Hillary's State Department emboldened Russia through Clinton Foundation quid pro quos. Peter Schweizer, author of Clinton Cash, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that as secretary of state, Clinton corralled U.S. tech companies -- including those who were donors to the Clinton Foundation -- to provide funding to Skolkovo, which was dubbed "Russia’s version of Silicon Valley." Skolkovo returned their favor by having Russians connected to the "innovation city" donate to the Clinton Foundation and gathering together 28 "Key Partners," 17 of which "made financial commitments to the Clinton Foundation, totaling tens of millions of dollars, or sponsored speeches by Bill Clinton."
Here's the problem with all this: Skolkovo is funded by the Russian government, which has utilized the "innovation city" to enhance their military technology and steal classified information from the U.S.: (emphasis bolded)
Amid all the sloshing of Russia rubles and American dollars, however, the state-of-the-art technological research coming out of Skolkovo raised alarms among U.S. military experts and federal law-enforcement officials. Research conducted in 2012 on Skolkovo by the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Program at Fort Leavenworth declared that the purpose of Skolkovo was to serve as a “vehicle for world-wide technology transfer to Russia in the areas of information technology, biomedicine, energy, satellite and space technology, and nuclear technology.”
Moreover, the report said: “the Skolkovo Foundation has, in fact, been involved in defense-related activities since December 2011, when it approved the first weapons-related project—the development of a hypersonic cruise missile engine. . . . Not all of the center’s efforts are civilian in nature.”
Technology can have multiple uses—civilian and military. But in 2014 the Boston Business Journal ran an op-ed placed by the FBI, and noted that the agency had sent warnings to technology and other companies approached by Russian venture-capital firms. The op-ed—under the byline of Lucia Ziobro, an assistant special agent at the FBI’s Boston office—said that “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.”
Ms. Ziobro also wrote that “The [Skolkovo] foundation may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial application.”
It would be bad enough if this were the only quid pro quo deal that benefited the Russian government, but there was another deal that was just as bad, if not worse.
Clinton's State Department approved the sale of Uranium One to essentially be under the control of the Russian government. The deal allowed the Russian government to be in control of at least 20 percent of the U.S.'s uranium output, with some estimates putting it as high as 50 percent. Uranium One had donated $2.6 million to the Clinton Foundation.
For all of Clinton's tough talk against Russia in the 2016 election cycle, her actions as secretary of state do not substantiate her rhetoric.