Uranium One deal led to some exports to Europe, memos show

After the Obama administration approved the sale of a Canadian mining company with significant U.S. uranium reserves to a firm owned by Russia’s government, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission assured Congress and the public the new owners couldn’t export any raw nuclear fuel from America’s shores.

“No uranium produced at either facility may be exported,” the NRC declared in a November 2010 press release that announced that ARMZ, a subsidiary of the Russian state-owned Rosatom, had been approved to take ownership of the Uranium One mining firm and its American assets.

A year later, the nuclear regulator repeated the assurance in a letter to Sen. John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican in whose state Uranium One operated mines.

“Neither Uranium One Inc. nor AMRZ holds a specific NRC export license. In order to export uranium from the United States, Uranium One Inc. or ARMZ would need to apply for and obtain a specific NRC license authorizing the exports of uranium for use in reactor fuel,” then-NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko wrote to Barrasso. The NRC never issued an export license to the Russian firm, a fact so engrained in the narrative of the Uranium One controversy that it showed up in The Washington Post’s official fact-checker site this week. “We have noted repeatedly that extracted uranium could not be exported by Russia without a license, which Rosatom does not have,” the Post reported on Monday, linking to the 2011 Barrasso letter.

Yet NRC memos reviewed by The Hill show that it did approve the shipment of yellowcake uranium — the raw material used to make nuclear fuel and weapons — from the Russian-owned mines in the United States to Canada in 2012 through a third party. Later, the Obama administration approved some of that uranium going all the way to Europe, government documents show.

NRC officials said they could not disclose the total amount of uranium that Uranium One exported because the information is proprietary. They did, however, say that the shipments only lasted from 2012 to 2014 and that they are unaware of any exports since then.

NRC officials told The Hill that Uranium One exports flowed from Wyoming to Canada and on to Europe between 2012 and 2014, and the approval involved a process with multiple agencies.

Rather than give Rosatom a direct export license — which would have raised red flags inside a Congress already suspicious of the deal — the NRC in 2012 authorized an amendment to an existing export license for a Paducah, Ky.-based trucking firm called RSB Logistics Services Inc. to simply add Uranium One to the list of clients whose uranium it could move to Canada.

The license, reviewed by The Hill, is dated March 16, 2012, and it increased the amount of uranium ore concentrate that RSB Logistics could ship to the Cameco Corp. plant in Ontario from 7,500,000 kilograms to 12,000,000 kilograms and added Uranium One to the “other parties to Export.”

Officials at RSB, Cameco and Rosatom did not return repeated phone calls or emails seeking comment.

Uranium One's American arm, however, emailed a statement to The Hill on Wednesday evening confirming it did export uranium to Canada through the trucking firm and that 25 percent of that nuclear fuel eventually made its way outside North America to Europe and Asia, stressing all the exports complied with federal law.

“None of the US U308 product produced to date has been sold to non-US customers except for approximately 25% which was sold via book transfer at the conversion facilities to customers from Western Europe and Asia," executive Martha Wickers said. “Any physical export of the product from conversion facilities to non-US destinations is under the control of such customers and subject to NRC regulation.”

The United States actually imports the majority of the uranium it uses as fuel. In 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 24 percent of the imports came from Kazakhstan and 14 percent came from Russia.

The sale of Uranium One to a Russian state-owned firm, however, has created political waves that have led to multiple congressional investigations. Republicans say they want to learn how the sale could have been approved and whether there was political interference.

Sen. D’Amato Drops Bomb: Hillary Allowed Russia to Take Ownership of US Uranium to Sell to Iran

Jim Hoft
Jul 3rd, 2016

Former Senator Al D’Amato (R-NY) dropped a bomb on Sunday Morning Futures this AM. D’Amato told Maria Bartiromo that Hillary allowed Russia to take ownership of US uranium so they could sell it to Iran.

Hillary made it possible for the Russians to take control of one of our huge uranium producers and allow them to own the company, export the uranium and who do they sell the uranium to? Iran!

Now if people knew that and that the foundation as a result of that got $135 million. I think people would start saying, “What?”

It’s true.
In January 2013, Pravda celebrated the Russian atomic energy agency’s purchase of the company “Uranium One” in Canada.

That same company, Uranium One, owned uranium concessions in the United States. Because uranium is a strategically important commodity, the Russians would need approval from the Obama administration, including Hillary’s State Department, before the purchase took place.

Nine shareholders in Uranium One just happened to provide more than $145 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation in the run-up to State Department approval.

The Clintons took the cash from Uranium One officials before the deal was approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department. The Clintons hid the donations which is a clear violation of the Memorandum of Understanding Hillary Clinton signed with the Obama administration wherein she promised and agreed to publicly disclose all donations during her tenure as Secreatary of State. (Via Breitbart)

The New York Times reported on the crooked deal in 2015.

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 then there’s this...

Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) told Greta Van Susteren the deal Hillary approved gave Putin ownership of 20 percent of US uranium and Russia sells uranium to unfriendly countries, including Iran.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/07/senator-damato-drops-bomb-hillary-allowed-russia-take-ownership-us-uranium-sell-iran-video/

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Obama allowing Iran to purchase uranium from Russia

Daniel Horowitz | January 10, 2017

Remember those side deals Obama forged with Iran that were not part of the text of the official treaty? Now we are finding out some of the details.

Yesterday, the Washington Free Beacon reported that Iranian officials confirmed they have received at least $10 billion in cash, commodities, and assets from Washington since 2013. And that is likely a conservative estimate.

But cash is not the only thing the Islamic Republic of Iran is receiving for gracing us with their willingness to sign onto our own capitulation.

The AP is reporting that Russia, with the support of President Obama, is shipping Iran 116 metric tons of natural uranium.

While Iranian officials have obviously declined to disclose the use of such uranium, AP notes that this is enough to enrich weapons-grade uranium for nuclear bombs:

“Despite present restrictions on its enrichment program, however, the amount of natural uranium is significant should Iran decide to keep it in storage, considering its potential uses once some limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities start to expire in less than a decade.

David Albright, whose Institute of Science and International Security often briefs U.S. lawmakers on Iran’s nuclear program, says the shipment could be enriched to enough weapons-grade uranium for more than 10 simple nuclear bombs, “depending on the efficiency of the enrichment process and the design of the nuclear weapon.” ...”

See more at:
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/01/obama-allowing-iran-to-purchase-uranium-from-russia-will-tillerson-reverse-course#sthash.guYPvONI.dpuf

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Aug 2015

I wonder if any of that Uranium made it’s way to North Korea?

Probably will, in one way or another, if it hasn't already. After all, NK is one of Russia's main pawns.

Sept 5, 2017

North Korea nuclear crisis: Putin calls sanctions useless

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said pursuing further sanctions against North Korea is “useless”, saying “they’d rather eat grass than give up their nuclear programme”.

The US said on Monday it would table a new UN resolution on tougher sanctions in the wake of the latest test of a nuclear bomb by the North on Sunday.

Mr Putin also said that the ramping up of “military hysteria” could lead to global catastrophe.

He said diplomacy was the only answer.

China, the North’s main ally, has also called for a return to negotiations. ...”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41158281

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Russia and North Korea declare 2015 a ‘year of friendship’

“The biggest cause for concern is the growing military alliance between Russia and North Korea, with the two regimes recently announcing plans to conduct a series of joint army, navy and air force exercises this year.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/11463265/Russia-and-North-Korea-declare-2015-a-year-of-friendship.html

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Russia steps up North Korea support to constrain US

May 17, 2017

“Despite efforts by the United Nations to impose isolating sanctions on North Korea in response to the country’s continued development of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, trade between Russia and North Korea soared more than 85 percent in the first four months of the year.”

http://www.dw.com/en/russia-steps-up-north-korea-support-to-constrain-us/a-38867861

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Putin very much wants a 'unified Korea' (under NK rule)

________________________________

From Fox News, October 23, 2017

-snip-

SEAN HANNITY:

“And we also learned from The Hill and CircaNews.com, the FBI has evidence including testimony — they have an informant — that Russia nuclear officials funneled millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was serving as secretary of state and personally signing off on the Uranium One deal in the first place, that gave the uranium to Putin. And it turns out, the informant was blocked by the Obama administration from exposing to Congress what was happening.

Now The New York Times also reported back in 2015 that the Russian nuclear company Uranium One was actually even exporting yellowcake uranium outside of our country to Canada [...] even though they did not have a license.

So, we have no idea what Putin has done with it, where it’s ended up. Did he go to North Korea? Did he go to Iran?

There [are] also several key officials that need to testify about what they knew and when they knew it. For example, the former Attorney General Eric Holder, he oversaw the FBI. The FBI had all of this information about bribery and kickbacks and money laundering in 2009. That was his job. He was also a member — Eric Holder was — of the committee that approved Uranium One along with Hillary. So, he had to know what was going on.”

-snip-

http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2017/10/23/gingrich-talks-anthem-protests-uranium-one-deal-tax-reform-ivanka-trump-simplification-our-tax-code-democratizes-it.html

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