ACLJ Demands Documents on the Obama Administration’s Uranium One Nuclear Debacle

In 2010, the Obama administration approved the sale of a controlling stake in Uranium One, and with it, control over 20% of America’s uranium production capacity, to Rosatom, an energy conglomerate owned and controlled by the Russian government. The Russians obtained total control of Uranium One by 2013, and by extension control over a large portion of America’s strategic nuclear resources.

This approval was granted by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS). 

This week, we sent legal demands to multiple agencies involved in that process to expose what the Obama Administration knew when they approved the controversial transfer in light of the fact that:

1. the FBI was investigating bribes, kickbacks and racketeering by the Russian conglomerate’s American subsidiary calculated to compromise contractors in the American nuclear energy industry and the Attorney General’s representative sat on the CFIUS;
2. Russian nuclear officials had reportedly given $145 million to Clinton Foundation and then-Secretary Clinton’s representative sat on the CFIUS; and,
3. then-Secretary Clinton’s husband received $500,000 from the Russian government for a speech in Moscow.

Let’s break this down. First, the Obama Administration approved a deal that transferred 20 percent of American uranium production capacity to a Russian-owned energy conglomeration. That in and of itself is disturbing. What’s more, prior to the approval of that deal, the FBI had collected “substantial evidence” that the Russian nuclear industry, operated by the Russian government, “had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.”  The head of the FBI’s leading agency, the Department of Justice, sat on the CFIUS and apparently voted to approve the deal.

Also, according to reports, the FBI “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.”

That’s right. Hillary Clinton, as then-Secretary of State, sat on the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS), which approved the transfer of a controlling interest in Uranium One to Russian state-owned ARMZ – a wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom.

According to the New York Times, that “deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.” The New York Times went on to report:

[T]he untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation.

Newsweek reports the number of dollars given to the Clinton Foundation by “those linked to Uranium One or UrAsia,” another company involved in the series of transactions at issue, was $145 million.

If those ties to Russian’s nuclear powers weren’t enough, the National Review reports:

In March 2010, to push the Obama “reset” agenda, Secretary Clinton traveled to Russia, where she met with Putin and Dimitri Medvedev . . . . Soon after, it emerged that Renaissance Capital, a regime-tied Russian bank, had offered Bill Clinton $500,000 to make a single speech — far more than the former president’s usual haul in what would become one of his biggest paydays ever. Renaissance was an aggressive promoter of Rosatom. The Clinton speech took place in Moscow in June.

And the story gets even more disturbing. According to current reports, “at the time the administration approved the transfer, it knew that Rosatom’s American subsidiary [Tenam USA] was engaged in a lucrative racketeering enterprise that had already committed felony extortion, fraud, and money-laundering offenses” as part of a concerted effort to “compromise[] the American companies that paid the bribes, rendering players in U.S. nuclear energy — a sector critical to national security — vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow.”

What isn’t clear from reports is just how much information about the Russian nuclear corruption was provided by the FBI/DOJ to members of the CFIUS. It’s also concerning, yet unclear, why Russian nuclear officials were allowed to route millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation while then-Secretary of State Clinton was sitting on the Committee that then approved a transaction that gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States.  

This is why we’ve sent new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Department of the Treasury, the Department of State, the Department of Justice and its National Security Division, and the FBI.

In our FOIA requests, we demanded:

All records, communications or briefings created, generated, forwarded, transmitted, sent, shared, saved, received, or reviewed by any DOJ official from any other DOJ official or employee referencing or regarding in any way Uranium One, UrAsia, Rosatom, Tenex, Tenam USA, Vidim Mikarin or Frank Giustra, an FBI investigation of Vidim Mikarin, or the issue of whether the CFIUS should, would or did approve the transfer of control in October 2010, CFIUS case no. 10-40 . . . .

All records, communications or briefings created, generated, forwarded, transmitted, sent, shared, saved, received, or reviewed by any DOJ official from any other agency official or employee referencing or regarding in any way Uranium One, UrAsia, Rosatom, Tenex, Tenam USA, Vidim Mikarin or Frank Giustra, an FBI investigation of Vidim Mikarin, or the issue of whether the CFIUS should, would or did approve the transfer of control in October 2010, CFIUS case no. 10-40 . . . .

And:

All records, communications or briefings created, generated, forwarded, transmitted, sent, shared, saved, received, or reviewed by any DOJ official from any non-U.S. government person or entity referencing or regarding in any way Uranium One, UrAsia, Rosatom, Tenex, Tenam USA, Vidim Mikarin or Frank Giustra, an FBI investigation of Vidim Mikarin, or the issue of whether the CFIUS should, would or did approve the transfer of control in October 2010, CFIUS case no. 10-4 . . . .

The American public deserves to know why the previous Administration approved a deal that gave corrupt Russian nuclear powers control over so much of America’s uranium production.