![]() The problem with the Clinton allegations, critics say, is it conjures a cover-up from facts that have no proof of any connection. 17 that before the Obama administration approved the deal, the FBI dug up evidence of bribery, extortion, money laundering and kickbacks involving Russian nuclear officials. The politically focused newspaper reported on Oct. The revived rumours were stoked by an article in the Hill. Giustra sold his stake in Uranium One three years before the Russia deal. president Bill Clinton, centre, and Carlos Slim look on during a 2007 press conference. Recently, the president resurrected the myth.įrank Giustra, left, a Canadian businessman, speaks as former U.S. The Uranium One transaction nevertheless became a scary-sounding mainstay of Trump's campaign rallies last year. "That would probably be of much greater interest." That's because they don't have an export licence from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.Īsked why, in that case, Rosatom would want a controlling stake of Uranium One, Von Hippel pointed to the firm's mining rights in Kazakhstan, the world's top uranium producer, as well as in Canada. It's a completely bogus issue." Exporting uranium requires a licenceĮven if the Russians wanted to do something with the relatively small amounts of U.S.-produced uranium, they wouldn't be able to export any of it outside the U.S., anyway. It has nothing to do with national security. "So this whole thing," Von Hippel says, "it's just a political tempest in the teapot, as far as I'm concerned. By comparison, he estimates Canada accounts for more than 15 per cent. represents less than three per cent of global uranium production. Prominent nuclear policy analyst Frank Von Hippel, a former assistant national security director in the Clinton administration, says the U.S. Canadian entrepreneur's links to Clinton under scrutinyĬompared to uranium-mining powerhouses worldwide, though, the U.S.What's more, Clinton was, by all accounts, never directly involved in the foreign transfer of that company while she was secretary of state. In fact, Graham says, "the United States has no way to turn uranium into nuclear fuel for weapons." To begin with, the uranium was for commercial use in reactors. "You know what uranium is, right? It's this thing called nuclear weapons." "We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 per cent of the uranium in our country," he said in February. ![]() ![]() Trump described the Uranium One transaction quite differently. "The short answer is no, there's nothing particularly unusual about it," says Thomas Graham, a former national security adviser in Barack Obama's White House. It concerns what they consider an innocuous deal: The partial sale in 2010 of Uranium One - a Canadian company based in Toronto that happens to have mining rights in the U.S. (Rebecca Naden/Reuters)īut what Trump calls a "modern-age" Watergate - a conspiracy theory that Clinton accepted bribes in exchange for allowing Russia's nuclear agency to claim American uranium - is unfounded, Russia and nuclear experts say. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during an interview with Mariella Frostrup at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in Cheltenham, Britain October 15, 2017. ![]()
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