The Hillary Thread II

[Forty Two]

[L'Emmerdeur]

The Clinton Cash book and the conspiracy theory it promoted about Clinton's imagined involvement in the Uranium One sale are nothing but weaponized bullshit. This has been known for some time, but if the aim is to distract from actual malicious Russian actions against the US and there's no honest way to do that, I suppose some will resort to promoting lies. Chest-thumping about 'journalistic integrity' appears rather hollow coming from somebody who continues to push this turd of a story.

'The Hillary Clinton Russia Uranium One Conspiracy Theory Doesn’t Make Any Sense'

“I have to say that this is one of those things where reasonable people cannot disagree: There just aren’t two sides,” said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on nuclear materials and nonproliferation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California.

...

The U.S. produces very little uranium—about 2 million pounds in 2015, a year nuclear power plants imported 57 million pounds of the element. The vast majority of the uranium comes from Kazakhstan and Australia.

But the idea that Russia had bought control of one of the larger uranium mines in the U.S. led some imaginations to run wild, even if that uranium isn’t being used for weapons. Russia and the U.S. have worked to shrink nuclear stockpiles in recent years.

...

The guilt by association theory centers on Clinton’s role on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The committee reviews deals that would transfer to foreign ownership companies that might be sensitive to national security.

According to the conspiracy theory, Clinton received money from several people affiliated with the uranium mine deal, and then pushed the CFIUS to approve it in return.

The problem is, that’s not how CFIUS works. Clinton’s vote would have been only one of nine, as the reviews are run by the Treasury Department and other Cabinet secretaries get to weigh in.

“The secretary of state is one, and frankly not usually a very powerful, member of the committee,” said Steve Grundman, a fellow at the Atlantic Council who dealt with CFIUS reviews while serving in the Pentagon in the 1990s. “You have to remember with CFIUS, the first letter stands for the committee.”

Also, Cabinet secretaries almost never deal with the committee themselves, instead delegating to underlings. For Clinton, that delegate was the assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, Jose Fernandez.

“Secretary Clinton never intervened with me on any CFIUS matter,” Fernandez told Time in 2015. Two former State Department officials who served under Clinton told Newsweek that Clinton would have been notified of a CFIUS decision only if there were disagreement among members of the committee, which would push a final decision to the president. The CFIUS decision on the Uranium One deal, however, was unanimous—all nine representatives agreed to approve it.

“For this conspiracy theory to be true, she would have to twist the arms of all these other eight Cabinet secretaries, which is completely absurd and completely implausible,” said Max Bergmann, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who specializes in U.S.-Russia relations and who worked at the State Department under both Clinton and her successor, John Kerry.

The claim that Clinton received big money for the Clinton Foundation from those tied to the Tenex–Uranium One deal is also tenuous. PolitiFact reviewed that claim, which was floated in a book by an editor at the far-right media outlet Breitbart, and found that almost all the money came from Frank Giustra, who sold his stake in Uranium One before Clinton became secretary of state.

Bergmann said the claim “just doesn’t make any sense. It’s just frankly a vehicle for distraction.”

According to the experts, even if Clinton had somehow managed to tilt the CFIUS decision in favor of Russian buyers, it wouldn’t matter: The mine isn’t very important.

The Russian-owned company does not have a license to export the uranium, and the actual mining process is not sensitive at all.

“It’s just a mine,” Lewis said. “There’s no technology that’s special. There’s no shortage of uranium around the world.”

[Forty Two]

The Clinton Cash book and the conspiracy theory it promoted about Clinton's imagined involvement in the Uranium One sale is nothing but weaponized bullshit.

They just had a witness testify before Congress to payments by Russia to the Clinton Foundation which was intended to influence the "reset" and the uranium deal. William D. Campbell, a lobbyist, confirmed to Reuters he is the informant who will testify and provide documents to Congress about the Obama Administration’s 2010 approval of the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian company with uranium mines in the United States, to Russia’s Rosatom.

At the time of the sale, Campbell was a confidential source for the FBI in a Maryland bribery and kickback investigation of the head of a U.S. unit of Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear power company. Campbell was identified as an FBI informant by prosecutors in open court and by himself in a publicly available lawsuit he filed last year. Campbell told Reuters - “I have worked with the Justice Department undercover for several years, and documentation relating to Uranium One and political influence does exist and I have it." That's a strong statement. That was in November https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1DG1SB Then two days ago - FBI informant connected to the Uranium One controversy told three congressional committees in a written statement that Moscow routed millions of dollars to America with the expectation it would be used to benefit Bill Clinton's charitable efforts while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quarterbacked a “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations. http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -testimony

He accused Obama administration officials of making decisions that ended up benefitting the Russian nuclear industry, which he said was seeking to build a monopoly in the global uranium market to help President Vladimir Putin seek a geopolitical advantage over the United States.

The United States already imports more than 90 percent of the uranium it uses in nuclear reactors, according to U.S. government figures from 2016.

Campbell wrote that Russian nuclear executives “boasted” during vodka-fueled meetings monitored by the FBI about “how weak the U.S. government was in giving away uranium business and were confident that Russia would secure the strategic advantage it was seeking in the U.S. uranium market.”

He also said he asked his FBI handlers why the U.S. was not more aggressive.

“I expressed these concerns repeatedly to my FBI handlers. The response I got was that politics was somehow involved,” he stated.

Now, to me, I'd like to know what of this can be verified. But, at least here we hav a person, named, not anonymous, and no equivocation. He is making clear testimony based on personal knowledge.

This has been known for some time, but if the aim is to distract from actual malicious Russian actions against the US and there's no honest way to do that, I suppose some will resort to promoting lies. Chest-thumping about 'journalistic integrity' appears rather hollow coming from somebody who continues to push this turd of a story.

I'm not "pushing" it. I'm saying what was reported in "The Hill" about exactly what Mr. Campbell testified to under oath based on what he claims to have personal knowledge of. There is no chest thumping here. There is no attempt to "dstract" from "actual" malicious Russian actions.

On what basis do you claim this is not an "actual" malicious action? You don't believe Campbell? Why, exactly?

Now, granted, I don't believe him either - not at face value. The reason I don't, is because i haven't seen proof that what he is saying is true, and there are definite political motivations that are possible here. But, one thing is for sure, we have a person here who has been an FBI informant for years who has testfied to having documents and knowing things based on his own personal knowledge regarding the Russian transfers of millions of dollars to the Clinton organization for the purpose of influencing their actions.

That's a serious accusation, and it certainly is at least as supported by evidence as anything that has been alleged about Trump.

And, it is another allegation of a Russian attempt to "meddle" in US affairs. Surely you don't poo-poo the desire of Russia to do that? Do you?

“The emails and documents I intercepted during 2010 made clear that Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One — for both its Kazakh and American assets — was part of Russia’s geopolitical strategy to gain leverage in global energy markets,” he testified. “I obtained documentary proof that Tenex was helping Rosatom win CFIUS approval, including an October 6, 2010 email … asking me specifically to help overcome opposition to the Uranium One deal.”

Campbell told lawmakers the purchase of the Uranium One assets and the securing of billions of new uranium sales contracts inside the United States during the Obama years were part of the “Russian uranium dominance strategy.”

“The importance of the Uranium One decision to Tenex was made clear by the fact that the Russian government directed Mikerin to open a new U.S. office for Tenex and to create a new American entity called Tenam in early October 2010, just weeks before Rosatom and ARMZ won the Obama administration approval to buy Uranium One,” he said.

“Rosatom/Tenex threw a party to celebrate, which was widely attended by American nuclear industry officials. At the request of the FBI, I attended and recorded video footage of Tenam’s new offices,” he added.

Campbell’s written statement covered a wide array of activities he conducted under the FBI’s direction, ranging from a failed sting effort to lure Putin to the United States to gathering evidence that Russia was “helping Iran build its nuclear capability.”

Campbell provided Congress an April 16, 2010, memo he said he wrote and gave to the FBI that spelled out in detail the Russian efforts to aid Iran.

“Tenex continues to supply Iran fuel through their Russian company,” Campbell wrote in that 2010 document obtained by The Hill, naming the specific company that was being used to help. “They continue to assist with construction consult [sic] and fabricated assemblies to supply the reactor. Fabricated assemblies require sophisticated engineering and are arranged inside the reactor with the help and consult” of Russians.

“The final fabricators to Iran are being flown by Russian air transport due to the sensitive nature of the equipment,” his 2010 memo to the FBI added.

Campbell told lawmakers he also gave the FBI “documentary proof that officials in Moscow were obtaining restricted copies of IAEA compliance reports on Iranian nuclear inspections, a discovery that appeared to deeply concern my handlers.”

While most of his account involved intelligence matters, Campbell also briefly described the toll years of undercover work took on him personally. He continued informing through a bout with brain cancer, a case of leukemia and battles with excessive drinking, he told lawmakers.

He also was never reimbursed for the hundreds of thousands of dollars he used of his own money to make bribe payments under the FBI’s direction to the Russians to facilitate his cover.

But Campbell said he was gratified when the FBI in 2016 gave him a $50,000 reward check celebrating his undercover work, directly answering Democrats criticisms that federal prosecutors didn’t trust him as a witness.

“My FBI handlers praised my work. They told me on various occasions that details from the undercover probe had been briefed directly to FBI top officials. On two occasions my handlers were particularly excited, claiming that my undercover work had been briefed to President Obama as part of his daily presidential briefing,” he said.

In the end, though, he told lawmakers he remains disturbed that the Obama administration made so many favorable decisions benefiting the Russian nuclear industry when the evidence of wrongdoing and ill intent was so extensive.

“I was frustrated watching the U.S. government make numerous decisions benefiting Rosatom and Tenex while those entities were engaged in serious criminal conduct on U.S. soil,” he wrote. “Tenex and Rosatom were raking in billions of U.S. dollars by signing contracts with American nuclear utility clients at the same time they were indulging in extortion by using threats to get bribes and kickbacks, with a portion going to Russia for high ranking officials.”

He said he never got a satisfactory answer from the FBI.

“I remember one response I got from an agent when I asked how it was possible CFIUS would approve the Uranium One sale when the FBI could prove Rosatom was engaged in criminal conduct. His answer: ‘Ask your politics,’ ” Campbell said

.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Go ahead and show that Jose Fernandez was lying. Then explain how Clinton forced the other eight members of the CFIUS to vote for the sale.

“Secretary Clinton never intervened with me on any CFIUS matter,” Fernandez told Time in 2015. Two former State Department officials who served under Clinton told Newsweek that Clinton would have been notified of a CFIUS decision only if there were disagreement among members of the committee, which would push a final decision to the president. The CFIUS decision on the Uranium One deal, however, was unanimous—all nine representatives agreed to approve it.

[Forty Two]

I can't but he doesn't have to be lying for the Russians to be attempting to buy influence from Clinton through payments to an organization she controls. Can you explain why the Secretary of State would need to "interview" with an assistant secretary of state on a CFIUS matter? And Uranium One was not the only thing Douglas Campbell said Russia was trying to buy "influence" over. Influence, moreover, does not mean that proper channels are followed above-board. Rather quite the opposite.

Also, note that just ATTEMPTING to buy or sell influence would be a violation. So, we have Douglas Campbell, a long time reliable FBI informant, testifying that Russia paid millions in order to get influence from Clinton relative to uranium and the overall "reset" of relations. Wouldn't such influence payments be illegal, even if Hillary was not the official sole deciding vote? Wouldn't the payment to the Secretary of State for the purpose of influence be enough, even if her influence was to help grease the wheels?

Now you go ahead and show that Douglas Campbell is lying. And, don't ignore my inquiry. I answer your inquiries. Have some courtesy, please.

[Forty Two]

Hillary having trouble with the stairs again.... http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video- ... n-holding/

The most qualified candidate since Gerald Ford.....

[Forty Two]

Women who voted for Trump were motivated by “ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.” - Hillary Clinton.

According to Hillary: Women are unable to vote for who they want to vote for, alone, in a voting booth, with nobody knowing actually who they voted for.... just too much pressure from their sons, bosses, and husbands.

[Forty Two]

Hillary says Trump won areas inhabited by voters who don’t “like black people getting rights” and “don’t like women getting jobs.” Yeep... the Michganders, Wisconsonians, Pennsylvanians, Virginians..... they just don't like their right-getting black folks, and women gettin' jobs? What the heck? Since when can women get jobs??

[Tero]

Lock her up. Then she can’t vote.

Will Hillary and Trump be allowed outside contacts to do Tweets while they are in jail?

[L'Emmerdeur]

Now you go ahead and show that Douglas Campbell is lying. And, don't ignore my inquiry. I answer your inquiries. Have some courtesy, please.

I apologize for missing this request. I will note however that your claim that you "answer [my] inquiries" is rather broad, considering that there have been several occasions in which you ignored posts I've made that directly addressed you with questions.

The Justice Department has had some things to say about Mr. Campbell.

On December 15, 2017, senior officials from the Department of Justice conducted an unclassified briefing for both Democratic and Republican staff on the Oversight Committee and the Intelligence Committee on the activities of your confidential informant [Campbell] during the investigation and prosecution of Vadim Mikerin, a former Russian official with a subsidiary of Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation known as Tenex.

During our briefing with the Justice Department, agency officials confirmed that career attorneys initially planned to build their case against Mr. Mikerin based on evidence provided by this individual. However, they told us that they began to have "serious credibility concerns" because of "inconsistencies" between the individual's statements and documents they obtained as part of the investigation.

After interviewing the individual and reviewing the documents they had obtained, prosecutors determined that there was a "high chance" that he had begun engaging in illegal activity earlier than he initially disclosed—and that he had concealed those actions from the FBI.

As a result, Justice Department officials working the case began to have "serious concerns" with using the individual as a witness. They "assessed" that the individual "would not present as a good witness" and "did not want to rely on him at trial."

Because Justice Department officials could not trust this individual, they decided instead to pursue alternate charges against Mr. Mikerin that would not rely on his testimony.

During our briefing, Justice Department officials told us that it was a "godsend" that they had another avenue to charge Mr. Mikerin that relied on evidence other than this individual's testimony. Mr. Mikerin ultimately was sentenced to 48 months in prison in 2015 for money laundering and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Justice Department officials confirmed that they do not plan to use the testimony of this individual in any further prosecution.

Most importantly, Justice Department officials explained that this individual never provided any evidence or made any allegations regarding Secretary Clinton or the Clinton Foundation in any of their interactions with him.

They stated unequivocally: "at no point did [the individual] provide any allegation of corruption, illegality, or impropriety on Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, President Clinton, the Uranium One deal, or CFIUS." They also confirmed that there were "no allegations of impropriety or illegality" regarding Secretary Clinton in any of the documents they reviewed.

Finally, on December 11, 2017, senior officials from the FBI also conducted a joint briefing in a classified setting for both Democratic and Republican staff on the Oversight Committee and the Intelligence Committee. Under separate cover, we have requested that the FBI conduct a classification review of our summary of that meeting, and we await the FBI's response.

This key information from the Justice Department is directly at odds with the wild claims made by Republicans alleging that your informant would directly implicate Secretary Clinton by proving a Russian "quid pro quo" for orchestrating the unanimous decision in 2010 by all nine members agencies of CFIUS regarding Uranium One.

[Forty Two]

South Korea, literally within miles of the border with North Korea.
You can even see North Korea from South Korea.

[Forty Two]

[pErvinalia]

Let it go, bro.

[Forty Two]

[L'Emmerdeur]