Attorney General Jeff Sessions was asked, during his Senate confirmation hearing, if he had had contact with Russian officials during the late campaign on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump. He quickly and candidly said no.

Turns out he did meet with the Russian Ambassador twice last year. Were I a bettor, I would place a healthy amount on the belief that the AG did not mention these meetings because they were so far removed from anything to relating to the Trump campaign that they did not even occur to him.

Then-Senator Sessions was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. Has it occurred to anyone that in that capacity, he might have wanted to speak to the ambassador of America’s leading challenger in the realm of nuclear weapons about its resurgent and deliberate nuclear re-armament?

Just coincidence: After Hillary signed off on the deal, the Clinton Foundation received no less than $145 million from nine of Uranium One’s shareholders.

Regardless, one thing is sure: President Trump’s chief rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, as well as her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have deep ties to Russia, including ties that involve, potentially, Russia’s nuclear weapons capacity.

Bill & Hillary’s Excellent Uranium Payoff

In 2010, according to the New York Times, “leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who (had) been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family” sought access to uranium production facilities in the U.S. “Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Funny thing: Soon after, the Times reports, things got quite interesting for the Clintons. The president of Uranium One, as the company came to be known, “used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million” to the Clinton Foundation. 

And that was just a fraction of what came pouring in: The Clinton Foundation received no less than $145 million from nine of Uranium One’s shareholders. As noted by Peter Schweizer, who exhaustively tracks the extensive corruption of the former first couple, “the deal allowed Rosatom, the Russian State Nuclear Agency, to buy assets that amounted to 20 percent of American uranium. Rosatom, by the way controls the Russian nuclear arsenal.”

Back to the Times: “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.”

$500,000 — yikes. As the former chief speechwriter for the Secretary of our country’s largest Cabinet department, I can only say that must have been one epic speech.

Skolkovo: Russian for “More Clinton Cash”

Then there’s the case of Skolkovo Innovation Center “Russia’s Silicon Valley.” Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pulled together a number of American high tech firms to underwrite Skolkovo. A number of these firms had already given to the Clinton Foundation and, soon, 17 of their Russian counterparts in Skolkovo also contributed to the Foundation. As Peter Schweizer notes, these “financial commitments to the Clinton Foundation (were in the) tens of millions of dollars, or sponsored speeches by Bill Clinton.”

Sleazy enough, but only the first peel of a rancid onion: As explained by journalist Rudy Takala, “Government documents suggest Skolkovo’s work conflicted at least in part with U.S. military interests. The U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Program described it in 2012 as a ‘vehicle for worldwide technology transfer to Russia in the areas of information technology, biomedicine, energy, satellite and space technology, and nuclear technology.’”

FBI Assistant Special Agent Lucia Ziobro, in a recent op-ed, affirmed these concerns: “The FBI recently released a notification to technology companies and research facilities … warning them of the possible perils of entering into joint partnerships with foreign venture capital firms from Russia … The FBI believes the true motives of the Russian partners, who are often funded by their government, is to gain access to classified, sensitive and emerging technology from the companies.”

Former presidents have access to pretty much whatever information they want. Certainly sitting Secretaries of State do. Yet Bill and Hillary Clinton, fully aware of the intimately close connections between Russian “private” industries, the Russian military, and the Putin regime, went forward with their Skolkovo initiative.

And one more: At one time, “Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta sat on the executive board of an energy company, Joule Unlimited, which received millions from a Putin-connected Russian government fund,” writes journalist Jerome Hudson. In addition, Podesta held 75,000 common shares in Joule which he later put in a “holding company.”

The Sad Circus

I have highlighted only the Clintons’ connections with Russia and its dangerous government. There is so much more in the vast archive of their multiple relationships with foreign governments, many of which have policies inimical to the interests of the United States. And still they continue to wander the globe selling influence and accruing massive wealth.

Meanwhile, Jeff Sessions is being assailed and unctuously belittled by the giants of the American Left, even today, for forgetting to mention a couple of meetings with the Russian Ambassador. This circus is a sad commentary on the character of our times.