Obama administration approved deal Russia control US uranium

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The Obama administration potentially knew of corruption at a Russian nuclear supplier years before it agreed to sign over 20 per cent of US's uranium supply to the company, a new report has claimed.

The Hill claims federal agents found evidence of illegal payments made to an employee at a Russian nuclear company years before the Obama administration allowed the company to make a major business deal.

Employees at Tenex, a subsidiary of Rosatom – the regulatory body of the Russian nuclear complex – received bribes and kickbacks from American companies as early as 2009, according to the Hill. An undercover agent made secret recordings, collected financial records, and intercepted emails documenting the payments – the earliest of which was recorded in September 2009.

But in 2010, the Obama administration allowed Rosatom to move forward with the purchase of Canadian mining company Uranium One, effectively giving Moscow control of more than 20 per cent of America’s uranium supply. The next year, they allowed Tenex to expand the amount of nuclear products they sold in the US.

The decision sparked controversy years later, following a 2015 bombshell report: The New York Times found Moscow had paid millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation at the same time the US was pondering the Rosatom deal. Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State at the time.

That same year, federal agents arrested Vadim Mikerin – a top executive at Tenex – for arranging more than $2m in payments in exchange for contracts from the company, according to the Department of Justice.

During the DOJ investigation, Mikerin admitted to conspiring with others to send more than $2m to offshore shell company bank accounts in Cyprus, Latvia and Switzerland. He was forced to forfeit the money, and was sentenced to 48 months in jail.

“Not providing information on a corruption scheme before the Russian uranium deal was approved by US regulators and engage appropriate congressional committees has served to undermine U.S. national security interests by the very people charged with protecting them,” said former Representative Mike Rogers, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee while the investigation was being conducted.

He added: “The Russian efforts to manipulate our American political enterprise is breathtaking.”

As he prepared to collect a $500,000 payday in Moscow in 2010, Bill Clinton sought clearance from the State Department to meet with a key board director of the Russian nuclear energy firm Rosatom — which at the time needed the Obama administration’s approval for a controversial uranium deal, government records show.

Arkady Dvorkovich, a top aide to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and one of the highest-ranking government officials to serve on Rosatom’s board of supervisors, was listed on a May 14, 2010, email as one of 15 Russians the former president wanted to meet during a late June 2010 trip, the documents show.

Two days after Hillary Clinton’s visit to Russia, Vekselberg was named by Medvedev to oversee a new technology investment project called Skolkovo, designed to be Russia’s new Silicon Valley, according to media reports.

Hillary Clinton had directly discussed the Skolkovo project with Medvedev, and her State Department was whipping up support for it among U.S. companies, creating the potential appearance for a conflict. She even attended a major event with the Russians in 2010 to promote the project.

“We want to help because we think that it’s in everyone’s interest do so,” she was quoted as saying at the time.

A third issue that emerged was Renaissance Capital, a Russian bank that actually paid the $500,000 speaking fee to the former president for his 90-minute June 29, 2010, speech, one of the largest one-day fees Bill Clinton ever earned.

Renaissance Capital had ties with the Kremlin and was talking up the Uranium One purchase in 2010, giving it an encouraging investment rating in Russia right at the time the U.S. was considering approval of the uranium sale, according to reports in The New York Times in 2015.

Aides to the ex-president, Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation said Bill Clinton did not have any conversations about Rosatom or the Uranium One deal while in Russia, and that no one connected to the deal was involved in the trip.

A spokesman for Secretary Clinton said Thursday the continued focus on the Uranium One deal smacked of partisan politics aimed at benefiting Donald Trump

Documents show Bill Clinton’s personal lawyer on April 5, 2010, sent a conflict of interest review to the State Department asking for permission to give the speech in late June, and it was approved two days later.

The Clinton friend said the former president’s office then began assembling a list of requests to meet with Russian business and government executives whom he could meet on the trip. One of the goals of the trip was to try to help a Clinton family relative “grow investments in their business with Russian oligarchs and other businesses,” the friend told The Hill.

“It was one of the untold stories of the Russia trip. People have focused on Uranium One and the speaking fees, but opening up a business spigot for the family business was one only us insiders knew about,” the friend said.