You may remember the story from the 2016 election cycle: the Uranium One scandal that rocked the Clinton campaign.
An anonymous informant came forward with credible intel that linked the Clinton Foundation to a Russian company’s acquisition of Uranium One.
This controversial deal allowed Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned atomic energy corporation, to gain control over about 20% of the U.S.'s uranium extraction capacity. The sale required approval from nine federal agencies, including the State Department then headed by Hillary Clinton.
Allegations arose that the approval was directly influenced by donations to the Clinton Foundation by individuals connected to Uranium One, sparking accusations of a “pay-to-play” scheme.
Some other good parts here:
The response from law enforcement was not what one might expect given his status as a protected whistleblower. Instead of acknowledging his rights, they proceeded to search his entire house for hours, questioning him without a lawyer present, and taking personal items without clear legal justification.
“They never gave me a Schedule B. And since I’d never been raided before, I had no idea to even ask them for the Schedule B. So my defense attorney had to basically threaten them to get a copy of it. And when we got it, there were multiple things they took that were not on the list.”
…
Even after this incident, and being informed directly of Cain’s protected status, the agent in charge of the investigation continued to request information from Cain that he wasn’t legally required to give, or even to speak about without his attorney being present. This was not a mere oversight but a persistent and deliberate effort to obtain information from Cain, seemingly without regard for his legal rights as a whistleblower.
Cain recounted the unsettling experience:
“The agent calls me and I’ve already given him my lawyer’s information, and my lawyer instructed me not to say anything more. He calls me directly and tries to get me to give him my password to my phone and my password to my computer. And, I cooperated, I gave him, stupidly, I gave him the password to my phone. I immediately regretted it. And then he asked me for the password to not just my computer, but to my government computer, and when I refused he hung up angrily.”
This is wild - just whenever they want, these federal agents will leak your information to journalists to complicate your life:
“This guy then went on, you know, he basically leaked my information to the New York Times. I’m pretty sure it was him, because somehow the New York Times found out that I got raided.”
And now the most surprising part of it all:
After his information had been leaked to the press, it wasn’t long before he ended up in the hospital with symptoms resembling a stroke, despite being in perfect health prior to the event. The story is shocking, and it raises questions that go beyond the usual political intrigue:
"I ended up for six weeks having neurological symptoms that were identical to a stroke. Every test didn’t show anything, but that was after I went down to my car and reached up under my door handle, and there was some oily, wet substance under there. At the time, I thought, “Oh, gross.” And I wiped it off on my pants and got in the car, and I just wanted to get home. But I ended up in the emergency room with full-blown stroke symptoms, and thank God I was taking a vasodilator. I think that’s probably what saved my life.
“I had symptoms that lasted for six weeks. I went and saw a specialist in neurology who’s been in it for 50 years, and at the end of all these tests, he said to me, “What do you do for a living? Because I’m not finding anything in your charts. In fact, your arteries in your brain are pristine.” And he said, “So this doesn’t make any sense. What do you do for a living?” I said, “I’m a cybersecurity.” And he goes, “That just doesn’t make any sense. I’ve only known one guy who’s had all the symptoms that you had and had charts like yours, and that guy worked for an industrial chemical factory and touched some chemicals without his gloves on.” It triggered a memory of that that day I reached under my door handle and there was that oily liquid. And I realized what had happened.”
Absolutely wild.
These people will kill you.