The first of many shoes has dropped in relation to the Clinton Foundation and its donors.  This one is coming to us, courtesy of the New York Times: and it’s a “BOOM goes the dynamite” kind of situation. The keywords are “Clinton Foundation,” “Russians,” “donations,” and “uranium:”

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One [a company responsible for one-fifth of the uranium production in the United States] in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

Let’s get this out of the way, because right now minions are gearing up to start throwing their bodies on this particular bonfire: yes, the New York Times got the tip on this from Peter Schweizer, author of the upcoming book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.  Said book promises to make for fascinating reading for most of my audience, but it should be understood that this story was not fed to the New York Times.  This story is the result of the New York Times vetting particular details.

And the results are nicely problematic for Team Clinton.  Basically, this story looks a good deal like the one that recently laid low Oregon Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber: money was given to a person/group affiliated with a politician, and oddly enough that politician made decisions that well-pleased the people giving the money. In Kitzhaber’s case the bagman was his fiancee: in Hillary Clinton’s case… well, ‘bagman’ is such a harsh word, is it not? Nonetheless, there is plenty of reason to be suspicious, particularly since there are now some questions about just how much the Clinton Foundation spends on actual charity.

And the most interesting part? Hillary Clinton apparently cannot provide exculpatory email evidence to the contrary. That’s the flip side to Team Clinton’s amusingly precise statement that nobody “has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.”  All those emails got deleted.  Which means that Hillary Clinton’s main defense is Trust me.

:pause:

No, I don’t think that we’ll do that.

Moe Lane (crosspost)