Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation are answering for a new scandal from a report by the New York Times . On the surface, the revelations seem scathing for the presidential contender — it connects her to Russia gaining control of a number of Uranium mines in the U.S. Still, the actual scandal part of the story might only come down to Clinton’s failure to disclose financial contributions. The story exposes the problems in electing someone with complicated finances and a new endless web of global connections, then again what politician doesn’t come with that baggage?
First, the facts from the New York Times .
According to the article, a number of contributions made their way to the Clinton Foundation, all while taking control of Canadian Uranium One, which ultimately gave them control of 20 percent of U.S. uranium deposits.
Those contributions were filtered through another family foundation, one owned by the chairman of Uranium One. They donations totaled millions of dollars, and were ultimately not disclosed.
“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.”
To make matters more unseemly, Hillary Clinton received a $500,000 speaking fee from an investment bank promoting Uranium One stock right before the Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom announced complete control of the company.
The Times goes on to say, “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.”
As previously reported by the Inquisitr , Rand Paul recently said some revelations from the Clinton Foundation would shortly pose a real problem for Hillary’s campaign. This might be what he was talking about, but it’s far from the campaign-ending scandal Republicans are hoping for.
First of all, there’s no proof of corruption.
Sure, the Department of State approved the deal, but so did a number of other departments and agencies, all of which could have issued red flags. And ultimately, responsibility sat with the White House and its new push for cordial relations with Russia (the deals took place during the “reset” policy with Russia).
Hillary Clinton’s campaign spokesman, Brian Fallon, told the Times there isn’t a “shred of evidence” the presidential hopeful used her authority to help Clinton Foundation donors. Likewise, he called the allegation that Clinton and the State Department had undue influence over the process “utterly baseless.”
Ultimately, the scandal will come down to disclosure.
Clinton voluntarily agreed to disclose all donations publicly to avoid conflict of interest allegations, like this one, and she broke that agreement.
Why did she feel it was necessary to keep it a secret? Why was the chairman of Uranium One so interested in Clinton Foundation causes, right as it was trying to get over American regulatory issues?
Those are questions Republican candidates will likely ask for the next two years, but they’ll never receive satisfactory answers.
At the heart of the issue is a more fundamental question about Hillary’s candidacy, is Clinton too much of an insider to govern for the American people without bias?
Politico and the Washington Post have already run posts on her connections to Wall Street bankers, and Rand Paul is now saying the Clinton Foundation should return contributions from Saudi Arabia according to CNN .
Then, of course, there’s Bill Clinton.
All those connections might either be a strength or weakness, come 2016, Hillary Clinton and the American people will find out which it is.
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