...somebody named Clinton would already be under arrest with multiple charges of felonies and treason.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... nistration
FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama administration approved controversial nuclear deal with Moscow
BY JOHN SOLOMON AND ALISON SPANN - 10/17/17 06:00 AM EDT 5,657
26,720
Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.
Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.
They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.
The racketeering scheme was conducted “with the consent of higher level officials” in Russia who “shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks, one agent declared in an affidavit years later.
Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued investigating the matter for nearly four more years, essentially leaving the American public and Congress in the dark about Russian nuclear corruption on U.S. soil during a period when the Obama administration made two major decisions benefiting Putin’s commercial nuclear ambitions.
The first decision occurred in October 2010, when the State Department and government agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the partial sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, giving Moscow control of more than 20 percent of America’s uranium supply.
When this sale was used by Trump on the campaign trail last year, Hillary Clinton’s spokesman said she was not involved in the committee review and noted the State Department official who handled it said she “never intervened ... on any [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] matter.”
In 2011, the administration gave approval for Rosatom’s Tenex subsidiary to sell commercial uranium to U.S. nuclear power plants in a partnership with the United States Enrichment Corp. Before then, Tenex had been limited to selling U.S. nuclear power plants reprocessed uranium recovered from dismantled Soviet nuclear weapons under the 1990s Megatons to Megawatts peace program.
“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials.
The Obama administration’s decision to approve Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One has been a source of political controversy since 2015.
That’s when conservative author Peter Schweitzer and The New York Times documented how Bill Clinton collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in Russian speaking fees and his charitable foundation collected millions in donations from parties interested in the deal while Hillary Clinton presided on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
The Obama administration and the Clintons defended their actions at the time, insisting there was no evidence that any Russians or donors engaged in wrongdoing and there was no national security reason for any member of the committee to oppose the Uranium One deal.
But FBI, Energy Department and court documents reviewed by The Hill show the FBI in fact had gathered substantial evidence well before the committee’s decision that Vadim Mikerin — the main Russian overseeing Putin’s nuclear expansion inside the United States — was engaged in wrongdoing starting in 2009.
Then-Attorney General Eric Holder was among the Obama administration officials joining Hillary Clinton on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States at the time the Uranium One deal was approved. Multiple current and former government officials told The Hill they did not know whether the FBI or DOJ ever alerted committee members to the criminal activity they uncovered.
Spokesmen for Holder and Clinton did not return calls seeking comment. The Justice Department also didn’t comment.
Mikerin was a director of Rosatom’s Tenex in Moscow since the early 2000s, where he oversaw Rosatom’s nuclear collaboration with the United States under the Megatons to Megwatts program and its commercial uranium sales to other countries. In 2010, Mikerin was dispatched to the U.S. on a work visa approved by the Obama administration to open Rosatom’s new American arm called Tenam.
Between 2009 and January 2012, Mikerin “did knowingly and willfully combine, conspire confederate and agree with other persons … to obstruct, delay and affect commerce and the movement of an article and commodity (enriched uranium) in commerce by extortion,” a November 2014 indictment stated.
His illegal conduct was captured with the help of a confidential witness, an American businessman, who began making kickback payments at Mikerin’s direction and with the permission of the FBI. The first kickback payment recorded by the FBI through its informant was dated Nov. 27, 2009, the records show.
In evidentiary affidavits signed in 2014 and 2015, an Energy Department agent assigned to assist the FBI in the case testified that Mikerin supervised a “racketeering scheme” that involved extortion, bribery, money laundering and kickbacks that were both directed by and provided benefit to more senior officials back in Russia.
“As part of the scheme, Mikerin, with the consent of higher level officials at TENEX and Rosatom (both Russian state-owned entities) would offer no-bid contracts to US businesses in exchange for kickbacks in the form of money payments made to some offshore banks accounts,” Agent David Gadren testified.
“Mikerin apparently then shared the proceeds with other co-conspirators associated with TENEX in Russia and elsewhere,” the agent added.
The investigation was ultimately supervised by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointee who now serves as President Trump’s deputy attorney general, and then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, now the deputy FBI director under Trump, Justice Department documents show.
Both men now play a key role in the current investigation into possible, but still unproven, collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election cycle. McCabe is under congressional and Justice Department inspector general investigation in connection with money his wife’s Virginia state Senate campaign accepted in 2015 from now-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe at a time when McAuliffe was reportedly under investigation by the FBI.
The connections to the current Russia case are many. The Mikerin probe began in 2009 when Robert Mueller, now the special counsel in charge of the Trump case, was still FBI director. And it ended in late 2015 under the direction of then-FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired earlier this year.
Its many twist and turns aside, the FBI nuclear industry case proved a gold mine, in part because it uncovered a new Russian money laundering apparatus that routed bribe and kickback payments through financial instruments in Cyprus, Latvia and Seychelles. A Russian financier in New Jersey was among those arrested for the money laundering, court records show.
The case also exposed a serious national security breach: Mikerin had given a contract to an American trucking firm called Transport Logistics International that held the sensitive job of transporting Russia’s uranium around the United States in return for more than $2 million in kickbacks from some of its executives, court records show.
One of Mikerin’s former employees told the FBI that Tenex officials in Russia specifically directed the scheme to “allow for padded pricing to include kickbacks,” agents testified in one court filing.
Bringing down a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme that had both compromised a sensitive uranium transportation asset inside the U.S. and facilitated international money laundering would seem a major feather in any law enforcement agency’s cap.
But the Justice Department and FBI took little credit in 2014 when Mikerin, the Russian financier and the trucking firm executives were arrested and charged.
The only public statement occurred a year later when the Justice Department put out a little-noticed press release in August 2015, just days before Labor Day. The release noted that the various defendants had reached plea deals.
By that time, the criminal cases against Mikerin had been narrowed to a single charge of money laundering for a scheme that officials admitted stretched from 2004 to 2014. And though agents had evidence of criminal wrongdoing they collected since at least 2009, federal prosecutors only cited in the plea agreement a handful of transactions that occurred in 2011 and 2012, well after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States’s approval.
The final court case also made no mention of any connection to the influence peddling conversations the FBI undercover informant witnessed about the Russian nuclear officials trying to ingratiate themselves with the Clintons even though agents had gathered documents showing the transmission of millions of dollars from Russia’s nuclear industry to an American entity that had provided assistance to Bill Clinton’s foundation, sources confirmed to The Hill.
The lack of fanfare left many key players in Washington with no inkling that a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme with serious national security implications had been uncovered.
On Dec. 15, 2015, the Justice Department put out a release stating that Mikerin, “a former Russian official residing in Maryland was sentenced today to 48 months in prison” and ordered to forfeit more than $2.1 million.
Ronald Hosko, who served as the assistant FBI director in charge of criminal cases when the investigation was underway, told The Hill he did not recall ever being briefed about Mikerin’s case by the counterintelligence side of the bureau despite the criminal charges that were being lodged.
“I had no idea this case was being conducted,” a surprised Hosko said in an interview.
Likewise, major congressional figures were also kept in the dark.
Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee during the time the FBI probe was being conducted, told The Hill that he had never been told anything about the Russian nuclear corruption case even though many fellow lawmakers had serious concerns about the Obama administration’s approval of the Uranium One deal.
“Not providing information on a corruption scheme before the Russian uranium deal was approved by U.S. regulators and engage appropriate congressional committees has served to undermine U.S. national security interests by the very people charged with protecting them,” he said. “The Russian efforts to manipulate our American political enterprise is breathtaking.”
If AG Sessions weren't taking a nap...
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Re: If AG Sessions weren't taking a nap...
Just in time, another magnificent piece of artwork by the master, WilliamBanzai7.
- Swamp Drainer.jpg (517.3 KiB) Viewed 168 times
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Re: If AG Sessions weren't taking a nap...
Take Hillary down or get out of town, Mr. Tangerine, and take that sleepy old turtle with you! Why don't you do what the people who voted for you elected you to do? I bet ol' Hillary has dirt on everyone one of those preening Republicans in Washington. Politics is acting for ugly people.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... llary-cli/
Trump-O-Meter
Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton
“I will ask, to appoint a special prosecutor. We have to investigate Hillary Clinton, and we have to investigate the investigation.”
Sources: A campaign rally in Panama City, Fla.
Subjects: Criminal Justice
Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton
By Lauren Carroll on Monday, January 16th, 2017 at 12:54 p.m.
Updates
Justice Department appoints special counsel — for Trump-Russia probe, not Clinton emails
By Lauren Carroll on Thursday, May 18th, 2017 at 10:52 a.m.
On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump repeatedly promised to ask the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton's email use.
Well, on May 18, 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed a special counsel with authority to prosecute — and Trump didn't even have to ask for it.
That's because this special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, isn't looking into Clinton. He is instead charged with investigating Russia's interference in the election and any coordination there may have been with Trump's presidential campaign.
Trump has repeatedly said the Russia storyline is "made-up" and a "scam."
"This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!" Trump tweeted May 18, the morning after Mueller's appointment.
He also complained on Twitter that a special counsel wasn't appointed for the Clinton scandal or what Trump called "illegal acts" during President Barack Obama's administration.
"With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!"
Mueller's appointment comes a week after Trump fired James Comey, Mueller's successor at the FBI.
The White House initially said Trump fired Comey because of how he handled the Clinton investigation, detailed in a May 9 memo by Rosenstein.
But two days later, Trump said he would have fired Comey regardless of Rosenstein's recommendation, and he had the Russia investigation on his mind when he made the decision.
This development doesn't warrant a change on the Trump-O-Meter. Trump hasn't backed away completely from his promise to ask Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special counsel to look into Clinton's email, and Trump still brings up Clinton's transgressions with some frequency. But it seems unlikely to happen any time soon.
This promise remains Stalled.
Sources:
PolitiFact, "Who is Robert Mueller? New special counsel leading Russian investigation," May 17, 2017
Trump shows no interest, for now
By Jon Greenberg on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017 at 4:55 p.m.
President Donald Trump has made no move to seek a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton a month into his administration. Nor is there any indication that he will despite his pledge to voters.
The last words Trump offered on the subject came on Nov. 22, 2016, during an interview with reporters and editors at the New York Times.
Trump, when pressed about prosecuting Clinton over her use of a private email server while secretary of state, told reporters: "It's just not something that I feel very strongly about."
"My inclination would be for whatever power I have on the matter is to say let's go forward," Trump told the New York Times. This has been looked at for so long, ad nauseum."
The same day, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway went further in an interview on MSNBC, saying that Trump "doesn't wish to pursue these charges."
As we've noted before, it is not the job of the president to pursue the appointment of a special prosecutor. He can ask his attorney general to explore a topic but he can't order him to launch an investigation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during his confirmation hearing that he would recuse himself from any investigation of Clinton that might emerge.
Congress can appoint a special prosecutor but Republican leaders have shown no interest in exploring that in Clinton's case.
This promise sure looks on the path toward becoming broken, but we'll give Trump a little more time to see if anything materializes. For now, we rate this promise Stalled.
Sources:
CBS News, Trump on appointing Clinton special prosecutor: "I'm going to think about it", Nov. 13, 2016
CNN, Trump flips, now opposes prosecution for Clinton, Nov. 22, 2016
Fox News, Under fire for conflicts, Trump backs off Clinton prosecution, Nov. 22, 2016
Trump promises to appoint a special prosecutor
By Lauren Carroll on Friday, January 20th, 2017 at 4:11 p.m.
In the last few months of the general election, crowds chanted "lock her up" at every single Donald Trump rally.
And Trump repeatedly told his supporters that he would oblige — promising to ask his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton and the private email server she used as secretary of state.
"I will ask, to appoint a special prosecutor," he said at an October 2016 rally. "We have to investigate Hillary Clinton, and we have to investigate the investigation."
"She has to go to jail," he said a couple days later.
If he were to carry this promise forward, it would be the first time a president tried to jail his former opponent. However, Trump seems to have backed away from it already.
WHY HE'S PROMISING IT
The FBI already conducted a year-long investigation into Clinton's private email server and whether Clinton or her staff mishandled classified information. Agents concluded that there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges.
"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," said FBI Director James Comey in a July 2016 press conference.
Trump and other Republicans lambasted Comey over the FBI's decision — saying Clinton committed a series of crimes, the investigators made a mistake, and the justice system is trying to protect her.
WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN
Trump would have to ask his attorney general to consider appointing a non-government lawyer to serve as a special prosecutor. It is not within a president's authority to order the attorney general to pursue any particular line of inquiry.
Trump nominated Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., for attorney general. Sessions has been a vocal critic of the FBI's handling of the Clinton email investigation. However, Sessions said during his Senate confirmation hearing Jan. 10 that he would recuse himself if the Clinton email investigation were to move forward.
WHAT'S STANDING IN HIS WAY?
There are quite a few signs Trump won't direct his attorney general to seek criminal charges against Clinton.
First of all, it is a norm of American democracy that leaders do not try jail their political opponents. Leading legal experts have said that if the Trump administration were to prosecute Clinton, it would be unprecedented.
"This country doesn't punish its political enemies," Sessions said at his confirmation hearing.
And there's Trump's own feelings on the subject. Despite egging on the "lock her up" chants, he hinted in the weeks following his Nov. 8 win that he would let the whole thing go.
"I don't want to hurt the Clintons, I really don't," Trump told the New York Times in November. "She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious."
Sources:
A campaign rally in Panama City, Fla.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... llary-cli/
Trump-O-Meter
Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton
“I will ask, to appoint a special prosecutor. We have to investigate Hillary Clinton, and we have to investigate the investigation.”
Sources: A campaign rally in Panama City, Fla.
Subjects: Criminal Justice
Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton
By Lauren Carroll on Monday, January 16th, 2017 at 12:54 p.m.
Updates
Justice Department appoints special counsel — for Trump-Russia probe, not Clinton emails
By Lauren Carroll on Thursday, May 18th, 2017 at 10:52 a.m.
On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump repeatedly promised to ask the Justice Department to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton's email use.
Well, on May 18, 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed a special counsel with authority to prosecute — and Trump didn't even have to ask for it.
That's because this special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, isn't looking into Clinton. He is instead charged with investigating Russia's interference in the election and any coordination there may have been with Trump's presidential campaign.
Trump has repeatedly said the Russia storyline is "made-up" and a "scam."
"This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!" Trump tweeted May 18, the morning after Mueller's appointment.
He also complained on Twitter that a special counsel wasn't appointed for the Clinton scandal or what Trump called "illegal acts" during President Barack Obama's administration.
"With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!"
Mueller's appointment comes a week after Trump fired James Comey, Mueller's successor at the FBI.
The White House initially said Trump fired Comey because of how he handled the Clinton investigation, detailed in a May 9 memo by Rosenstein.
But two days later, Trump said he would have fired Comey regardless of Rosenstein's recommendation, and he had the Russia investigation on his mind when he made the decision.
This development doesn't warrant a change on the Trump-O-Meter. Trump hasn't backed away completely from his promise to ask Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special counsel to look into Clinton's email, and Trump still brings up Clinton's transgressions with some frequency. But it seems unlikely to happen any time soon.
This promise remains Stalled.
Sources:
PolitiFact, "Who is Robert Mueller? New special counsel leading Russian investigation," May 17, 2017
Trump shows no interest, for now
By Jon Greenberg on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017 at 4:55 p.m.
President Donald Trump has made no move to seek a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton a month into his administration. Nor is there any indication that he will despite his pledge to voters.
The last words Trump offered on the subject came on Nov. 22, 2016, during an interview with reporters and editors at the New York Times.
Trump, when pressed about prosecuting Clinton over her use of a private email server while secretary of state, told reporters: "It's just not something that I feel very strongly about."
"My inclination would be for whatever power I have on the matter is to say let's go forward," Trump told the New York Times. This has been looked at for so long, ad nauseum."
The same day, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway went further in an interview on MSNBC, saying that Trump "doesn't wish to pursue these charges."
As we've noted before, it is not the job of the president to pursue the appointment of a special prosecutor. He can ask his attorney general to explore a topic but he can't order him to launch an investigation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during his confirmation hearing that he would recuse himself from any investigation of Clinton that might emerge.
Congress can appoint a special prosecutor but Republican leaders have shown no interest in exploring that in Clinton's case.
This promise sure looks on the path toward becoming broken, but we'll give Trump a little more time to see if anything materializes. For now, we rate this promise Stalled.
Sources:
CBS News, Trump on appointing Clinton special prosecutor: "I'm going to think about it", Nov. 13, 2016
CNN, Trump flips, now opposes prosecution for Clinton, Nov. 22, 2016
Fox News, Under fire for conflicts, Trump backs off Clinton prosecution, Nov. 22, 2016
Trump promises to appoint a special prosecutor
By Lauren Carroll on Friday, January 20th, 2017 at 4:11 p.m.
In the last few months of the general election, crowds chanted "lock her up" at every single Donald Trump rally.
And Trump repeatedly told his supporters that he would oblige — promising to ask his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton and the private email server she used as secretary of state.
"I will ask, to appoint a special prosecutor," he said at an October 2016 rally. "We have to investigate Hillary Clinton, and we have to investigate the investigation."
"She has to go to jail," he said a couple days later.
If he were to carry this promise forward, it would be the first time a president tried to jail his former opponent. However, Trump seems to have backed away from it already.
WHY HE'S PROMISING IT
The FBI already conducted a year-long investigation into Clinton's private email server and whether Clinton or her staff mishandled classified information. Agents concluded that there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges.
"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information," said FBI Director James Comey in a July 2016 press conference.
Trump and other Republicans lambasted Comey over the FBI's decision — saying Clinton committed a series of crimes, the investigators made a mistake, and the justice system is trying to protect her.
WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN
Trump would have to ask his attorney general to consider appointing a non-government lawyer to serve as a special prosecutor. It is not within a president's authority to order the attorney general to pursue any particular line of inquiry.
Trump nominated Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., for attorney general. Sessions has been a vocal critic of the FBI's handling of the Clinton email investigation. However, Sessions said during his Senate confirmation hearing Jan. 10 that he would recuse himself if the Clinton email investigation were to move forward.
WHAT'S STANDING IN HIS WAY?
There are quite a few signs Trump won't direct his attorney general to seek criminal charges against Clinton.
First of all, it is a norm of American democracy that leaders do not try jail their political opponents. Leading legal experts have said that if the Trump administration were to prosecute Clinton, it would be unprecedented.
"This country doesn't punish its political enemies," Sessions said at his confirmation hearing.
And there's Trump's own feelings on the subject. Despite egging on the "lock her up" chants, he hinted in the weeks following his Nov. 8 win that he would let the whole thing go.
"I don't want to hurt the Clintons, I really don't," Trump told the New York Times in November. "She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious."
Sources:
A campaign rally in Panama City, Fla.
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Re: If AG Sessions weren't taking a nap...
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