Clinton Uranium One deal exposes Russia media narrative

by Sean Jobst
5 December 2017

Nothing demonstrates the nature of dialectics more than the Russia narrative in America. On one side, elements of the American far-right, led by such "alt-right" cucks as Richard Spencer and Matt Heimbach, dismiss any and all criticism of Putin as accepting the liberal MSM narrative. Various sectors of alternative media across the spectrum join them in this knee-jerk reaction of blindly adopting the mere opposite of whatever the MSM appears to promote. This is even though the nature of falsehood means that it contains some kernels of truth. In the process, they play into the MSM's narrative by becoming caricatures taking up positions based on distractions.

On the other hand, the liberal establishment only engages in half-hearted criticism of Putin's Russia around distractions, not challenging for example the mass-immigration and thought crime laws in Russia, Putin's connections with the Jewish supremacist Chabad movement, his promotion of Communist symbols and tropes, or the Russian-Israeli alliance. They only offer a limited liberal critique of Putin that excuses these other unsavory aspects. They are joined by their knee-jerk opponents, who likewise shill for Russia while ignoring or outright excusing these realities.

Past links between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department under Hillary Clinton, with Russian companies directly tied to the Kremlin, belie the disinformation on both sides. American liberals attack the Russian connections of Trump officials, but ignore their own idols' Russian deals. Doyens of the "Alt-Right" and alt-media opportunists similarly ignore these links, as admitting them means their own "liberals vs. Russia" narrative comes crashing down. A look at these connections reveal just how deep is the Kremlin's collusion with both dialectics of American politics.

One example unveiling this dialectic is the Uranium One deal, where Rosatom, a company with close links to the Kremlin, acquired a Canadian company and thereby became one of the world's largest uranium producers with the approval of the State Department. "And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock," a New York Times report stated in April 2015.

Rosatom chief executive Sergei Kiriyenko revealed in his annual 2010 report that the deal was part of a larger Kremlin strategy to strengthen "Russia's prestige as a leader of the world nuclear industry." The State Department's approval surprised even Kiriyenko, who boasted to Putin: "Few could have imagined in the past that we would own 20 percent of U.S. reserves." As was the norm throughout Hillary's tenure, the deal also profited the Clinton Foundation. "As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation," confirmed the New York Times report. "Uranium One's chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons."

The overall donations to the Foundation from Uranium One shareholders exceeded $145 million. Its chairman, Ian Telfer, donated millions through his own Fernwood Foundation, throughout 2009 to 2012 - the crucial period when the U.S. government was reviewing the deal. Telfer also owns many gold, silver and oil mines in several countries. His business partner, Frank Giustra, donated $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation. The two had owned UrAsia, which operated a mine in Russian-dominated Kazakhstan until its merger with Uranium One in 2007.

As has been revealed by emails, officials from the Foundation were in regular contact with leading State Department advisers who answered directly to Hillary. In one such email, dated May 14, 2010, the Foundation's foreign policy adviser, Amitabh Desai, sent an email to Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills, top advisers at the State Department, seeking clearance for Bill Clinton's meeting with Arkady Dvorkovich, a key Rosatom board director and later Deputy Prime Minister under Medvedev. Even though it was approved, Clinton ended up meeting instead with Putin at the latter's private home. 

A Clinton friend told The Hill one of the purposes of the June 2010 trip to Russia was to help a relative "grow investments in their business with Russian oligarchs and other businesses." On June 29th, Bill Clinton collected a $500,000 speaking fee for a 90-minute speech in Russia. He was paid by Renaissance Capital, a bank run by several executives with direct links to the Kremlin and FSB. This was the investment bank that was then promoting the uranium deal to the lucrative benefit of its oligarch shareholders. The intergovernmental Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved the Rosatom deal in October 2010. In 2013, Rosatom signed a cooperation agreement with Israel's Atomic Energy Commission.

During her own March 2010 trip to Moscow, Hillary Clinton discussed the Skolkovo project with Medvedev. The Russian Prime Minister had appointed the Jewish oligarch Viktor Vekselberg to oversee this technology investment project. Owner and president of the Renova Group, Vekselberg maintains close links with the Kremlin and friendship with Putin. With an estimated fortune of $13.6 billion, he was ranked the fourth richest man in Russia as of August 2015. Vekselberg was a guest at the gala dinner that celebrated the 10th anniversary of Russia Today that December, at which Retired General Michael Flynn (who received $45,000 to speak there), former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein were among the honored American guests.

As if to underscore the nature of the dialectic, Vekselberg's links extended to both the Clintons and the Trump campaign. In January 2017, U.S. intelligence reports uncovered that Vekselberg's cousin, American citizen Andrew Intrater, CEO of Columbus Nova, the U.S. subsidiary of Renova, donated $250,000 to Trump's inauguration fund. Vekselberg donated $4.5 million to the construction of the $50 million Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, serving as chairman of its board of trustees. The museum was also directly funded by Putin, and is closely linked with Chabad.

Lost in both the MSM and alt-media's discourse are the mutual links to Chabad. Like every president since Carter (including Trump), Clinton annually proclaimed April 7th (birthday of the Chabad Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson) "Education and Sharing Day" in an open subservience to Chabad's supremacist promotion of "Noahide" laws. In 1994, Schneerson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, in a ceremony where then-President Clinton extolled "the late Rebbe's eminence as a moral leader for our country".

He reiterated this in 2000, when he termed the deceased rabbi "an accomplished scholar in mathematics and science." Bill Clinton was a keynote speaker at the fundraising dinner for a Chabad-run school in New York City in February 2015. Similarly, Trump also has links to Chabad, including through Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, whom visited Schneerson's grave for the rabbi's "blessing" for the Trump campaign. Jason Greenblatt, the hardcore Zionist and longtime Trump associate who now serves as Trump's personal representative for international negotiations, has been known to frequent Chabad centers and met with Berel Lazar, the Chabad Chief Rabbi of Russia, in the summer of 2016.