HRC and Kazakhstan
Glenn Reynolds sums up at USA Today:
It was a bad week for Hillary Clinton. So bad, in fact, that The Washington Post declared she had "the worst week in Washington." From The New York Times, there were reports of shady uranium deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakhstan. From The Post, it was reporting on how the Clintons' foundation seems more like a personal piggy bank. And from Politico, it was a report that "Clinton struggles to contain media barrage on foreign cash." (If you haven't kept up, here's a bullet-point summary of the key bits). And the book that led to all these stories isn't even out yet.
The responses from Clintonworld have been unconvincing — my favorite was when their supporters denied that a meeting between Bill Clinton and shadowy Kazakh nuclear officials had taken place, only to have a The Times reporter produce photo evidence. But, hey, the Clintons have survived even more concrete evidence of scandal — remember Monica Lewinsky's semen-stained dress? — so why should this time be any different?
Breitbart reports:
New York Times reporter Jo Becker said that after Bill Clinton gave Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev a “propaganda coup,” businessman Frank Giustra got a large uranium concession in the country, and then gave large sums to the Clinton Foundation in an interview broadcast on Friday’s Fox News Channel special “The Tangled Clinton Web.”
“Clinton Cash” author Peter Schweizer said that Clinton showed up in Kazakhstan, the same place businessman Frank Giustra was attempting to acquire uranium mines, and became “partners” with Bill Clinton in charity work, and has facilitated speaking engagements for the Clintons.
Becker said that Giustra and Clinton were “whisked to the presidential palace of President Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan, and it’s a fascinating story because everybody walked away from the table that night with something.”
She continued, “what President Nazarbayev got was this huge propaganda coup. Bill Clinton basically endorsed the progress that Kazakhstan had made in terms of their own democracy, which was sort of interesting given that President Nazarbayev was elected with 90+% of the vote in an election that was widely criticized as being rigged.”
AFP reports:
Energy-rich Kazakhstan's incumbent strongman Nursultan Nazarbayev scored a crushing victory in Sunday's one-sided presidential ballot, taking 97.5 percent of the vote to win a fifth consecutive term, an exit poll showed.
The exit poll carried out by the Institute for Democracy, a research company based in the authoritarian state, also showed Nazarbayev's closest competitor Turgun Syzdykov as scoring 1.8 percent of the ballot and third candidate Abelgazy Kusainov taking 0.63 percent.
Kazakhstan's Central Election Commission (CEC) claimed a record voter turnout of 95.11 percent for the poll whose result was never in doubt.
The CEC is expected to present preliminary results on Monday.
