Uranium One controversy

The Uranium One controversy involves various conspiracy theories promoted by conservative media, politicians, and commentators that characterized the sale of the uranium mining company Uranium One to the Russian state-owned corporation Rosatom as a $145 million bribery scandal involving Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.[1][2][3] No evidence of wrongdoing was ever found.[2]

Since the 2015 publication of the book Clinton Cash by Breitbart News editor and Steve Bannon collaborator Peter Schweizer, as well as a 2015 New York Times article that used some of Schweizer's raw research,[4] allegations of a bribery scheme involving Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and the 2010 sale of Uranium One persisted, primarily in conservative media. Fox News host Sean Hannity characterized it as "the biggest scandal – or, at least, one of them – in American history," while his frequent guest and former Trump advisor Seb Gorka equated it with treason worthy of a death sentence.[5]

Despite four years of discussion and analysis of the matter – as well as an FBI investigation[6] – no evidence of any wrongdoing surfaced. Numerous Republican politicians and pundits, including President Donald Trump, insisted that the Clinton-Uranium One story was the "real" Russian scandal, rather than the matters for which the Trump administration was investigated.[7][8][9] The Washington Post reported in January 2020 that an additional Justice Department investigation into the matter, initiated after Donald Trump took office in 2017, was winding down after finding nothing worth pursuing.[10]

Timeline of events

2005: $145 million alleged bribes to Clinton Foundation

Frank Giustra donated $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation, to be followed in 2007 with a pledge of at least $100 million. These amounts constituted the bulk of the $145 million in supposed bribes paid to the Clinton Foundation.[11][12][13]

2007: Uranium One acquired UrAsia Energy

On April 20, 2007, Uranium One, a Canadian mining company with headquarters in Toronto, acquired UrAsia Energy, a Canadian firm with headquarters in Vancouver, from Frank Giustra, who then resigned from the UrAsia Energy Board of Directors.[14]

References

Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics Oxford University Press, 17 September 2018^
Paul E. Rutledge, Chapman Rackaway. The Unorthodox Presidency of Donald J. Trump University Press of Kansas, 16 July 2021^
Alison Dagnes. Super Mad at Everything All the Time Springer International Publishing, 12 March 2019

2017

Investigation on the sale of Uranium One

In October 2017, following a report by John F. Solomon and Alison Spann published in The Hill and citing anonymous sources,[41][42] the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the sale of Uranium One.[39] The Hill story insinuated payments from Russians to the Clinton Foundation at the time when the Obama administration approved the sale of Uranium One to Rosatom.[43] The story also focused on the alleged failures of the Department of Justice to investigate and report on the controversy, suggesting a cover-up.[43] Subsequently, the story "took off like wildfire in the right-wing media ecosystem," according to a 2018 study by scholars at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University.[43] The Hill reported, "There is no evidence in any of the public records that the FBI believed that the Clintons or anyone close to them did anything illegal. But there's definitive evidence the Russians were seeking their influence with a specific eye on the State Department."

FactCheck.org reported that there was "no evidence" connecting the Uranium One–Rosatom merger deal with a money laundering and bribery case involving a different Rosatom subsidiary which resulted in the conviction of a Russian individual in 2015, contrary to what is implied in the Solomon-Spann story.[32][44] Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post wrote that the problem with some of the accusations that Republican commentators levied against Clinton is that she "by all accounts, did not participate in any discussions regarding the Uranium One sale." The Treasury Department and the CFIUS approved the investment without any participation by Clinton.[45]

Lift gag order

In October 2017, President Trump directed the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to lift a gag order it had placed on a former FBI informant involved in the investigation. The DOJ released the informant from his nondisclosure agreement on October 25, 2017,[46][47][48] authorizing him to provide the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, House Oversight Committee, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence "any information or documents he has concerning alleged corruption or bribery involving transactions in the uranium market" involving Rosatom, its subsidiaries Tenex and Uranium One, and the Clinton Foundation.[49] The informant's lawyer said that the informant "can tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made."[50] During a C-SPAN interview, Hillary Clinton said that any allegations that she was bribed to approve the Uranium One deal were "baloney."[51]

Review of FBI investigation ordered by Attorney General Sessions

In March 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed that he had declined to appoint a special counsel to investigate, among other matters, the alleged connections between Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation and, instead, had ordered John W. Huber, U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah, on November 22, 2017, to look into whether further investigation was warranted.[59][60][61][62] Huber found nothing worth investigating, a result law enforcement officials indicated was largely expected, and the investigation was quietly wound down.[10]

Nonprofit American Oversight obtained Session's letter in 2019 through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request they had filed in 2017; the United States Department of Justice had claimed in 2018 that the letter did not exist.[62]

Uranium One controversy

Timeline of events

2005: $145 million alleged bribes to Clinton Foundation

2007: Uranium One acquired UrAsia Energy

References

2010: $500,000 payment to Bill Clinton

2015: New York Times coverage

2016: FBI investigate Clinton Foundation

2017

Investigation on the sale of Uranium One

Lift gag order

Review of FBI investigation ordered by Attorney General Sessions

Investigation on the sale of Uranium One

Lift gag order

Review of FBI investigation ordered by Attorney General Sessions

2018: Indictment rumor