{"id":1359,"date":"2026-08-06T07:38:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T07:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1359"},"modified":"2026-08-06T07:38:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T07:38:05","slug":"looking-back-at-the-uranium-one-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1359","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back at the Uranium One Scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Uranium One scandal was a 2010 controversy in which the Obama administration approved the takeover of Uranium One\u2014a Canadian company with significant uranium mining assets in the United States\u2014by Russia\u2019s state-owned Rosatom corporation. Critics alleged a pay-to-play scheme, pointing to large donations (roughly $145 million) to the Clinton Foundation from individuals connected to Uranium One and its investors, as well as a $500,000 speaking fee paid to Bill Clinton by a Russian bank involved in the deal.<\/p>\n

Read more The Long View of Iran<\/a><\/p>\n

The conventional wisdom is that no evidence was uncovered of improper influence or criminal wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton or other U.S. officials in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approval process, though the foreign donations and influence aspects have never been fully resolved.<\/p>\n

Could the \u201cconventional wisdom\u201d be wrong (because it was manufactured to hide the reality), and could the truth of those elusive foreign connections involve Iran?<\/p>\n

Let us take a deep dive and speculate using facts and logic.<\/p>\n

URANIUM ONE ORIGINS AND PURPOSE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Uranium One started as a South African-Canadian mining company. It became a major uranium player after absorbing UrAsia Energy in February 2007. UrAsia\u2019s chairman was Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining financier and longtime Bill Clinton associate. Giustra had negotiated Kazakh uranium mining rights beginning in 2005, and in September 2005 he and Bill Clinton traveled to Kazakhstan and dined with President Nazarbayev; UrAsia closed its Kazakh mining deals shortly after. UrAsia\u2019s share value rose roughly seventyfold between 2005 and 2007, and Giustra donated $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation in 2006\u2014an amount later dwarfed by further pledges once his UrAsia stake was sold into Uranium One two months later.<\/p>\n

Rosatom\u2019s stated purpose in acquiring Uranium One was straightforward from Moscow\u2019s perspective: vertical integration of its state nuclear conglomerate into global uranium supply, part of a broader post-2008 push (noted in leaked State Department cables) to secure uranium sources after Russia felt constrained by import limits elsewhere.<\/p>\n

THE CHRONOLOGY<\/strong><\/p>\n

2005\u20132007:<\/strong> Giustra\/UrAsia secure Kazakh uranium rights; UrAsia merges into Uranium One (Feb. 2007); Giustra exits and begins large Clinton Foundation donations.<\/p>\n

2009:<\/strong> Rosatom subsidiary ARMZ begins acquiring a stake in Uranium One (first tranche, ~17%).<\/p>\n

June 2010:<\/strong> Rosatom announces a deal to acquire majority control. Because Uranium One held U.S. mining assets (Wyoming), the acquisition of Uranium One by Rosatom required review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States because uranium is considered a strategic asset with national security implications.<\/p>\n

2010:<\/strong> CFIUS\u2019s nine-member agencies unanimously approve the deal; no member raised a formal security objection. The committee approved the proposal, and in 2013 Russia assumed 100 percent ownership, renaming the company Uranium One Holding.<\/p>\n

June 29, 2010:<\/strong> Renaissance Capital, a Kremlin-linked bank promoting Uranium One stock, pays Bill Clinton $500,000 for a Moscow speech shortly after the deal\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

2009\u20132013:<\/strong> As Rosatom\u2019s stake grows in stages, Ian Telfer (Uranium One\u2019s chairman) makes four donations totaling $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation through his family foundation\u2014donations the Foundation later admitted it failed to disclose despite a transparency pledge.<\/p>\n

2013:<\/strong> Rosatom completes full ownership.<\/p>\n

2017\u20132020:<\/strong> House Republicans open an investigation; DOJ appoints U.S. Attorney John Huber to review the matter (2017); the inquiry never becomes a special counsel probe and winds down by 2020 without public findings.<\/p>\n

2023:<\/strong> Special Counsel John Durham\u2019s final report did not include Uranium One.<\/p>\n

2025\u20132026:<\/strong> Newly declassified FBI\/DOJ records surface via the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), reportedly describing internal assessments that there was \u201csignificant evidence worth pursuing\u201d on possible criminal activity tied to the Foundation and the sale\u2014reigniting the controversy.<\/p>\n

WHO MADE MONEY OFF THE DEAL<\/strong><\/p>\n

Frank Giustra:<\/strong> Sold his UrAsia\/Uranium One stake in 2007, three years before the Rosatom deal review. Total lifetime Clinton Foundation giving exceeds $100 million; he sits on the foundation\u2019s board. Fact-checkers note he had exited the company well before the CFIUS-reviewed transactions.<\/p>\n

Ian Telfer:<\/strong> Remained Uranium One\u2019s chairman through the Rosatom acquisitions; donated $2.35 million via his family foundation, undisclosed at the time.<\/p>\n

Bill Clinton:<\/strong> $500,000 speaking fee from a Kremlin-linked bank in 2010.<\/p>\n

Other Uranium One\u2013connected donors:<\/strong> Nine individuals related to the company donated to the Clinton Foundation, though PolitiFact\u2019s review found only Telfer\u2019s donations fell clearly within the deal\u2019s timeframe. Were the delayed donations merely set up to look like there was no Uranium One connection?<\/p>\n

Russian side:<\/strong> Rosatom\u2019s U.S. executive Vadim Mikerin was later convicted in a separate racketeering case (kickbacks, bribery, extortion) tied to Rosatom\u2019s U.S. nuclear business\u2014a scheme the FBI had informant evidence on as early as 2009, before CFIUS approved the deal.<\/p>\n

CFIUS PLAYERS AND POTENTIAL CORRUPTION<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is a nine-member interagency body (State, Treasury, DOJ, DOD, Commerce, Energy, DHS, USTR, and OSTP), and it does not have unilateral veto power\u2014that rests with the president, and any recommendation goes through consensus review by all nine agencies.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton did not personally sit on the committee; Assistant Secretary of State Jose Fernandez represented State and has said Clinton was not involved in the matter, with several former State and DOJ officials saying it would be unlikely for her to have more than nominal involvement since these reviews are handled by career civil servants. How plausible are these denials (by Clinton appointees, no less) given what the Clinton Foundation received from Frank Giustra et al?<\/p>\n

Read more Federal Review Finds 90 Percent of Maine\u2019s Autism Support Services Lack Justification<\/a><\/p>\n

The corruption allegation (\u201cuse of high office to influence the decision\u201d) rests almost entirely on inference from timing: donations flowed from Uranium One\u2013linked figures during the review period, and Bill Clinton was paid by a Kremlin-linked bank around the same time. Official investigations conducted by the DoJ and FBI have conveniently found no criminal behavior. Given the manipulation by these investigating agencies in the Russia hoax and later scandals, including former FBI Director James Comey\u2019s whitewashing of Hillary Clinton\u2019s email server scandal in 2016, how plausible is it that \u201cnothing was found\u201d?<\/p>\n

Interestingly, newly surfaced 2025\u20132026 FBI\/DoJ memos are the most significant open question. Reporting by Just the News\u00a0says they describe an internal assessment that \u201csignificant evidence worth pursuing\u201d existed and that the Obama-era DoJ did not pursue it further.<\/p>\n

Here is a very interesting quote from those emails, specifically from former US Attorney Cody Hiland, who was involved in the 2018 investigation: \u201c[T]he intelligence summary regarding Uranium One \u2026 fails to account for the dynamic related to possible deliberately false statements that may have been made by U\/O officials to CFIUS to induce the authorization to sell U\/O to Rosatom (i.e. that Rosatom could not export uranium).\u201d<\/p>\n

Even more damning was this quote that implied a pending investigation that may have been quashed: \u201cThere are remaining investigative tasks that should be completed before making a final assessment of the U\/O [Uranium One] matter\u2026. [including interviewing] the foreign nationals specifically identified by [Redacted] as having made statements concerning the attempts to use the Foundation as a vehicle to influence the Secretary of State.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bottom line: there is a well-documented appearance<\/em><\/strong> of conflict (donations, speaking fees, timing) and documented Russian criminal conduct in the broader nuclear sector, but no investigation to date has yet produced hard evidence of a quid pro quo directly implicating Clinton\u2019s CFIUS role. The newly declassified memos may change that picture depending on what they actually show when made public.<\/p>\n

WHERE THE URANIUM WENT<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was one documented export, according to The Hill. NRC records show a shipment of yellowcake from the Russian-owned U.S. mines to Canada in 2012 through a third party, with the Obama administration later approving the transfer of a portion of that shipment to Europe. No exports have occurred since.<\/p>\n

That 2012 Wyoming to Ontario (Canada) shipment is the one hard data point in the public record. NRC\/CNSC incident reports (from a ) show the yellowcake drum involved had been shipped from Uranium One\u2019s Willow Creek Facility in Wyoming on May 29, 2012, to Cameco\u2019s Blind River refinery in Ontario\u2014that\u2019s the \u201cthird party\u201d as referenced in that report from The Hill. Cameco is Canada\u2019s dominant uranium company and operates the world\u2019s largest uranium refinery (Blind River) and Canada\u2019s only conversion facility (Port Hope).<\/p>\n

From there, the normal processing chain is:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Blind River (Ontario)\u2014refines yellowcake into uranium trioxide (UO\u2083)<\/li>\n
  2. Port Hope (Ontario)\u2014converts UO\u2083 into uranium hexafluoride (UF\u2086, \u201chex\u201d) for light-water reactor fuel, or uranium dioxide for Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) reactors<\/li>\n
  3. Since Canada has no enrichment capability, the UF\u2086 is shipped onward\u2014Cameco\u2019s own description of its export pattern says its Port Hope hex is transported by truck or ocean freighter to enrichment plants in the United States, Japan, and Europe.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Uranium One\u2019s U.S. production (Willow Creek\/Christensen Ranch, Wyoming) was sold, like virtually all Western-mined uranium, under confidential long-term supply contracts to nuclear utilities\u2014not sold as raw ore on a spot market to end-users directly (standard industry practice). The most likely commercial destinations are U.S. and allied nuclear utilities (U.S. reactors consume the vast majority of Wyoming ISR production domestically, since ISR-mined material rarely gets exported given the added cost\/friction of export licensing).<\/p>\n

    Once Rosatom owned Uranium One outright (2013), commercial logic would suggest more of that output could be marketed through Rosatom\u2019s global trading arm (TENEX-Techsnabexport or Rosatom\u2019s international fuel-cycle business) rather than solely through U.S. utility contracts. This is a logical inference from Rosatom\u2019s usual global marketing structure, not a documented shipment per se.<\/p>\n

    IS THERE AN IRANIAN CONNECTION?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    So far, there is no documented<\/em><\/strong> evidence\u2014in any congressional investigation, NRC export record, or FBI file that has surfaced\u2014that any Uranium One material reached Iran. In fact, the probability that Uranium One-derived material specifically ended up in Iran is low based on the public record\u2014though \u201clow\u201d is not the same as \u201czero\u201d<\/strong> since neither NRC disclosures (withheld as proprietary) nor downstream tracking of the Canadian\/European shipments that Iran has regularly received over the years has been made fully public. The fact that \u201cwe don\u2019t have a documented final destination\u201d is a real evidentiary gap, not a clean exoneration of anyone.<\/p>\n

    The most plausible mechanism by which Iran could have received<\/em><\/strong> Uranium One product is through commodity fungibility, not smuggling or theft.<\/p>\n

    Uranium markets don\u2019t work like tracked serial-numbered goods. Once yellowcake is refined and converted, \u2014one country\u2019s UF6 is chemically indistinguishable from another\u2019s. The global trade runs heavily on \u201cswaps\u201d and \u201cbook transfers\u201d: a producer with material in Location A can contractually deliver to a customer in Location B while someone else\u2019s equivalent material physically moves the other direction because it\u2019s cheaper than shipping the actual<\/em> <\/strong>atoms across the world. This is completely standard and legal in the industry.<\/p>\n

    Given that, the realistic pathway isn\u2019t \u201ca truck full of Wyoming yellowcake crosses into Iran.\u201d It\u2019s something more like this: Rosatom, once owning Uranium One\u2019s U.S. production, could have counted that output toward its own global supply obligations\u2014freeing up an equivalent quantity of Russian-origin uranium that Rosatom\u2019s fuel arm (TVEL) was already contractually supplying to Iran. That\u2019s a real, legal, and well-documented Russia-Iran nuclear relationship, not speculation\u2014TVEL has supplied fuel for Iran\u2019s Bushehr power plant for years, openly and under IAEA safeguards, as part of the original construction deal for that reactor.<\/p>\n

    That is the most logical mechanism by which \u201cUranium One-linked material\u201d could be economically<\/em> <\/strong>connected to Iran, as that swap\/displacement logic is the most defensible one because it\u2019s how the commodity accounting works and nobody has any obligation to disclose it.<\/p>\n

    CONCLUDING THOUGHTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

    There are International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) \u201csafeguards\u201d involved in managing Iran\u2019s uranium imports. Uranium destined for Iran\u2019s declared enrichment facilities (Natanz, Fordow) is subject to material accounting precisely to prevent unaccounted diversion. Significant undeclared quantities moving in would risk detection. That said, were any of these safeguards compromised since Rosatom acquired Uranium One in 2013?<\/p>\n

    The answer could easily be yes, as Iran has historically restricted or denied IAEA access to certain facilities, particularly those suspected of weapons-related (possible military dimensions) activities. One example is the Parchin military site, which was long restricted with limited, managed access granted only after years of delays and under the 2015 JCPOA framework. Environmental sampling subsequently found man-made uranium particles inconsistent with Iran\u2019s explanations. Note: Iran has generally argued that military sites are off-limits or require special authorization, asserting a distinction between civilian and military facilities (a position the IAEA rejects for safeguards purposes).<\/p>\n

    What does all this mean? Let us connect the dots:<\/p>\n