More on Podesta and Uranium One

Richard Pollock reports at The Daily Caller,

Tony Podesta’s lobbying firm, the Podesta Group, represented the Russian-owned company Uranium One during former President Barack Obama’s administration and did not register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, The Daily Caller News Foundation has determined.

Podesta collected lobbying fees of $180,000 from Uranium One, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, that discloses lobbying documents filed with Congress. The uranium company states on its website it is a “wholly owned subsidiary” of RUSANO, the Russian State Corporation for Nuclear Energy.

...The Special Counsel has subpoenaed Podesta to testify and has requested records from the Podesta Group, according to The New York Times. The Special Counsel’s office would not provide to TheDCNF deadlines facing Podesta and his company.

Feeling pressure from the Special Counsel’s deepening probe, however, on Oct 30 Podesta took the dramatic step to resign from the lobbying giant he co-founded with his brother John Podesta in 1988. His brother served as Hillary Clinton’s national 2016 campaign chairman, served as chief of staff in Bill Clinton’s White House and served as “special counselor” to Obama.

In the Manafort case, the Podesta Group did not file under FARA after years of lobbying for the European Center which supported Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s pro-Russian president. Yanukovych fled to Russia after he was deposed by its parliament as unruly street demonstrations rocked the country.

Only in April of this year did the Podesta Group retroactively register as a foreign agent for the European Center. Manafort belatedly registered as a foreign agent in June as well.

The retroactive registration did not help Manafort and he was indicted by the Special Counsel.

Uranium One touched Bill and Hillary Clinton along with their long-time friend Frank Giustra who was the owner of Uranium One. Bill received $500,000 for a speaking engagement in Moscow only three weeks after ROSATOM announced its bid for Uranium One. Bill and Giustra co-founded the Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership.

The Clinton Foundation’s website reports that Giustra donated more than $25 million. Peter Schweizer, author of “Clinton Cash” found nine Uranium One investors donated $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Uranium One burst back into national news on Oct. 25 in the wake of reports from The Hill and Circa that an FBI informant possessed corruption information concerning the Russian parties that was withheld from Congress, as well as from the CIFIUS board.

Despite the FBI’s critical information, in 2010 the Obama administration — including Clinton — approved the sale to ROSATOM. The sale effectively handed over 20 percent of America’s uranium reserves to Moscow.

As Secretary of State, Clinton voted to approve the sale of Uranium One before CIFIUS. So did Attorney General Eric Holder whose FBI held the information of criminal activity.

Read more here.

"A major Russian nuclear corruption scheme with serious national security implications

Katie Pavlich reminds us at Town Hall that Uranium One was a client of the Podesta group. Here is the lobbying registration form filled out in the name of Kim Fritts, CEO of the Podesta Group. Katie writes,

As a reminder, Russian nuclear officials directed by President Vladimir Putin engaged in bribery and kickbacks to gain 20 percent control of U.S. uranium supply back in 2010. This scheme was otherwise known as Uranium One, due to the connection to a Canadian energy company, which was approved by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton along with other U.S. government officials. After the deal went through, former President Bill Clinton was paid millions of dollars to give speeches in Russia and the Clinton Foundation saw a $145 million influx.

At The Hill, on October 17, 2017 John Soloman and Alison Spann report the details of

a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme with serious national security implications.

Read more here.

Investigating...

On Facebook this morning I saw a Clarice Feldman post indicating that a woman named Kim Fritts was the campaign manager for Jeb Bush, CEO of Uranium One, and CEO of the Podesta Group! Curiosity aroused, I went to Google. I found confirmation on Facebook that she is CEO of the Podesta Group in a post dated August 26, 2015 with this photo of her.


On June 15, 2015 Catherine Ho reported in the Washington Post,

Kimberley Fritts, chief executive of lobby shop Podesta Group, worked for Jeb Bush during his first gubernatorial campaign in 1994, and is continuing her support this time around through fundraising and recruiting members of Congress to support the former Florida governor’s efforts in their states.

“Last week we rolled out a number of endorsements with the Florida delegation,” she said. “We think it’s been going well.” Fritts flew to Miami this morning to meet with members of Bush’s team, and will head back to D.C. later today.

Kristina Wong reported in Breitbart on 10-30-17,

Podesta is handing over full operational and control to the firm’s CEO Kimberley Fritts, according to the report. Fritts and a senior group of the Podesta team will be launching a new firm in the next one or two days, a move reportedly in the works for the past several months.

Read more here.

Here I learned that she was the Southern Political Director of the Republican National Committee in 1993.

Charles Lewis mentions her in this post at The Center for Public Integrity dated 8-30-2000.

The intermeshing of public and private sectors has, of course, been an endemic problem in Washington for years, and the social and professional interaction between the media business and the government that regulates it is, not surprisingly, quite extensive. For example, Podesta & Associates, also known as Podesta.com, is the outside lobbying firm representing the widest array of media behemoths. Since 1996, the company has received $1.5 million as the Washington representative for Viacom, Time Warner and NBC. It is headed by Tony Podesta, whose brother John happens to be the White House chief of staff. Twenty-three members of its staff of 33 formerly worked on Capitol Hill, for either party. One of them, Kimberley Fritts, is the daughter of the president of the National Association of Broadcasters.

NAB thrives on congressional ties
No media organization spends more money lobbying or has more people covering Washington than the National Association of Broadcasters, which has spent $16.9 million to persuade government officials since 1996. NAB President Eddie Fritts was a college classmate and is a close friend of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and on occasion, this relationship has been immensely helpful to the broadcasters. There are 20 registered lobbyists at the NAB, seven of whom came through the revolving door from congressional staffs, the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission. Until recently, their ranks included Kimberly Tauzin, daughter of Billy Tauzin.

Media corporations have spared no expense in Washington, hiring all of the “usual suspects” kind of big-name lobbyists: former Republican Party chairman Haley Barbour (CBS); Patton Boggs Tommy Boggs, son of long-deceased House Majority Leader Hale Boggs and U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Lindy Boggs, and brother of ABC News correspondent Cokie Roberts, (National Cable Television Association; Magazine Publishers of America); former Reagan White House chief of staff Ken Duberstein (Comcast, National Cable TV Association, Time Warner); former Nixon White House aide Tom Korologos (Cox Communications Corporation); former Carter White House aide Anne Wexler (Comcast, Univision Communications Inc.); and former FCC chairman Richard Wiley (CBS). After all, from copyright issues to broadband access to media ownership rules, billions of dollars were at stake for the transforming media industry.

So far I have not seen anything to indicate Kimberley was ever CEO of Uranium One. I will continue to investigate.