CNBC cited the left-wing, George Soros-linked PolitiFact to condemn President Donald Trump’s claims Thursday that Hillary Clinton’s State Department presided over the sale of 20 percent of U.S. uranium to Russia.
“Hillary Clinton gave away 20 percent of the uranium in the United States; she’s close to Russia,” Trump said during the press conference.
“The claim isn’t true,” CNBC energy reporter Tom DiChristopher wrote. “PolitiFact pointed out that 20 percent of uranium capacity is different from 20 percent of existing uranium. Moreover, the State Department was one of nine government agencies that had to sign off on the deals. Other federal and state regulators also had to approve them.”
CNBC citing PolitiFact is how “fake news” spreads.
PolitiFact has repeatedly attempted to rewrite the facts surrounding the Uranium One-Rosatom-Clinton State Department story first reported by The New York Times (NYT) and based on research from the NYT bestseller Clinton Cash.
In July and in September 2016, PolitiFact published stories that flat-out ignored several key facts and conflicts of interest that ultimately proved damaging to Clinton as it related to her involvement in the Russian uranium deal.
DiChristopher notes that “Clinton did not represent the State Department on the panel of agency officials who approve deals such as the Uranium One transaction,” and rightly states: “The representative at the time, former Assistant Secretary Jose Fernandez, told the Times, ‘Mrs. Clinton never intervened with me on any C.F.I.U.S. matter,’ referring to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.”
But DiChristopher neglected to mention that Fernandez was admittedly politically motived to distance Clinton from the controversial uranium deal. DiChristopher also failed to report that Fernandez met with Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta, and pledged to “support” the Democratic candidate.
On March 30, 2015, Fernandez wrote an email to Podesta in hopes that the two could meet. On April 17, Fernandez thanked Podesta for meeting him and said, “I would like to do all I can to support Secretary Clinton, and would welcome your advice and help in steering me to the right persons in the campaign.”
Less than a week later, Fernandez was quoted by Time Magazine in an online story calling Clinton Cash’s reporting “absurd conspiracy theories,” adding, “Secretary Clinton never intervened with me on any CFIUS matter.”
The coordination between Fernandez, the Clinton campaign, and its chairman John Podesta is undeniable — and yet CNBC didn’t bother to mention that part of the story.
DiChristopher also failed to inform CNBC readers about how donations to the Clinton Foundation from executives of Russian-owned Uranium One exceeded $145 million, according to the New York Times. In fact, those Clinton Foundation donations spiked just as the deal for Russia’s Rosatom to secure Uranium One was being finalized.
Sure, Clinton’s State Department was one of eight agencies to review and sign off on the uranium deal — but then-Secretary of State Clinton was the only agency head whose family foundation received $145 million in donations from multiple people connected to the deal.
“Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million,” the Times reports. “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.”
DiChristopher also failed to report that Bill Clinton received a $500,000 speaking fee for a speech in Moscow paid for by a Russian government-linked bank connected to the uranium deal.
“And, in one case, a Russian investment bank connected to the deals paid money to Bill Clinton personally, through a half-million-dollar speaker’s fee,” reports the New Yorker.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
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