Free Republic

Former president Barack Obama quietly initiated a non-disclosure request to the National Archives regarding any and all items related to Joe Biden and Ukraine during Mr. Biden’s time as vice president. For some reason, the Obama administration wants the inquiry to end now. “This use of the special access process serves no legitimate purpose and does not outweigh or justify infringing confidentiality interests that all presidents have sought to protect” states the letter. Which of course begs the question of what both Obama and Biden are now hoping to hide as the Deep State walls appear to be crumbling amidst...

During the Obama presidency, Biden was the US proconsul for Ukraine, and he was involved in many corruption schemes. He authorised transfer of three billion dollars of the US taxpayers’ money to the post-coup government of the Ukraine; the money was stolen, and Biden took a big share of the spoils. The Ukraine has a few midsize deposits of natural gas, sufficient for domestic household consumption. The cost of its production was quite low; and the Ukrainians got used to pay pennies for their gas. After the 2014 coup, IMF demanded to raise the price of gas for the domestic...

Bill and Hillary Clinton left government broke and actually in debt from all the various legal bills they needed to fend over impeachment and other corruption-related investigations. Within a few years, they were very wealthy people and the money never stopped flowing in until Hillary lost a winnable election. The slush fund Clinton Foundation is not new in the swamp nor illegal – Paul Ryan just moved millions from his campaign account into a private foundation – but that is why the American people are so furious. We hate legal bribery and we know that this form of cashing in...

FULL TITLE: THE IMPROPER ASSOCIATION (MAYBE CRIME) OF VICTOR PINCHUK WITH HILLARY, BILL AND CHELSEA CLINTON, COVERED UP BY THE US MEDIA, US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, AND THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND SNIP... The case of $13 million paid to the Clinton family by the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk, in exchange for personal favours and escalation of the war against Russia, was reported in detail throughout 2014. Click to read the opener, and more. Early this month there has been fresh investigation of Pinchuk’s money links with the Clintons, owing to the start of Ukrainian government inquiries into the theft of...

On December 29, 2016, the Obama Administration – with three weeks remaining in its term – issued harsh sanctions against Russia over supposed election interference. Two compounds in the United States were closed and 35 Russian diplomats were ordered to leave the country. Russia responded by calling the actions “Cold War déjà vu.” In the two years that have elapsed since, it has been learned that the “intelligence” that formed the basis for the sanctions was beyond dubious. A single unverified “dossier” compiled by an ex-British spy with no discernable connections to Russia was shopped to FISA judges and the...

Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is taking rhetorical sniper fire for large contributions to The Clinton Foundation taken from dirt-poor foreign nations while she was Secy of State. The Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and others have hinted at impropriety on two levels… 1) A potential presidential candidate becomes beholden to certain foreign nations. 2) A Secretary of State whose private foundation grows in prestige from foreign donations, while those same nations lobby the State Department for special treatment (b/c of abysmal human rights violations). Both questions merit vigorous exploration, but for two of the Clinton Foundation’s...

The Democratic National Committee "rebuffed" a request from the FBI to examine its computer services after it was allegedly hacked by Russia during the 2016 election, a senior law enforcement official told CNN Thursday. As first reported by George Eliason, CrowdStrike's Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder Dimitri Alperovitch - who wrote the CrowdStrike reports allegedly linking Russia to the Democratic party emails published by Wikileaks - is a fellow at the Atlantic Council ... an organization associated with Ukraine, and whose main policy goal seems to stir up a confrontation with Russia. The connection between Alperovitch and the Atlantic Council...

From 2009 up to 2013, the year the Ukrainian crisis erupted, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, which is headquartered in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, a new report claims. In 2008, Viktor Pinchuk, who made a fortune in the pipe-building business, pledged a five-year, $29-million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, a program that works to train future Ukrainian leaders “to modernize Ukraine.” The Wall Street Journal revealed the donations the fund received from foreigners abroad between 2009-2014 in their report published earlier this week .

Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton have built a sprawling network of powerful friends around the globe, one that could aid Mrs. Clinton’s chances were she to seek the presidency. But those relationships often come with intersecting interests and political complications; few people illustrate that more vividly than the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. A steel magnate and major contributor to the former president’s foundation, Mr. Pinchuk was in frequent contact with Mrs. Clinton’s State Department, at meetings arranged by a Clinton political operative turned lobbyist, Douglas E. Schoen.

MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) -- The plot to steal a billion-dollar manganese plant in Ukraine, allegations of which surfaced in a US court filing late last month, now threatens a billion-dollar Italian bank takover, according to letters of warning issued by Italian lawyers in Milan. On March 30, a group of shareholders associated with Ukrainian steelmaker and financier, Igor Kolomoisky, filed suit under the US racketeering statute, accusing a group of Ukrainian and Russian defendants of corruptly gaining control of the Nikopol Ferro-Alloy Plant of the Ukraine. Nikopol is one of the world’s largest producers of the steel-hardening manganese alloy. The lawsuit...

MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) -- Steelmaking requires manganese alloy to harden the product. It is thus natural that if the price of the steel is rocketing upwards, the price of manganese ore, and especially ferromanganese in its high-carbon form, will go ballistic. During last year's steel boom, for example, the price of ferromanganese, landed in Hong Kong, nearly doubled from $580 per metric ton in January 2004 to a peak of $1,070 in October. That was a lucrative opportunity for the world's largest holders of manganese ore reserves -- South Africa and Ukraine. Current estimates indicate that of the 5 million tons...

Another alleged poisoning is rocking Ukraine on Thursday: Politician and businessman Igor Pluzhnikov died after the onset of a mysterious illness. Pluzhnikov, the majority owner of the nation's main TV channel, Inter, was well connected to "The Group of Seven," a circle of influential Ukrainian businessmen. He was also key in the opposition Social Democratic Party that supported the losing candidate in last year's presidential elections. Reports speculate that Pluzhnikov may have been strong-armed into selling his Inter stake, so buyers could make the channel more regime-friendly. Not much more is known about the share sale. But by mid-June, Pluzhnikov...

"Round table" with the assistance of the founder of International Renaissance Foundation George Soros and the people’s deputy of Ukraine, Victor Pinchuk, takes place today in Kiev. In the course of the "round table" the participants are discussing the possibility of formation of the service charged with providing the citizens of Ukraine with free legal assistance. The questions concerning the state of legal assistance in Ukraine, legal basis of realization of human rights on access to justice, formation of free service charged with legal assistance to poor sections of the population will be also discussed.

IEV, Ukraine - Hundreds of workers lined up outside a major steel factory amid barbed wire and police barricades Thursday as tensions spiked in a dispute involving dueling shareholders in the lucrative factory, which the government alleges was improperly privatized. Officials from Interpipe Corp. - Ukraine's largest steel corporation and owner of the Nikopol Ferroalloy plant - charged that a government agency and an allied bank was trying to take over factory in Nikopol. Neither officials at the state-run State Property Fund nor officials with the Kiev-based Privat Bank, a minority shareholder in the factory, could be reached for comment...

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko says her government plans to review some 3,000 privatizations to ensure they were conducted fairly. The Interfax news agency quotes her as saying Wednesday that the state will get back what was illegally handed over to what she called "private but dishonest hands." She has already ordered authorities to begin the process of returning the country's largest steel mill, Kryvorizhstal, to government control. A consortium that included the son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk, of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma purchased the complex last year for $800 million, far below its estimated market value. Many privatizations in Ukraine...

According to the British newspaper “Independent,” one of the first actions of Ukraine’s newly elected Premier Julia Tymoshenko may be motivated by her personal animosity toward Leonid Kuchma. This appeared in an article titled “The Orange Princess targets the ‘Kuchma clan,’” [original title: “Ukraine’s new PM targets ‘Kuchma clan’”], as reported by the BBC. The “Independent” states that Ukraine’s new leaders have been looking into the country’s largest privatization scheme, referring to it as outright larceny. Concurrently, they are taking strides towards stripping former president Leonid Kuchma of his official privileges. The “Independent” indicates that members of the so-called “Kuchma...

Ukraine will reverse the controversial sale of state-owned steel mill Kryvorizhstal so that the firm can go back on the market at a higher price. Kryvorizhstal was sold to a group of investors that included the son-in-law of former President Leonid Kuchma. The winning bid in the privatization was $800m (£429m), and Ukraine rejected higher offers from foreign companies. Prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said her government was cancelling "illegal" decisions by the former administration. "All documents which the former government approved illegally have been cancelled," Ms Tymoshenko said. "This means that we have begun the process of turning Kryvorizhstal back...

Ukraine’s authorities have confirmed plans to review the results of privatization. Last week, a Kiev court began considering a case over the privatization of the country’s largest metal works, the Krivorozhstal steel company, Vremya Novostei has reported. Yesterday, the court imposed a freeze on a 93.02 stake in the company. The freeze is designed to prevent the current owners of the company – Donetsk-based oligarch Renat Akhmetov, and Viktor Pinchuk, a deputy of Ukraine’s lower parliament chamber and son-in-law of ex-President Leonid Kuchma, - from selling the stock to affiliated companies. According to the newspaper, the court hearing is scheduled...

UKRAINE’S new prime minister, Yulia Timoshenko, has begun a battle to clear her fugitive husband of corruption allegations and punish his accusers’ allies in the regime ousted in Kiev’s Orange Revolution. She has protested to the Supreme Court about a criminal case brought by allies of the former president, Leonid Kuchma, against Alexander Timoshenko, her husband, who is now in hiding abroad. The action is the first shot in what is likely to be a passionate campaign by the fiery politician against Kuchma and his cronies to avenge their attempts to have her, her husband and her father-in-law imprisoned on...

A Kiev court on Thursday froze shares in Ukraine's largest steel mill, which was sold last year to a group that included former President Leonid Kuchma's son-in-law in one of the country's most-criticized privatization deals. The court ordered that the consortium that purchased the Krivoryzhstal steel mill "should not release, sell or deposit shares" pending the end of court proceedings, Ukrainian news agencies reported. Kuchma's son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk, coal and steel tycoon Rinat Akhmetov and others make up the consortium that bought the mill for US$800 million (euro665 million). Court officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The ruling...