Sarah Carter is the best of the best:
“What are you doing to find out how the Russian takeover of the American uranium was allowed to occur despite criminal conduct by the Russia company that the Obama administration approved the purchase,” Grassley said.
Grassley said he wants to know why the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, approved the Rosatom purchase of Uranium One despite the existence of an FBI investigation which could have impacted CFIUS’ approval.
The Rostaom takeover of Uranium One required approval by CFIUS, an inter-agency committee who reviews transactions that leads to a change of control of a U.S. business to a foreign person or entity that may have an impact on the national security of the United States. At the time of the Uranium One deal the panel was chaired by then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and included then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-Attorney General Eric Holder.
By the time CFIUS approved the sale of Uranium One to Rosatom, the FBI’s investigation had already gathered substantial evidence of bribery and kickbacks against a Russian national, Vadim Mikerin, who was then a top official with Rosatom’s Tenex subsidiary, according to court documents. The FBI said while at Tenex, which was located in Maryland, Mikerin was involved in multiple bribery and kickback schemes. Mikerin pled guilty in 2015 for money laundering conspiracy involving Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violations and was sentenced to four years in prison. By the end of 2015, four defendants were indicted in the years-long investigation, according to court records and the Justice Department.
In a 2015 affidavit, FBI officials said Mikerin, “with the consent of higher level officials at Tenex and Rosatom (both Russian state-owned entities), would offer no-bid contracts to U.S. businesses in exchange for kickbacks in the form of money...” made to offshore accounts, stated the affidavit in support of a search warrant. Mikerin pled guilty to the allegations.
“Mikerin admitted that he conspired with Daren Condrey, Boris Rubizhevsky and others to transmit approximately $2,126,622 from Maryland and elsewhere in the United States to offshore shell company bank accounts located in Cyprus, Latvia and Switzerland with the intent to promote the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations,” according to a DOJ press release announcing the charges against the then defendants in 2014. “Mikerin further admitted that the conspirators used consulting agreements and code words to disguise the corrupt payments.”
When will the Grand Jury be impaneled?