A social worker is facing felony charges after she was caught taking bribes to stay silent from a mother who tortured her 5-year-old son to death and then buried his body in the backyard.
The post Child Services Caught Taking Bribes to Look the Other Way As Mom Tortured 5yo Boy to Death appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
The Department of Justice unsealed an 11-count indictment on Friday to a former DoD intelligence analyst-turned uranium transportation executive who stands accused of a bribery and money laundering scheme involving a Russian nuclear official connected to the Uranium One deal.
The indictment corroborates a November report by The Hill that an FBI mole deeply embedded in the Russian uranium industry had gathered extensive evidence of the scheme.
Mark Lambert, 54, of Mount Airy, Maryland, was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and to commit wire fraud, seven counts of violating the FCPA, two counts of wire fraud and one count of international promotion money laundering.
The charges stem from an alleged scheme to bribe Vadim Mikerin, a Russian official at JSC Techsnabexport (TENEX), a subsidiary of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation and the sole supplier and exporter of Russian Federation uranium and uranium enrichment services to nuclear power companies worldwide, in order to secure contracts with TENEX.
According to the indictment, beginning at least as early as 2009 and continuing until October 2014, Lambert conspired with others at “Transportation Corporation A” to make corrupt and fraudulent bribery and kickback payments to offshore bank accounts associated with shell companies, at the direction of, and for the benefit of, a Russian official, Vadim Mikerin, in order to secure improper business advantages and obtain and retain business with TENEX. –DOJ
While the indictment lists Lambert’s company as “Transportation Corporation A,” a simple search reveals that Lambert is the co-President of DAHER-TLI, “the leading front end freight forwarding company dedicated to Nuclear Cargo,” according to its website.
In 2012, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a letter to Lambert with findings that TLI had exported plutonium “in excess of the maximum quantity and type applied for and licensed,” and “exported Australian obligated material, which was not authorized under license conditions.”
Prior to his 26 year tenure in the transportation industry – 20 of which have been with TLI, Mr. Lambert was an Arabic Linguist for the Navy for five years, and a Senior Intel Analyst for the Department of Defense (DoD) for three years.
Lambert also speaks fluent Arabic and Farsi (Persian), along with French and Italian.
The indictment against Lambert corroborates prior reporting by The Hill that an FBI mole buried deep within the Russian nuclear industry had gathered extensive evidence of a scheme involving bribes and kickbacks between Russian nuclear officials and TLI – which would have transported the U.S. uranium sold to Russia in the ’20 percent’ Uranium One deal.
“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials.”
Based on what the FBI knew – including evidence which purportedly includes a video of Russians preparing briefcases of bribe money – the Uranium One deal never should have gone through. Moreover, both Robert Mueller and current deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were directly involved – and current Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other Justice Department officials appear to be covering for them.
In short, the FBI had ample evidence of the Russian bribery plot before the Obama administration approved the Uranium One deal thanks to their embedded mole in the Russian nuclear industry.
The informant – outed as energy consultant William Campbell – was “threatened” by Obama admin AG Loretta Lynch to keep quiet with an iron-clad gag order, according to his attorney – former Reagan Justice Dept. official and former Chief Counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee Victoria Toensing. After Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-VA) demanded Campbell be allowed to testify in front of Congress, the gag order was lifted.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions originally tried to claim that there was no connection between Uranium One and the nuclear transport bribery case, however several congressional republicans pushed back:
“Attorney General Sessions seemed to say that the bribery, racketeering and money laundering offenses involving Tenex’s Vadim Mikerin occurred after the approval of the Uranium One deal by the Obama administration. But we know that the FBI’s confidential informant was actively compiling incriminating evidence as far back as 2009,” Rep. Ron DeSantis, (R-Fla.) told The Hill.
“It is hard to fathom how such a transaction could have been approved without the existence of the underlying corruption being disclosed. I hope AG Sessions gets briefed about the CI and gives the Uranium One case the scrutiny it deserves,” added DeSantis, whose House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittees is one of the investigating panels.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a similar rebuke last week to Rosenstein, saying the deputy attorney general’s first response to the committee “largely missed the point” of the congressional investigations.
“The essential question is whether the Obama Justice Department provided notice of the criminal activity of certain officials before the CFIUS approval of the Uranium One deal and other government decisions that enabled the Russians to trade nuclear materials in the U.S,” Grassley scolded.”
Meanwhile, journalists John Solomon and journalist Sara Carter claim to have copies of the FBI informant’s evidence, while Carter issued an explosive report in late November laying out the players, the timeline, and the evidence at hand.
“By the time the sale of Uranium One was approved by the Obama Administration, the FBI’s investigators had already gathered substantial evidence and the bureau was also aware of Russia’s intentions to enter the U.S. energy market and its desire to purchase a stake in American uranium,” Carter writes.
Highlights:
“This is not just about bribery and kickbacks but about a U.S. company that was transporting yellow-cake for the Russians with our approval,” an unnamed U.S. Intelligence official told Carter, adding “This should raise serious questions. At the time everyone was concerned about Russia’s ties to Iran, we still are. And of course, Russia’s intentions and reach into the U.S. energy market.”
Given Friday’s unsealed indictment, however it looks like the DOJ may have changed their tune on Campbell. If so, perhaps that “briefcase full of bribe money” video will finally see the light of day.
Submitted by iBankCoin.com
The informant, whose identity was revealed by Reuters as William D. Campbell, will testify before congress next week after the NDA which carried the threat of prison time was lifted. Campbell, originally misidentifed by Reuters as a lobbyist is actually a nuclear industry consultant who is currently battling cancer.
As previously reported, Campbell was deeply embedded in the Russian nuclear industry where he gathered extensive evidence of a racketeering scheme involving bribes and kickbacks.
“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials. –The Hill
Campbell’s attorney, former Regan Justice Department official Victoria Toensing, previously told Fox Business host Lou Dobbs “He can tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made.”
Sara Carter and John Solomon sat down with Fox News host Sean Hannity to discuss:
Sarah Carter: He’s very sick and he’s been battling cancer and going chemo. He is in a battle for not only his life, but in a battle against what he perceives as people within the US government that don’t want this story to come out. But there’s so much information that he is willing to share with the public to set the record straight, and believe me we’re gonna get it out there. He is going to have his say. His voice will be heard.
Hannity: He knew about the bribery, kickbacks, extortion of Putin’s agents in the US?
Sara Carter: Yes, and he will be able to lay that all out for everyone, and he will do that for Congress. John and I have been working on this for months and months and months. He came to the [Obama] DOJ with this information.
John Solomon: He is going to be an extraordinary fact witness because he gathered so much information. There are videotapes where the Russians are opening up briefcases full of cash. These are the people we then gave uranium to, that we then gave nuclear fuel contracts to.
Hannity: This is happening before they sign off on Uranium One? They knew about bribery extortion kickbacks money laundering before? They knew this was Putin and they did it anyway!
John Solomon: Yes. The Russians really thought they had played America on this one.
Watch:
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Update (8:40 pm ET): The FBI informant who helped the Justice Department secure a conviction against the top official from the US subsidiary of Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy agency, but was blocked by the Obama Justice Department from testifying about Russian efforts to bribe and extort their way into possession of North American uranium assets – a process which was cleared by both Hillary Clinton’s State Department and Robert Mueller’s FBI – has as of moments ago been cleared to testify, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday evening.
#breaking : DOJ allows FBI informant to provide information to Congress on alleged corruption or bribery in transactions for #UraniumOne
— Brooke Singman (@brookefoxnews) October 26, 2017
The informant, who has yet to be named – perhaps out of concerns about his or her life – is being represented by Victoria Toensing, a former Reagan Justice Department official and former chief counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Toensing joined Grassley in urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Uranium One deal, which was approved in 2011 by a committee on which former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat. Around the time the deal was approved, Bill Clinton received a $500,000 speaking fee from a bank with ties to the Russian government, as well as millions more in “charitable contributions” to the Clinton Foundation from entities with ties to the Russian government. Russia’s Tenex nuclear sales arm also secured billions in new American nuclear fuel contracts around the same time.
The Obama administration said at the time they saw no national security reasons to block the deals, one of which gave Vladimir Putin control of 20 percent of America’s uranium stockpile. But last week a series of stories published in The Hill disclosed that before those decisions were made, the FBI had gathered extensive evidence that Vadim Mikerin. Tenex’s chief executive inside the United States, was directing a massive bribery scheme that compromised an American trucking company that shipped uranium for Russia.
The evidence was first gathered in 2009 but charges weren’t brought until 2014. Mikerin pled guilt a year later to a money laundering charge and is currently in prison.
But key members of Congress said they weren’t alerted to the case at the time and are now deeply concerned the Obama administration had a good security reason not to approve the deals given the corruption was uncovered.
Now, finally, we are about to hear the full story.
* * *
“This cries out for a special counsel,” Toensing said on Fox News’ “Hannity” Tuesday night. “Congressional committees are fine, but this is a criminal investigation and Jeff Sessions isn’t ever going to feel comfortable appointing that, and Rod Rosenstein is recused because he was the U.S. attorney.”
Toensing added that while Sessions can technically appoint a special counsel, he likely was “not going to be comfortable doing it.”
“He ought to get somebody in here and get this off their hands,” Toensing said.
According to the Hill, Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores confirmed the informant had been cleared to speak with Congress for the first time, nearly eight years after he first went undercover for the FBI. Two House committees, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee, are investigating the deal. And the informant will now probably testify before one, or perhaps all, of the committees.
.@ChuckGrassley & FBI informant"s attorney Victoria Toensing called for special counsel to investigate #UraniumOne https://t.co/HJxf4BU6cA https://t.co/TFmRMjHWqo
— Brooke Singman (@brookefoxnews) October 26, 2017
“As of tonight, the Department of Justice has authorized the informant to disclose to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as one member of each of their staffs, any information or documents he has concerning alleged corruption or bribery involving transactions in the uranium market, including but not limited to anything related to Vadim Mikerin, Rosatom, Tenex, Uranium One, or the Clinton Foundation,” she said.
Earlier, Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., threatened to use his subpoena power to get access to the informant, who had signed an NDA with the FBI and was unable to speak publicly about Uranium One.
NY Rep. Peter King during an appearance on Fox News accused the FBI of stonewalling Congress.
Rep. Pete King: "Very suspicious" that FBI is stonewalling on Trump-dossier investigation. pic.twitter.com/pX2ex31uda
— Wired Sources (@WiredSources) October 26, 2017
The committees are keen to learn what the informant knows about any Russian efforts to curry favor with Bill and Hillary Clinton, to win Obama administration approval for Moscow’s purchase of large uranium assets in the United States or to secure billions in new contracts uranium sales contracts with American utilities.
“The FBI has informed me that they are releasing my client from his NDA so that he can testify to Congress about his work uncovering the Russian nuclear bribery case and the efforts he witnessed by Moscow to gain influence with the Clintons in hopes of winning favorable uranium decisions from the Obama administration,” Toensing said.
“He is now able and willing to talk with the confessional committees seeking his testimony though I will be working with all parties to ensure his identity remains confidential to ensure his safety,” she added.
* * *
Hillary Clinton is back in the crosshairs of Congressional investigators after two House committees launched investigations into the circumstances surrounding the Obama-era Uranium One deal more than a year after suspicions of a quid-pro-quo were first raised by Peter Schweizer in his infamous “Clinton Cash” expose.
The Hill breathed new life into those allegations last week when it reported on an FBI investigation into attempts by Russian nuclear industry officials at the US-based subsidiary of Rosatom (the Russian nuclear agency) to bribe and extort their way into control of Canada-based Uranium One – and by extension, the 20% of US uranium assets it controls.
And now that the Uranium One story has found its way back into mainstream consciousness, Chuck Grassley, the widely respected head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is calling for the DOJ to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the deal. The thinking is, presumably, if Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein felt comfortable appointing a prosecutor to dig into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, he should be equally comfortable appointing a prosecutor to investigate these serious allegations from the Obama era. “Whoever in DOJ is capable” of launching an investigation into Uranium One should go ahead and do so, Grassley tweeted.
Whoever in DOJ is capable w authority to appoint a special counsel shld do so to investigate Uranium One "whoever" means if u aren"t recused
— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) October 25, 2017
Earlier this month, Grassley’s committee became the first to launch a probe into the Uranium One deal. Last night, it was joined by two House committees after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said House Intel and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committees would be seeking to learn whether there was in fact an official FBI investigation into the Uranium One deal, and if so, why Congress wasn’t informed.
In addition, the chairmen of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees yesterday announced a joint investigation into the FBI’s handling of a probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server after emails showed earlier this month that former FBI Director James Comey drafted a letter exonerating Clinton before the investigation had been officially completed.
Looking ahead, we wonder if Grassley will be joined by Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on Grassley’s committee who has previously expressed support for an investigation into Clinton’s campaign-era conduct (specifically whether the Clinton’s improperly colluded with former AG Loretta Lynch) or perhaps some other Democrat.
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
If President Trump or anyone even remotely close to his presidency, including his best friend from 2nd grade that he hadn’t seen in 40 years, sought to meet with key Russian nuclear officials in Moscow just months before the federal government approved a very controversial deal handing Vladimir Putin 20% of U.S. uranium reserves, despite an ongoing investigation into Russian fraud, bribery, extortion and money laundering, it would be the only story played on a 24 x 7 loop on CNN and MSNBC.
Ironically, that is exactly what new emails dug up by The Hill show that Bill Clinton did in June 2010, just months before the Uranium One deal was approved by a committee on which his wife, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sat. Oh, and did we mention that Bill’s Clinton Foundation just happened to collect millions of dollars in bribes donations from Russian sources and Uranium One shareholders shortly after his Moscow meetings?
As you will recall, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), approved the Uranium One transaction in October 2010. According to new emails revealed by The Hill, just months before that approval, Bill Clinton sought permission from the State Department, run by his wife at the time, to meet Arkady Dvorkovich, a top aide to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and one of the highest-ranking government officials to serve on Rosatom’s board of supervisors, the company which was ultimately approved to purchase Uranium One.
As he prepared to collect a $500,000 payday in Moscow in 2010, Bill Clinton sought clearance from the State Department to meet with a key board director of the Russian nuclear energy firm Rosatom — which at the time needed the Obama administration’s approval for a controversial uranium deal, government records show.
Arkady Dvorkovich, a top aide to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and one of the highest-ranking government officials to serve on Rosatom’s board of supervisors, was listed on a May 14, 2010, email as one of 15 Russians the former president wanted to meet during a late June 2010 trip, the documents show.
“In the context of a possible trip to Russia at the end of June, WJC is being asked to see the business/government folks below. Would State have concerns about WJC seeing any of these folks,” Clinton Foundation foreign policy adviser Amitabh Desai wrote the State Department on May 14, 2010, using the former president’s initials and forwarding the list of names to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s team.
While we apparently still don’t know whether Bill Clinton was ultimately approved to hold those meetings, his team did confirm that he met with Vladimir Putin at his private residence.
Meanwhile, The Hill revealed yet another facet to the story from a “close associate of Bill Clinton” who says that his trip to Russia may have been as much about helping family members “grow investments in their business with Russian oligarchs and other businesses,” businesses in which we’re sure Bill and Hillary just happened to have a stake, as it was about trading American uranium reserves for Clinton Foundation donations.
A close associate of Bill Clinton who was directly involved in the Moscow trip and spoke on condition of anonymity, described to The Hill the circumstances surrounding how Bill Clinton landed a $500,000 speaking gig in Russia and then came up with the list of Russians he wanted to meet.
The friend said Hillary Clinton had just returned in late March 2010 from an official trip to Moscow where she met with both Putin and Medvedev. The president’s speaker’s bureau had just received an offer from Renaissance Capital to pay the former president $500,000 for a single speech in Russia.
Documents show Bill Clinton’s personal lawyer on April 5, 2010, sent a conflict of interest review to the State Department asking for permission to give the speech in late June, and it was approved two days later.
The Clinton friend said the former president’s office then began assembling a list of requests to meet with Russian business and government executives whom he could meet on the trip. One of the goals of the trip was to try to help a Clinton family relative “grow investments in their business with Russian oligarchs and other businesses,” the friend told The Hill.
“It was one of the untold stories of the Russia trip. People have focused on Uranium One and the speaking fees, but opening up a business spigot for the family business was one only us insiders knew about,” the friend said.
“We knew of some sort of transactions in which the Clintons received funds and Russia received approvals, and the question has always been how and if those two events are connected,” he said. “I think this provides further evidence the two may be connected.”
Of course, Hillary contends that this entire story is a “big nothing-burger” and that everyone should promptly return their focus to the $100,000 worth of Facebook ads that destroyed her campaign and the entire American democratic process…
Aides to the ex-president, Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation said Bill Clinton did not have any conversations about Rosatom or the Uranium One deal while in Russia, and that no one connected to the deal was involved in the trip. A spokesman for Secretary Clinton said Thursday the continued focus on the Uranium One deal smacked of partisan politics aimed at benefiting Donald Trump.
“At every turn this storyline has been debunked on the merits. Its roots are with a project shepherded by Steve Bannon, which should tell you all you need to know,” said Nick Merrill. “This latest iteration is simply more of the right doing Trump’s bidding for him to distract from his own Russia problems, which are real and a grave threat to our national security.” Current and former Clinton aides told The Hill that the list of proposed business executives the former president planned to meet raised some sensitivities after Bill Clinton’s speaker bureau got the invite for the lucrative speech.
…and we’re confident CNN wholeheartedly agrees.
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
While the mainstream media has largely ignored it, the scandal surrounding Russian efforts to acquire 20% of America’s uranium reserves, a deal which was ultimately approved by the Obama administration, and more specifically the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which included Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder, is becoming more problematic for Democrats by the hour.
As The Hill pointed out earlier this morning, the latest development in this sordid tale revolves around a man that the FBI used as an informant back in 2009 and beyond to build a case against a Russian perpetrator who ultimately admitted to bribery, extortion and money laundering. The informant, who is so far only known as “Confidential Source 1,” says that when he attempted to come forward last year with information that linked the Clinton Foundation directly to the scandal he was promptly silenced by the FBI and the Obama administration.
Working as a confidential witness, the businessman made kickback payments to the Russians with the approval of his FBI handlers and gathered other evidence, the records show.
Sources told The Hill the informant’s work was crucial to the government’s ability to crack a multimillion dollar racketeering scheme by Russian nuclear officials on U.S. soil that involved bribery, kickbacks, money laundering and extortion. In the end, the main Russian executive sent to the U.S. to expand Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear business, an executive of an American trucking firm and a Russian financier from New Jersey pled guilty to various crimes in a case that started in 2009 and ended in late 2015.
Toensing added her client has had contact from multiple congressional committees seeking information about what he witnessed inside the Russian nuclear industry and has been unable to provide that information because of the NDA.
“He can’t disclose anything that he came upon in the course of his work,” she said.
The information the client possesses includes specific allegations that Russian executives made to him about how they facilitated the Obama administration’s 2010 approval of the Uranium One deal and sent millions of dollars in Russian nuclear funds to the U.S. to an entity assisting Bill Clinton’s foundation. At the time, Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary of State on the government panel that approved the deal, the lawyer said.
It has been previously reported that Bill Clinton accepted $500,000 in Russian speaking fees in 2010 and collected millions more in donations for his foundation from parties with a stake in the Uranium One deal, transactions that both the Clintons and the Obama administration denied had any influence on the approval.
In the midst of the new discoveries revealed yesterday about the Uranium One case (see: FBI Uncovered Russian Bribery Plot Before Obama Approved Uranium One Deal, Netting Clintons Millions), “Confidential Source 1” has once again hired an attorney, Victoria Toensing, a former Reagan Justice Department official and former chief counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to get his story out.
Sitting down with The Hill earlier, Toensing said that the last time her client tried to speak out “both his reputation and liberty” were “threatened” by the Obama administration in a effort to force his silence.
“All of the information about this corruption has not come out,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “And so my client, the same part of my client that made him go into the FBI in the first place, says, ‘This is wrong. What should I do about it?’”
Toensing said she also possesses memos that recount how the Justice Department last year threatened her client when he attempted to file a lawsuit that could have drawn attention to the Russian corruption during the 2016 presidential race as well as helped him recover some of the money Russians stole from him through kickbacks during the FBI probe.
The undercover client witnessed “a lot of bribery going on around the U.S.” but was asked by the FBI to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that prevents him from revealing what he knows to Congress, Toensing explained.
When he tried to bring some of the allegations to light in the lawsuit last year, “the Obama Justice Department threatened him with loss of freedom. They said they would bring a criminal case against him for violating an NDA,” she added.
Emails obtained by The Hill show that a civil attorney working with the former undercover witness described the pressure the Justice Department exerted to keep the client from disclosing to a federal court what he knew last summer.
“The government was taking a very harsh position that threatened both your reputation and liberty,” the civil lawyer wrote in one email. In another, she added, “As you will recall the gov’t made serious threats sufficient to cause you to withdraw your civil complaint.”
As we pointed out last summer when Peter Schweizer first released his feature documentary Clinton Cash, the Uranium One deal at the center of this scandal is believed to have netted the Clintons and their Clinton Foundation millions of dollars in donations and ‘speaking fees’ from Uranium One shareholders and other Russian entities.
Russian Purchase of US Uranium Assets in Return for $145mm in Contributions to the Clinton Foundation – Bill and Hillary Clinton assisted a Canadian financier, Frank Giustra, and his company, Uranium One, in the acquisition of uranium mining concessions in Kazakhstan and the United States. Subsequently, the Russian government sought to purchase Uranium One but required approval from the Obama administration given the strategic importance of the uranium assets. In the run-up to the approval of the deal by the State Department, nine shareholders of Uranium One just happened to make $145mm in donations to the Clinton Foundation. Moreover, the New Yorker confirmed that Bill Clinton received $500,000 in speaking fees from a Russian investment bank, with ties to the Kremlin, around the same time. Needless to say, the State Department approved the deal giving Russia ownership of 20% of U.S. uranium assets.
Meanwhile, the ‘journalists’ over at CNN are still trying to get to the bottom of exactly who spent the $100,000 on Facebook ads…
Barack Obama’s bribery plot with the Russian government has been uncovered by the FBI. Right before this bribery occurred, Obama approved a very controversial nuclear deal with Moscow that will turn the “Russian meddling” narrative on its head.
According to government documents and interviews, before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion, and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States.
Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.
They also 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, sources told The Hill.
This massive racketeering scheme was conducted “with the consent of higher level officials” in Russia who “shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks, one agent declared in an affidavit years later.
Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued investigating the matter for nearly four more years, essentially leaving the American public and Congress in the dark about Russian nuclear corruption on U.S. soil during a period when the Obama administration made two major decisions benefitting Putin’s commercial nuclear ambitions.
The first decision occurred in October 2010, when the State Department and government agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the partial sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, giving Moscow control of more than 20 percent of America’s uranium supply. –The Hill
This scandal was hidden from the American public until Donald Trump threw it in Hillary Clinton’s face during the presidential campaign last year. But because Hillary Clinton was neck deep in this scandal, the mainstream media tried desperately to cover it up and bury it alive, largely succeeding.
Former Representative Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee during the time the FBI probe was being conducted, told The Hill that he had never been told anything about the Russian nuclear corruption case even though many fellow lawmakers had serious concerns about the Obama administration’s approval of the Uranium One deal. “Not providing information on a corruption scheme before the Russian uranium deal was approved by U.S. regulators and engage appropriate congressional committees has served to undermine U.S. national security interests by the very people charged with protecting them,” he said. “The Russian efforts to manipulate our American political enterprise is breathtaking.”
All this happened on Barack Obama’s watch though, and it didn’t seem to be a problem as the media refused to cover this story. What’s even more astounding, are the connections with the current “Russian hacking” narrative that the media refuses to stop covering even though there is not one shred of evidence that Russia meddled with the election or changed the outcome.
The probe into Vadim Mikerin, the main Russian overseeing Putin’s nuclear expansion inside the United States, began in 2009 when Robert Mueller, now the special counsel in charge of the Trump case of “Russian election meddling”, was still FBI director. And it ended in late 2015 under the direction of then-FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired earlier this year.
Mikerin was a director of Rosatom’s Tenex in Moscow since the early 2000s, where he oversaw Rosatom’s nuclear collaboration with the United States under the Megatons to Megawatts program and it’s commercial uranium sales to other countries. In 2010, Mikerin was dispatched to the U.S. on a work visa approved by the Obama administration to open Rosatom’s new American arm called Tenam.
As part of the scheme, Mikerin, with the consent of higher level officials at TENEX and Rosatom (both Russian state-owned entities) would offer no-bid contracts to US businesses in exchange for kickbacks in the form of money payments made to some offshore banks accounts,” Agent David Garden testified.
“Mikerin apparently then shared the proceeds with other co-conspirators associated with TENEX in Russia and elsewhere,” the agent added.
The investigation was ultimately supervised by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointee who now serves as President Trump’s deputy attorney general, and then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, now the deputy FBI director under Trump, Justice Department documents show. –The Hill
Evidenceless media propaganda attempts continue as they try to convince the public that Russia wanted Donald Trump to succeed over Hillary Clinton. But based on this scandal alone, why would Russians even consider Trump as an ally when Hillary and Obama were colluding with them for financial gain early on during Obama’s first term?
We now know who is really guilty of “colluding with the Russians.”
Netanyahu has avoided prosecution on earlier dubious activities. Whether his checkered past caught up with him remains to be seen.
His highest of high crimes are never mentioned, including partnering in US wars of aggression, waging his own, along with daily persecution of Palestinians, flagrantly violating international law.
He’s potentially liable for bribery, fraud, and breach or trust. According to Israel’s Channel 2, Harow incriminated him in a so-called Case 2000, discussed in a previous day article.
It involves getting caught red-handed on tape, negotiating a quid pro quo with Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes for more favorable broadsheet coverage in return for legislation prohibiting distribution of the free daily Israel Hayom, YA’s main competitor, owned by Netanyahu supporter Sheldon Adelson.
Mozes was caught on tape, saying “(i)f we can come to an agreement (for legislation prohibiting Israel Hayom’s free distribution), I will do all I can to make sure you stay (in power) as long as you want. I’m looking you in the eye, and saying this as clearly as I can.”
Harow reportedly told police Netanyahu asked him to “advance matters” with Mozes. A gag order through mid-September prevents more detailed information from coming out.
Adelson reportedly testified about Netanyahu raising the possibility of canceling some of his Israel Hayom’s weekend supplements, reducing its appeal and audience size.
It’s for state prosecutors to decide if indicting Netanyahu is warranted. According to justice minister Ayelet (“little snakes”) Shaked, he won’t have to resign if charged with wrongdoing.
He may have no choice. His coalition partners may demand it. If indicted, he’ll be considerably weakened.
He’s also vulnerable to charges in the so-called Case 1,000, involving suspicion of inappropriately or illegally receiving lavish gifts from wealthy supporters, amounting to possible bribery.
Harow is testifying against him in both probes – in return for leniency on charges he faces.
Knowing where the bodies are buried, as the saying goes, he may be able to end Netanyahu’s deplorable career as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, surpassing David Ben Gurion, provided he completes his current four-year term in 2019.
If charged and forced to step down, prosecutors will rid Israel of the scourge he represents – what enough voters failed to do.
It doesn’t matter how quickly you complete and submit your application to buy and own a firearm in New York City. It still takes a very long time. The whole process, which can take less than 15 minutes in some parts of the country, lasts between 3 and 6 months in NYC. For gun rights advocates, the bureaucracy is unconstitutional. But for gun dealers, the long wait can make or break a man’s business.
For one Brooklyn weapons dealer, Alex “Shaya” Lichtenstein, the long wait was too much to bear, leading the gun dealer to offer up bribes to NYPD police officers to expedite the process for his customers. But instead of simply passing money in an envelope, Lichtenstein decided to record thousands of hours of conversations with officers involved in his bribery scheme.
While the NY Daily News identified Shaya as a “crooked gun broker”, some might say the real crooks are the cops who took his bribes. Thanks to his nearly 70,000 recorded conversations, we now know who some of those crooked NYPD cops are. But as The Free Thought Project has faithfully reported, you shouldn’t hold your breath in anxious expectation in seeing crooked cops spending time in prison. No, for police officers, there’s a double standard. Criminals like Lichtenstein spend years in prison, while police officers get the proverbial slap on the wrist, often having their cases dismissed, or losing vacation pay, but rarely spending any amount of time in jail or prison.
It’s unclear what Lichenstein’s motivations were for recording so many interactions with police officers. Maybe he considered the volume of information some sort of protection from prosecution. Or possibly, he wanted to document his difficulties with conducting his business dealings. At any rate, he pleaded guilty November 10th to bribing NYPD officers into expediting his gun permits.
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“I had a good and friendly relationship with New York City police officers. During these years, I gave police officers in the Licensing Division things of value, including money, knowing that by giving them those things, the officers would do me favors, including expediting gun license applications,” Lichtenstein, 45, said.
The NYPD officers involved are Sgt. David Villanueva, Officer Richard Ochetal, Deputy Chief Michael Harrington and Deputy Inspector James Grant. Only Orchetal pleaded guilty to charges relating to the probe, the others stand accused of various crimes related to the case. Villanueva is accused of accepting gifts in exchange for helping speed up weapons permits. Harrington and Grant are accused of being “cops on call” for Jeremy Reichberg (Brooklyn businessman also accused of doling out gifts to police officers) and Jona Rechnitz (wealthy donor to NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio). Reichberg reportedly gave away several lavish gifts to several police officers. According to the NY Daily, he gave away Super Bowl tickets and trips to Brazil, and China.
It remains to be seen whether or not the Feds will aggressively prosecute the gun crimes with which the officers are implicated. But a closer look at the problem seems appropriate. In the past, gun permits weren’t even necessary to purchase a handgun or rifle. In fact, Roses department store used to sell Chinese made SKS semi-automatic military rifles out of fifty-gallon barrels. Adults and teenagers could easily walk by, pick one up out of the barrel, and carry it to the cashier to purchase. But after Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr., and the Brady Law was passed, the federal government decided then to regulate all firearms purchases, later instituting federal background checks for all Americans desiring to purchase firearms.
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Because of the regulations, stores were forced to place all their firearms behind locked cabinets or cease selling them altogether. Left-leaning politicians then began to pass legislation banning firearms, forbidding the possession of firearms within city limits, and making it nearly impossible in places like NYC to legally obtain, possess, and carry a firearm. Without such legislation, Lichenstein and all the officers involved would probably not find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
JACKSON, Miss. (CN) — Mississippi sued 10 people and 15 corporations this week to recoup more than $800 million in state money lost in a seven-year prison bribery scandal.
Defendants in the 11 lawsuits included former Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps, and former Republican state House Member Cecil McCrory, the key figures in the conspiracy. They and four other people pleaded guilty to their involvement in the conspiracy.
Attorney General Jim Hood says in the lawsuits that multiple corporations, including prominent private prison contractors, paid millions of dollars in bogus “consulting fees” to people who used the money to pay bribes and kickbacks to Epps.
Epps then steered approximately $800 million in public contracts to those private prison contractors.
“The state of Mississippi has been defrauded through a pattern of bribery, kickbacks, misrepresentations, fraud, concealment, money laundering and other wrongful conduct,” Hood said in a statement. “These individuals and corporations that benefited by stealing from taxpayers must not only pay the state’s losses, but state law requires that they must also forfeit and return the entire amount of the contracts paid by the state.”
The state seeks forfeiture of all the money received by the people and corporations, and punitive damages “to punish these conspirators,” the attorney general said.
Hood, a Democrat, said the 25 defendants violated Mississippi’s public ethics, racketeering and antitrust laws.
The lawsuits called the prison bribery scandal “one of the largest and longest-running criminal and civil conspiracies in Mississippi government history.”
Defendant corporations include The GEO Group; Mississippi Correctional Management; Global Tel*Link Corporation; Health Assurance LLC; and Keefe Commissary Network LLC.
Less than two weeks after stepping down as U.N. Secretary-General, a move many interpreted as an indication of his intention to run for the Presidency of South Korea, two of Ban Ki-Moon"s relatives have been indicted in the U.S. on charges of bribery. According to the Daily Mail, Ban Ki-Moon"s brother, Ban Ki-sang, and nephew, Joo Hyun "Dennis" Bahn who is a New York real estate broker, have been indicted for an alleged scheme to bribe a Middle Eastern official to use his country"s sovereign wealth fund to purchase a struggling $800 million real estate complex in Vietnam. Joo Hyun Bahn has been arrested in New York City and is expected to appear in court later today according to the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.
Two relatives of former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon have been indicted on U.S. charges that they engaged in a scheme to bribe a Middle Eastern official in connection with the attempted $800 million sale of a building complex in Vietnam.
Joo Hyun "Dennis" Bahn, a New York real estate broker who is Ban Ki-Moon"s nephew, and his father Ban Ki-sang, Ban Ki-moon"s brother who was a senior executive at South Korean construction firm Keangnam Enterprises Co Ltd, were charged in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
Bahn is in custody and expected to appear in court later on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said. Defense lawyers could not immediately be identified.
Per the Daily Mail, Bahn and Ban Ki-sang agreed to pay an upfront $500,000 bribe to a gentleman named Malcom Harris, a self-described arts and fashion consultant and blogger, who claimed to have a direct connection to a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund that would be willing to purchase their failed Vietnamese real estate project. Unfortunately, proving that you can pretty much never trust an "arts and fashion consultant and blogger," the whole thing turned out to be a complete scam and Harris spent the entire upfront payment on lavish gifts for himself.
According to the indictment, in 2013, Keangnam was facing a liquidity crisis and turned to Bahn to secure an investor for a Vietnamese building complex called Landmark 72 in exchange for a potential $5 million commission.
Rather than obtain financing legitimately, Bahn and Ban Ki-sang engaged in a scheme to pay bribes to an unnamed Middle Eastern official to convince his country"s sovereign wealth fund to acquire Landmark 72, the indictment said.
The bribes were paid through Malcolm Harris, a self-described arts and fashion consultant and blogger who was also charged and who the indictment said claimed to be an agent of the official.
Based on communications with Harris, in April 2014, Bahn and Ban Ki-sang agreed to pay an upfront $500,000 bribe and another $2 million upon the sale"s closing, the indictment said.
But Harris did not have the relationship he claimed with the official, the indictment said, and stole the $500,000, which he spent lavishly.
Of course, this news couldn"t come at a worst time for Ban Ki-Moon who was considered to be the front-runner for the Presidency of South Korea after lawmakers there just voted 234-56 to impeach current President Park Geun-hye over accusations of bribery, abuse of power and violating her constitutional duties (see "South Korea President Park Impeached In Corruption Scandal"). Somehow we suspect South Korean voters will not respond favorably to this news just weeks after impeaching their current president for similar allegations.
