Clinton Connection? DOJ Indicts Former Maryland Exec. In Russia-Uranium Scandal

Nick Kangadis | January 15, 2018
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How far does it go? What connections should be taken seriously, and should those connecting of the dots be followed by further legal action against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?

Those are just a couple of the questions that need to be answered when it comes to the Clintons, their foundation, and their possible collusion with Russian entities in relation to the sale of 20 percent of the United States’ uranium in the form of Uranium One to Russian mining company Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ).

Judging by an indictment handed out last Friday to the former president of a Maryland-based transportation company, we might have found one of the dots that could be crucial to making the connection between the Clintons and their possible “pay-to-play” scheme while Hillary was U.S. Secretary of State.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Mark Lambert in its indictment on “11 counts related to foreign bribery, fraud and money laundering.”

According to the DOJ:

According to the indictment, beginning at least as early as 2009 and continuing until October 2014, Lambert conspired with others at “Transportation Corporation A” to make corrupt and fraudulent bribery and kickback payments to offshore bank accounts associated with shell companies, at the direction of, and for the benefit of, a Russian official, Vadim Mikerin, in order to secure improper business advantages and obtain and retain business with TENEX. In order to effectuate and conceal the corrupt and fraudulent bribe payments, Lambert and others allegedly caused fake invoices to be prepared, purportedly from TENEX to Transportation Corporation A, that described services that were never provided, and then Lambert and others caused Transportation Corporation A to wire the corrupt payments for those purported services to shell companies in Latvia, Cyprus and Switzerland.  Lambert and others also allegedly used code words like “lucky figures,” “LF,” “lucky numbers,” and “cake” to describe the payments in emails to the Russian official at his personal email account.  The indictment also alleges that Lambert and others caused Transportation Corporation A to overbill TENEX by building the cost of the corrupt payments into their invoices, and TENEX thus overpaid for Transportation Corporation A’s services. 
 
In June 2015, Lambert’s former co-president, Daren Condrey, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the FCPA and commit wire fraud, and Vadim Mikerin pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering involving violations of the FCPA.  Mikerin is currently serving a sentence of 48 months in prison and Condrey is awaiting sentencing.  The indictment includes allegations against Lambert based on his role in effectuating the criminal scheme with Condrey, Mikerin, and others.

The “TENEX” company is an important one to note, considering the Senate Judiciary Committee brought up TENEX in a letter to current Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last October. According to Bloomberg, JSC TENEX “supplies uranium products and provides uranium conversion and/or enrichment services."

The committee brought up concerns of a possible connection between the Uranium One deal and the TENEX organization.

Here’s the question brought up by the Judiciary Committee to Tillerson concerning TENEX in relation to the Uranium One deal:

Were your agency’s personnel assigned to the CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] transaction made aware of the ongoing criminal and intelligence investigation into senior managers of Tenex, Tenam, and Rosatom prior to CFIUS approval of the Uranium One transaction in October 2010? If so, please detail when they were made aware and what exactly they were made aware of. In addition, please provide all records relating to those communications. If not, why not?

“Why not?” is a great question. Both involved Russian organizations, questionable exchanges of money and the sale of uranium. One would think a red flag would have been raised in the State Department if the prior TENEX dealings were considered illegal before the sale of Uranium One.

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