Former U.S. President Bill Clinton asked for permission from the State Department to meet with Russian nuclear official. Clinton requested clearance to meet with a key board director of the Russian nuclear energy firm Rosatom, which at the time needed the Obama administration’s approval for a controversial uranium deal, The Hill reports, citing government records.
According to the documents, during the trip in late June 2010 Clinton wanted to meet 15 Russians including Arkady Dvorovich, one of the highest-ranking Russian officials to serve Rosatom’s board of supervisors.
“In the context of a possible trip to Russia at the end of June, WJC is being asked to see the business/government folks below. Would State have concerns about WJC seeing any of these folks,” Clinton Foundation foreign policy adviser Amitabh Desai wrote the State Department on May 14, 2010.
The list was also sent to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s advisers Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills. Sullivan responded on June 7, 2010 after multiple pleads from Desai. Still, he didn’t send concrete answer, but a question “What’s the deal w this?” The final decision of the State Department was not indicated in the documents. Aides to the Clintons have told The Hill that the request came from other people and that in the end the former president’s aides and State decided not to hold any meetings with the Russians. Alternatively, Bill met Vladimir Putin at his private homestead. Aides say that Bill did not discuss Rosatom or the Uranium One deal while he was in Russia.
All of this happened before Bill Clinton’s speech, on June 29, 2010, for which the Russian bank Renaissance Capital paid him half a million dollars. The bank was connected with the Kremlin and was talking up the Uranium purchase in 2010.
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