing her unsecure hdr22@clintonmail.com She forwarded to former Senator George Mitchell an email from Tony Blair relating to Palestine. The email had been sent to her at hr15@att.blackberry.net. Clinton responded to Blair, saying she had forwarded the email to Mitchell. A former Senate majority leader, Mitchell was serving as Special Envoy for Middle East Peace.
- On April 16, 2009, Deputy Assistant Secretary Jeffrey Feltman sent to Abedin’s unsecure email account classified informationabout an unknown subject.
- On June 18, 2009, Abedin sent classified informationsummarizing a June 18, 2009, “Middle East Breakfast” meeting between various senators, representatives and State Department officials, at which Deputy Secretary Jack Lew and George Mitchell briefed the congressmen with “an update on our discussions with the [Middle East] parties.”
- On June 23, 2009, U.S. diplomat Martin Indyk, who had his security clearance suspendedin 2000 for “possible sloppiness” in the handling of classified information, sent a memo containing classified information to Abedin’s unsecure email account. The memo, written for Clinton, pertained to Indyk’s discussions with top Israeli officials:
Could I ask you to review the memo below that I wrote yesterday on my return from Israel? If you think it worthwhile, I’d be very grateful if you showed it to HRC (I have already shared it with Mitchell and Feltman). A confrontation with Bibi appears imminent. I’ve never been one to shy away from that, as she may know. But it has to be done carefully, and that doesn’t appear to be happening. And I’m concerned that she will be tarred with the same brush if this leads to a bad end. So I think she needs to make sure that the friction is productive. I’ve made some suggestions at the end of the memo
- On August 1, 2009, Abedin forwarded classified informationfrom State Department official Richard Verma to her unsecure email account. The email from Senator Russ Feingold was sent to Hillary Clinton regarding her upcoming Africa trip.
- On August 4, 2009, Assistant Secretary Jeffrey Feltman sent classified informationabout discussions with Kuwaiti officials to Abedin’s unsecure email account. Feltman noted that the Kuwaitis felt a lunch they had with Obama was “chilly.” The discussions concerned Guantanamo as well as Kuwait’s treatment of detainees.
- On Sept 20, 2009, Abedin forwarded classified informationto her unsecure email account. The email was from State Department official Esther Brimmer and concerned foreign leaders’ discussions regarding a UNESCO leadership appointment.
- On November 1, 2009, U.S. Ambassador to the UAE Rick Olson sent classified informationto Abedin’s unsecure email account. The email shows that Olsen was traveling with Hillary in the Middle East, and Abedin asked him to “work on a list of everything covered in the mbz [presumably Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi] meeting for Hillary.” Olson asks: “do you want it on this system (I can sanitize), or on the other system.” She replies: “This system easier. We are staying without class[ified] computers. Thx.”
- On December 1, 2009, Abedin sent classified informationabout foreign military contributions to the Afghanistan war effort to her unsecure email account. The email originated with State official Sean Misko who wrote to Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan that he first “accidentally” sent it on the “high side” (secure) but was resending.
- On December 25, 2009, Abedin sent to her unsecure email account classified informationprepared by Deputy U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Francis Ricciardone concerning the Afghan elections.
- On December 26, 2009, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual sent a memo to Clinton, which was found on Abedin’s unsecure email account. It contained extensive classified information involving U.S. and Mexican counter-drug operations in Mexico.
- On March 22, 2010, Abedin forwarded to her unsecure email account classified informationabout a telephone conversation between President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
- On April 13, 2010, Abedin forwarded to her unsecure email account classified informationfrom Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman regarding diplomatic discussions with the foreign ministers of Algeria and Morocco.
- On May 24, 2010, Abedin forwarded to her unsecure email account classified informationabout the minutes of a State Department senior staff meeting regarding State Department officials’ meetings in Uganda.
- Among Abedin’s unsecure email records is a document that is simply titled “NOTE” with the date September 12, 2010. The contents are entirely redacted as classified.
- On January 28, 2011, Abedin sent Clinton an unsecure email containing classified informationrelating to a briefing White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave.
- On March 21, 2012, Clinton received a memo from State Department officials Joseph Yun and Derek Mitchell marked “Sensitive But Unclassified” and sent to Abedin’s unsecure email account. It contained classified informationabout elections in Burma.
- Jake Sullivan emailed to Hillary’s unsecure email account classified informationin which Sullivan discussed the content of conversations with UK Prime Minister Gordon regarding “the situation” in Northern Ireland. The date of this email is not included on the document.
- On April 8, 2012, Abedin sent classified informationto her unsecure email regarding a call sheet and an “Action Memo” for Clinton relating to a call with Malawi President Joyce Banda. On April 9, 2012, confidential assistant Monica Hanley again forwarded the classified information to Clinton’s unsecure email account.
Other emails contain sensitive information that was sent via Hillary Clinton’s unsecure email servers.
- On August 18, 2009, Hanley provided Abedin with laptop and fob (a physical device that provides a login code) logins and passwordsto log onto a laptop, as well as a secure State Department website at https://one.state.gov. Included were a PIN number and instructions on how to access her email from the secure State Department website. Abedin forwarded this information to her unsecure account.
(The FBI interviewed Hanley in its probe of Clinton’s email practices, and State’s Diplomatic Security staff reprimanded her after she left classified material behind in a Moscow hotel room. Hanley was the staffer tasked with finding BlackBerry phones for Clinton to use.)
- On August 19, 2009, Hanley asked Abedin to call her and provide Abedin’s computer passwordso that she could download a UN document for Cheryl Mills from Abedin’s computer. Instead of calling Hanley, Abedin apparently provided the computer password in her unsecure reply email, saying, “Its [redacted].”
- On April 17, 2009, Clinton aide Lona Valmoro emailed Clinton’s sensitive daily schedulefor April 18 to various Clinton Foundation officials, including Doug Band, Terry Krinvic and Justin Cooper. She also forwarded Clinton’s daily schedule for July 16 to numerous Clinton Foundation officials. She did the same thing on September 8, 2009. She did so again on January 10, January 14 and April 11, 2010.
- The details of Hillary’s arrivalon November 18, 2009, in war-torn Kabul, Afghanistan, for the inauguration of President Karzai, were found on Abedin’s unsecure email account. Included were precise times of landing at Kabul Airport, the occupants of her vehicle, arrival and departure times at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, and meeting times with U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The new documents show that Clinton donors frequently requested and received special favors from the State Department that were connected to the Clinton Foundation.
- On July 14, 2009, Gordon Griffin, a XL Keystone lobbyist,sent an email to Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band, asking if Band could get him into a Council on Foreign Relations dinner at which Clinton was speaking. Band forwarded the email to Abedin, saying, “Can u get him in?” Abedin replied: “Yes will get him in.” Band was a top aide to President Bill Clinton and co-founder of Teneo. Griffin was a major donor to Hillary Clinton’s Senate and presidential
- On July 16, 2009, Zachary Schwartz asked Band for help getting visas to travel to Cuba for a film production crew from Shangri La Entertainment. Band forwarded the requestto Abedin, telling her, “Please call zach asap on this. [Redacted.] Important.” Abedin responded, “I’ll call zach when we land in India.” Abedin concludes with “Enjoy. Cuba is complicated. Am sure you aren’t surprised to hear that.” Schwartz worked for Steve Bing, a mega-donor to the Clintons and owner of Shangri La Entertainment. Bing has reportedly donated $10-25 million to the Clinton Foundation and paid Bill Clinton personally $2.5 million a year to be an adviser to a green construction company Bing owned.
- On September 11, 2009, Terrence Duffy, chairman of futures brokerage firm CME Group, a donor to the Clinton Foundation, asked Clinton to arrange “government appointments” for him in Singapore and Hong Kong. Clinton, using her HDR22@clintonmail.comaddress, forwarded the request to Abedin, “fyi.” Abedin responded to Duffy’s email, saying she would “follow up” with Duffy’s secretary, Joyce. Duffy gave $4,600 to Hillary’s 2008 presidential campaign; CME Group paid Hillary $225,000 for a speaking fee and has donated between $5,001 and 10,000 to the Clinton Foundation.Abedin, using her huma@clintonmail.com address, later told Joyce, “Would like to get some more information and details so we can try to help.” Further along in the exchange, Joyce responds “We would also like some help in arranging meetings with some key govt officials in both locations, such as the Prime Minister of Singapore, and would appreciate any help you may be able to provide.”
On September 29, 2009, Abedin followed up with Duffy, telling him that “we are happy to assist with any and all meetings” and that she had “discussed you and your trip with our assistant secretary of state for east asia and pacific affairs,” suggesting that Duffy write the assistant secretary, Kurt Campbell. Duffy replied, “Thank you very much. I did connect with Kurt Campbell today.”
- On May 5, 2010, major Clinton Global Initiative member, Clinton Foundation donor and real estate developer Eddie Trump forwarded to “Dougie” Band a request for assistancefrom Russian American Foundation Vice President Rina Kirshner to get the Russian American Foundation involved in a State Department program. Band forwarded the request to Abedin, saying, “Can we get this done/mtg set.” As Judicial Watch previously reported, the State Department doled out more than $260,000 to the Russian American Foundation for “public diplomacy.”
- Major Clinton donor Bal Das, a New York financier who reportedly raised $300,000for Hillary’s 2008 presidential campaign, asked Abedin on November 11, 2009 if Hillary Clinton could address the Japan Society at its annual conference in 2010. Clinton did speak to the Japan Society’s annual conference in 2011.
The emails also provide insight on the inner workings of the Clinton State Department, in particular her engagement with her staff.
- In a May 19, 2009, “Global Press Conference” memo, Clinton was given in advance the “proposed questions” of four of the seven foreign reporters. Examples include: “What is the Obama administration’s view of Australian PM Rudd’s proposal to form an Asia-Pacific Community” and “Why can’t American drones not find, detect and destroy the insurgency supply line?”
- In a document entitled “HRC Pakistan Notes” prepared for Clinton by her staff, Clinton apparently had to be reminded about all her trips to Pakistan and of “stories that you have told/remember.” Her reminder instructions include: “You loved Faisal mosque, and it was especially meaningful to have CVC [Chelsea] with you.” And: “Your first Pakistani friend was in College. She introduced you to Pakistani food and clothes.” And: “You have had lots of Pakistani and Pakistani American friends over the years. From Chicago to California to Washington, DC, you have friends all over the country. They know how much you love Pakistani food …”
- On February 12, 2010, Case Button, a Clinton speechwriter, asked Abedin if her mother, a professor at Dar Al Hekma, a women’s university in Saudi Arabia where Clinton held a town hall meeting,would be willing to give him advice on talking points he was preparing for Clinton. Abedin responded, “Talk to my mom for sure. She will have good points for you.” After reviewing Hillary’s draft remarks, Huma’s mother, Saleha Abedin, (a controversial Islamist activist), offered some advice: “Do not use the political terms such as ‘democracy/elections/freedom.’ Do not use the term ‘empowerment of women’ instead say ‘enabling women’ Do not even mention driving for women! Don’t sound sympathetic to ‘women’s plight’ or be ‘patronizing’ as other visitors have done and made the students extremely annoyed. They rightly consider these as in-house issues …” No references to these issues appear in Clinton’s speech.
Abedin’s involvement in a major appointment at the State Department is controversial given that Abedin’s mother was an Islamist activist.
- On July 24, 2009, Cheryl Mills forwarded to Abedin a CV for someone being considered for the position of Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. It had been sent to Mills from State Department recruiter Margaret Carpenter. Rather than forwarding the resume on to Clinton for her approval, Abedin simply responds to Mills: “I’m a hundred percent fine with him.”
Abedin also offered her opinion to Clinton on administration leaders: On January 21, 2011, while on a trip to Mexico, Abedin emailed Hillary that, “Biden is a disaster here.”
- On February 20, 2012, Clinton expresses outrage over an apparent wardrobe miscommunication for a meeting in Mexico and sent an emailto Abedin with the subject line “I’m venting.” Clinton admonished:
So, here I sit in the meeting surrounded by ever other person dressed in a white shirt provided by the Mexicans. Patricia is not wearing the exact style that all others are but her own white shirt. But, since no one ever told me about this, and instead assumed I didn’t need to know, I had no idea about any of this until I just walked into the large meeting in front of the entire press corps and I’m wearing a green top. So, what’s my answer when asked why I think I’m different than all my colleagues and why I’m dissing our hosts? I am sick of people deciding what I should know rather than giving me the info so I can make a decision. This really annoys me and I told Monica [Hanley] I just didn’t understand.
These emails show ‘what happened’ was that Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin obviously violated laws about the handling of classified information and turned the State Department into a pay for play tool for the corrupt Clinton Foundation. The clear and mounting evidence of pay for play and mishandling of classified information warrant a serious criminal investigation by an independent Trump Justice Department.
To read more about Huma Abedin’s emails, click here.
The IRS Scandal Is Still a Scandal
In a baffling move, President Trump’s Justice Department has decided not to prosecute Lois Lerner, former director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the IRS, whose own emails place her at the heart of the politicization of the IRS for the targeting of conservative groups:
When we learned of this, I issued this statement:
I have zero confidence that the Justice Department did an adequate review of the IRS scandal. In fact, we’re still fighting the Justice Department and the IRS for records about this very scandal. Today’s decision comes as no surprise considering that the FBI collaborated with the IRS and is unlikely to investigate or prosecute itself. President Trump should order a complete review of the whole issue. Meanwhile, we await accountability for IRS Commissioner Koskinen, who still serves and should be drummed out of office.
Let’s review the history.
Judicial Watch released 294 pages of FBI “302” documents revealing top Washington IRS officials, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew the agency was specifically targeting “Tea Party” and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public. An FBI 302 document contains detailed narratives of FBI agent investigations. The Obama Justice Department and FBI investigations into the Obama IRS scandal resulted in no criminal charges.
The FBI 302 documents confirm the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) 2013 report, which said, “Senior IRS officials knew that agents were targeting conservative groups for special scrutiny as early as 2011.” Lerner did not reveal the targeting until May 2013, in response to a planted question at an American Bar Association conference. The documents revealed that then-acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller actually wrote Lerner’s response: “They used names like Tea Party or Patriots and they selected cases simply because the applications had those names in the title. That was wrong, that was absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate.”
Our litigation forced the IRS first to say that emails belonging to Lerner were supposedly missing and later declare to the court that the emails were on IRS back-up systems. Lerner was one of the top officials responsible for the IRS’ targeting of President Obama’s political opponents. Judicial Watch exposed various IRS record keeping problems:
- In June 2014, the IRS claimed to have “lost” responsive emails belonging to Lerner and other IRS officials.
- In July 2014Judge Emmett Sullivan ordered the IRS to submit to the court a written declaration under oath about what happened to Lerner’s “lost” emails. The sworn declarations proved to be less than forthcoming.
- In August 2014, Department of Justice attorneys for the IRS finally admitted Judicial Watch that Lerner’s emails, indeed all government computer records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide catastrophe. The IRS’ attorneys also disclosed that Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) was looking at several of these backup tapes.
- In November 2014, the IRS told the court it had failed to search any of the IRS standard computer systems for the “missing” emails of Lerner and other IRS officials.
- On February 26, 2015, TIGTA officials testifiedto the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that it had received 744 backup tapes containing emails sent and received by Lerner. This testimony showed that the IRS had falsely represented to both Congress, Judge Sullivan, and Judicial Watch that Lerner’s emails were irretrievably lost. The testimony also revealed that IRS officials responsible for responding to the document requests never asked for the backup tapes and that 424 backup tapes containing Lerner’s emails had been destroyed during the pendency of Judicial Watch’s lawsuit and Congressional investigations.
- In June 2015, Judicial Watch forced the IRS to admitin a court filing that it was in possession of 6,400 “newly discovered” Lerner emails. Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the IRS to provide answers on the status of the Lerner emails the IRS had previously declared lost. Judicial Watch raised questions about the IRS’ handling of the missing emails issue in a court filing, demanding answers about Lerner’s emails that had been recovered from the backup tapes.
- In July 2015, U.S District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan threatened to hold John Koskinen, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and Justice Department attorneys in contemptof court after the IRS failed to produce status reports and recovered Lerner emails, as he had ordered on July 1, 2015.
- Obama IRS Commissioner Koskinen was nearly impeachedin September 2016 for misleading Congress on Lerner’s emails.
While Washington spins in circles trying to find election rigging on the part of Donald Trump, it closes its eyes to genuine election skullduggery.
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