Peter Schweizer's Blog

“Hillary Clinton’s State Department was part of a panel that approved the sale of one of America’s largest uranium mines at the same time a foundation controlled by the seller’s chairman was making donations to a Clinton family charity, records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show.

The $610 million sale of 51% of Uranium One to a unit of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear agency, was approved in 2010 by a U.S. federal committee that assesses the security implications of foreign investments. The State Department, which Mrs. Clinton then ran, is one of its members.

Between 2008 and 2012, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, a project of the Clinton Foundation, received $2.35 million from the Fernwood Foundation, a family charity run by Ian Telfer, chairman of Uranium One before its sale, according to Canada Revenue Agency records.

The donations were first reported in “Clinton Cash,” a new book by Peter Schweizer, an editor-at-large at a conservative news website, about the financial dealings of Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. A copy of the book, set to be released next month, was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The book is to be published by HarperCollins, a division of News Corp., which also publishes the Journal.

The book adds fresh details to previous reporting by the Journal and others about potential conflicts between Mrs. Clinton’s private charitable work and her public activities as secretary of state. ”

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“The Post analysis also revealed aspects of Bill Clinton’s paid speaking career during Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department that were not clear from her public filings.

Those included:

●  The role played by dozens of companies and organizations, some of them associated with foreign governments or with interests before the U.S. government, in serving as secondary hosts for a number of the speeches. In her filings, Hillary Clinton typically disclosed only the primary sponsor of each speech.

One such “sub-sponsor” was Boeing, a major government contractor whose interests Hillary Clinton promoted in her official duties at the State Department.

●  Four speeches delivered by Bill Clinton did not appear in Hillary Clinton’s filings. One such speech was a 2012 address to an annual meeting of the Carlyle Group, a politically connected private-equity firm.

A spokesman for Bill Clinton’s office said the former president at times spoke to benefit the foundation, which would not trigger a disclosure requirement for Hillary Clinton. None of the four speech sponsors are listed as foundation donors. The spokesman said the proceeds were classified as non-tax-deductible revenue — not donations.

The Clintons’ finances have already become a political flash point with the much-anticipated release next month of a new book examining the foundation and the family’s personal wealth. The Clinton campaign has dismissed “Clinton Cash,” written by conservative author Peter Schweizer, as a partisan attack.

The Post received a copy of the manuscript after signing a non-disclosure agreement with publisher HarperCollins.”

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“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. 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, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

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.

At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.

The New York Times’s examination of the Uranium One deal is based on dozens of interviews, as well as a review of public records and securities filings in Canada, Russia and the United States. Some of the connections between Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation were unearthed by Peter Schweizer, a former fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and author of the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash.” Mr. Schweitzer provided a preview of material in the book to The Times, which scrutinized his information and built upon it with its own reporting.”

“The book does not hit shelves until May 5, but already the Republican Rand Paul has called its findings “big news” that will “shock people” and make voters “question” the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer — a 186-page investigation of donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities — is proving the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.

The book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return.

“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” Mr. Schweizer writes.”

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“As Hillary Clinton moves toward a second run for the White House, her family’s global charitable work, mostly through the Clinton Foundation, has come under intense scrutiny. The foundation has accepted large donations from corporations and foreign countries, raising concerns that the Clintons are creating conflicts of interest by blurring the lines between their political, business and charitable interests. Two farmers water plants in the Acceso farm, near Mirebalais. The Acceso Peanut Enterprise Corp. was started with a $1.25 million grant from the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership…

Controversy surrounding the Clintons only deepened with the recent revelation, contained in an upcoming book by Peter Schweizer, that Tony Rodham — Hillary Clinton’s younger brother — serves on the advisory board of a U.S.-based company that in 2012 won one of Haiti’s first two gold-mining permits in 50 years. After objection from the Haitian senate, the permits have been placed on hold.”

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“Drive down the rutted dirt road a couple of miles to the guardhouse, then hike 15 minutes up to the overgrown hilltop, and there it is: a piece of 3 1/2 -inch-wide PVC pipe sticking out of the ground.

This is what, at least for the time being, a gold mine looks like.

It also has become a potentially problematic issue for Hillary Rodham Clinton as she considers a second presidential run, after it was revealed this month that in 2013, one of her brothers was added to the advisory board of the company that owns the mine.

Tony Rodham’s involvement with the mine, which has become a source of controversy in Haiti because of concern about potential environmental damage and the belief that the project will primarily benefit foreign investors, was first revealed in publicity about an upcoming book on the Clintons by author Peter Schweizer.

In interviews with The Washington Post, both Rodham and the chief executive of Delaware-based VCS Mining said they were introduced at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative — an offshoot of the Clinton Foundation that critics have long alleged invites a blurring of its charitable mission with the business interests of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their corporate donors.

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“COMING ATTRACTIONS – Release: “Harper [on May] will publish ‘Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,’ by … Peter Schweizer [president of the Government Accountability Institute, and author of ‘Throw Them All Out’] … ‘Clinton Cash’ reveals how the Clintons went from ‘dead broke’ on leaving the White House to being millionaires, describing in detail the way in which the Clintons habitually blur the lines between politics, philanthropy, and business.”

To Read the Full Press Release, Click Here.

“COMING ATTRACTIONS – Release: “Harper [on May] will publish ‘Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,’ by … Peter Schweizer [president of the Government Accountability Institute, and author of ‘Throw Them All Out’] … ‘Clinton Cash’ reveals how the Clintons went from ‘dead broke’ on leaving the White House to being millionaires, describing in detail the way in which the Clintons habitually blur the lines between politics, philanthropy, and business.”

To Read the Full Press Release, Click Here.

“An unusual nexus of mining interests, relief work in Haiti, and a former U.S. first family is raising new ethics questions that could affect Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions.

Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, was a board member of a North Carolina mining company that enjoyed prime access to Haitian gold deposits in the wake of post-earthquake relief work organized in part by former president Bill Clinton through the Clinton Foundation.

Another board member of the firm, VCS Mining, was former Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, who co-chaired the charitable Interim Haiti Recovery Commission with Mr. Clinton.

The revelation, smacking of cronyism and back-room government dealing, is part of a forthcoming book by Government Accountability Institute founder Peter Schweizer, whose work exposing the investment ‘insider trading’ habits of members of Congress caused national outrage in 2011 even though the practice was legal.”

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“Hillary Rodham Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, sat on the board of a self-described mining company that in 2012 received one of only two “gold exploitation permits” from the Haitian government—the first issued in over 50 years…

The Rodham gold mine revelation is just one of dozens featured in a forthcoming bombshell investigative book by three-time New York Times bestselling author Peter Schweizer, according to a Thursday statement from publishing giant HarperCollins. The publisher says the book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, is the culmination of an exhaustive one-year deep dive investigation into the nexus between the Clintons’ $100+ million personal wealth, the Clinton Foundation, and the decisions Hillary made as Secretary of State that benefited foreign donors, governments, and companies.”

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