nuclear-news

Hillary Clinton unfairly smeared in Fox News reporting on uranium deal

On the April 4 edition of Special Report, host Bret Baier previewed his upcoming hour-long special ondiscredited conservative author Peter Schweizer’s forthcoming book Clinton Cash, in which he accuses Bill and Hillary Clinton of influence peddling with foreign governments in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation and speaking fees. The segment focused on Schweizer’s allegations regarding Clinton’s purported role in approving the sale of the uranium mining company Uranium One to the Russian government.

New York Times reporter Jo Becker, whose own reporting on the Uranium One story has been criticized by the Clinton campaign for burying “original reporting that debunks the allegation that then-Secretary Clinton played any role in the review of the sale,” also appeared in the segment. Both the Times and Fox reportedly“made arrangements for exclusive access” to the book.

During the preview, Schweizer detailed the sale of Uranium One to the Russian state corporation Rosatom. ……….

Baier’s preview omitted important context to misleadingly suggest that Clinton personally approved the Russian purchase. According to Time, which received this chapter of Schweizer’s book in advance, the State Department’s role in approving the deal was part of an extensive bureaucratic process, and Schweizer’s chapter offers no indication of Hillary Clinton’s personal involvement in, or even knowledge of, the deliberations. In fact,Time quotes Jose Hernandez, who as former Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs was involved the deliberations on behalf of the State Department, denying that Clinton was involved in the matter at all.

Moreover, Time pointed out that the “deal’s approval was the result of an extensive interagency process that required the assent of at least nine different officials and agencies” through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. According to the report, “State has just one vote on the nine-member committee, which also includes the departments of Defense, Treasury and Energy. Disagreements are traditionally handled at the staff level, and if they are not resolved, they are escalated to deputies at the relevant agencies. If the deputies can’t resolve the dispute, the issues can be elevated to the Cabinet Secretary level and, if needed, to the President for a decision. The official chairman of CFIUS is the Treasury Secretary, not the Secretary of State.”

Furthermore, the Uranium One deal also had to receive approval from “the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an independent agency outside of the State Department’s purview, as well as Utah’s nuclear regulator. The deal also received approval from Canada’s foreign investment review agency.”

Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon has denied any wrongdoing by Clinton and criticized Becker for burying crucial facts from her report “that debunks the allegation that then-Secretary Clinton played any role in the review of the sale.”

Relying largely on research from the conservative author of Clinton Cash, today’s New York Times alleges that donations to the Clinton Foundation coincided with the U.S. government’s 2010 approval of the sale of a company known as Uranium One to the Russian government. Without presenting any direct evidence in support of the claim, the Times story — like the book on which it is based — wrongly suggests that Hillary Clinton’s State Department pushed for the sale’s approval to reward donors who had a financial interest in the deal. Ironically, buried within the story is original reporting that debunks the allegation that then-Secretary Clinton played any role in the review of the sale.

Schweizer’s book has been roundly denounced and discredited as a smear campaign which presentserroneous evidence to support its claims. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/04/24/fox-news-baselessly-blames-hillary-clinton-for/203404

April 25, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | media, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA