Exposing Powerful Interests
"After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton," by Jo Becker and Don Van Natta Jr. of The New York Times, is a tightly woven story of international intrigue, big money and politics. It focuses on a 2005 meeting attended by Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra, Bill Clinton and Kazakhstan President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. The meeting proved rewarding.
Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy. Mr. Clinton’s public declaration undercut both American foreign policy and sharp criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Within two days, corporate records show that Mr. Giustra also came up a winner when his company signed preliminary agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom.
The monster deal stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company into one of the world’s largest uranium producers in a transaction ultimately worth tens of millions of dollars to Mr. Giustra, analysts said.
Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month….
Note how Becker and Van Natta compiled enough evidence to overcome official denials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html