How Russia Got Stronger as Biden and Clintons got richer

Uranium, Oil and Technology

How Russia got stronger as Bidens and Clintons got richer

In the years before Moscow invaded Ukraine, Democrats enriched themselves politically and personally from oligarchs and businesses in the region while empowering Vladimir Putin with energy and technology deals. 

by Seamus Bruner and John Solomon Updated: March 23, 2022 - 11:18pm

In the early days of Russia's war on Ukraine, President Joe Biden boldly declared he was ready to seize "ill-begotten gains" of the region's oligarchs. But in the years before Moscow twice invaded Ukraine, Democrats enriched themselves politically and personally from such oligarchs and businesses in the region while empowering Vladimir Putin with energy and technology deals that still haunt America today. Our best-selling book "Fallout: Nuclear Bribes, Russian Spies and the Washington Lies that Enriched the Clinton and Biden Dynasties" chronicled how a failed "reset" in U.S.-Russia relations led by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton relied on an appeasement strategy that ultimately backfired with Russia. Putin's spoils were measured in billions of dollars in uranium contracts with U.S. utilities, expanded oil imports and transfers of sensitive technologies. The American dynasties counted their victories in millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation, speech fees to Bill Clinton, and lucrative board seats and consulting deals for Hunter Biden. The appeasement policy began in February 2009. Russia had invaded its neighbor and former client state, Georgia, six months earlier. The lame-duck George W. Bush administration planned to put missile defense structures in Eastern Europe to deter Russian aggression against its neighbors. But one of the Obama-Biden administration's first foreign policy maneuvers was to cancel that plan via a "secret letter" to Putin's placeholder, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Why? U.S. leaders apparently wanted to make deals with Russia, and giant missile silos in Putin's backyard were a nonstarter for Moscow. But the canceled missile defense in Eastern Europe was only the beginning in a long line of concessions to Russia that not only emboldened Putin, but advanced Russian military capabilities in ways that are now having deadly consequences for Ukrainian civilians (think hypersonic missiles) while threatening the global economy. "The last few years have seen a dangerous drift in relations between Russia and the members of our Alliance," Biden said at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 7, 2009. "It is time — to paraphrase President Obama — it's time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia." Biden thus gave voice to what became the "Russia Reset" policy, embodied a month later when Clinton famously pushed a literal red "reset" button with her Russian counterpart.