Questions raised over Hillary Clinton's financial dealings

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has come under renewed scrutiny over donations to her family's charitable organisation during her time as secretary of state, as news organisations publish allegations made in a controversial new book about the Clintons' financial dealings.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that Mrs Clinton's State Department was part of a panel that approved the sale of a Canadian company with large uranium-mining stakes in the US and central Asia to Russia's nuclear energy agency at the same time that the Clinton family foundation was receiving multimillion dollar donations from figures connected to the deal.

Some of those allegations are contained in a book to be published next month by conservative author Peter Schweizer called Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.

The New York Times and other news organisations such as the Washington Post and Fox News have signed agreements to preview the book's material, in an arrangement some advisers to Mrs Clinton have criticised as unusual.

"Some of the connections between Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation were unearthed by Peter Schweizer, a former fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and author of the forthcoming book "Clinton Cash"," the New York Times said in its report on Thursday. "Mr Schweizer provided a preview of material in the book to The Times, which scrutinised his information and built upon it with its own reporting."

Questions about whether foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation tried to press for favourable treatment from the State Department during Mrs Clinton's tenure between 2009 and 2013 have dogged the former secretary during the lead-up to the launch of her second bid for the Oval Office.

Several contenders for the Republican nomination for president, including Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator, and Texas senator Ted Cruz have already signalled they intend to make Mrs Clinton and her husband's financial ties to the foundation a centrepiece of their opposition to her candidacy.

Mr Paul, who reviewed the contents of Mr Schweizer's book before publication, said some of its allegations were "mind-boggling."

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

In a campaign stop in New Hampshire earlier this week, Mrs Clinton labelled Mr Schweizer's book a "distraction".

"We're back into the political season and therefore we get subjected to all kinds of distractions and attacks, and I'm ready for that," Mrs Clinton said. "I know that comes, unfortunately, with the territory."

In advance of the book's publication, members of her team have characterised the allegations as a partisan smear based on "absurd conspiracy theories", written by an author who was part of former Republican president George W Bush's speechwriting team. Liberal groups such as Media Matters and Correct the Record, founded by Clinton ally David Brock, have similarly sought to discredit Mr Schweizer.

However, the detailed excerpts from the book will fuel fresh controversy for a campaign that is seeking to deflect entrenched concerns about the transparency of the Clintons' financial dealings as they work to rebrand Mrs Clinton as a more approachable, more down-to-earth candidate.

The New York Times report centres on the 2010 acquisition of a controlling stake in Canada's Uranium One by a unit of Russia's state-owned nuclear power group, Rosatom, which gave the Russian company control of a significant share of US uranium production capacity.

<>Because of the deal's strategic importance, it was reviewed and approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), the inter-agency panel that vets foreign takeovers of US companies for possible national security implications. The State Department, along with several other federal agencies, had a vote on the deal as a member of the committee, although there is no suggestion Mrs Clinton intervened or had a direct role in that decision.

Between 2009 and 2013, Uranium One's chairman, Ian Telfer, made four, previously undisclosed donations totalling $2.35m to the Clinton Foundation through his own family charity, according to the New York Times.

Mr Telfer said that his donations had nothing to do with his business dealings, and that he had never discussed Uranium One with Mr or Mrs Clinton.

The Clinton foundation did not immediately respond to questions about the disclosure of Mr Telfer's donations.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation