Russian Scandal: As the old saying goes, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. That’s certainly true with the growing scandal over the Russians’ extortion racket in the U.S., possible bribes to the Bill and Hillary Clinton Foundation, and the FBI’s curious decision not to reveal the Russians’ activities and ties to the Obama administration.

This week, IBD discussed new reports from the Daily Caller, The Hill and Circa.com, of how the Russians, through their state nuclear company Rosatom, engaged in a campaign of bribery, extortion, money laundering and racketeering to gain control over U.S. nuclear assets in the private sector.

Aided by an American informant, the FBI gathered a mountain of evidence that showed, for instance, that Russia had corrupted an American uranium trucking company through bribes.

But that was the least of it. As The Hill reported, eyewitness accounts and documents indicate that the Russian nuclear pirates spent millions of dollars to “benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation.”

At the time this was happening, Rosatom was seeking to acquire a stake in Canadian-based Uranium One, which then controlled close to 20% of U.S. uranium supplies.

So why would Russian nuclear officials send money to the Clinton Foundation? As we’ve pointed out, Hillary Clinton was then secretary of state. In that position, she sat on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the panel that decides whether strategic foreign investments such as Rosatom’s will be allowed to proceed.

Despite the FBI’s evidence of bribery, extortion and racketeering, Hillary Clinton and then-Attorney General Eric Holder and other members of the Obama administration approved of Rosatom’s takeover of Uranium One.

One hand washes the other. The money flowed, and what remained of the investigation was hushed up. The investigation ran for two years, from 2009 to 2010, and then went quiet, right after CFIUS approved of Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One assets. In 2014, the Justice Department issued a few hand-slaps in what appeared to be major crimes, but that was all. By then, Hillary had already left office, and Holder was about to.

The question, as always, is why?

Well, certainly greed. The Clinton Foundation lined its pockets. By one estimate, it took in $145 million from investors linked to Uranium One.

But there was also politics. President Obama, despite his rocky political beginnings in 2009, remained popular with average Americans. He wanted a legacy of success, and knew that Hillary Clinton could help ensure that.

But Clinton, his presumed successor, had to appear clean if she had any hope of being elected president herself. So a blanket of silence was thrown over the whole criminal enterprise.

Unfortunately, it goes even deeper than that.

As we wrote in 2016, based on Peter Schweizer’s well-documented book, “Clinton Cash,”Clinton and her associates were deeply involved with the Russians on many levels. That’s what makes her recent protestations about being cheated out of the presidency by a Russian-Trump conspiracy so laughable. Source link