Hillary Clinton and her supporters openly suggest collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign is responsible for the hacking of various Democratic Party websites, but a closer look at Clinton’s time as secretary of state not only reveals a cozy relationship but actions that damage U.S. national security and may have even led to her own emails being hacked.
The revelations come in a new report from “Clinton Cash” author Peter Schweizer, who made headlines last year by outlining several examples of Clinton allegedly using her office at the State Department to benefit big Clinton Foundation donors and those who paid massive sums for Bill Clinton to speak at various events. Schweizer says his least discoveries paint a very troubling picture.
“It has that reeking of kind of an insider cronyism deal, not to mention what we would soon learn about the national security implications of this project,” said Schweizer.
At issue is a massive high-tech project called Skolkovo.
“It was an initiative to get U.S. tech companies to invest both money and technology into a Russian version of Silicon Valley,” said Schweizer. “That version of Silicon Valley was of course a government-directed one, not like the Silicon Valley we have in the United States.”
Why was the Obama administration interested in laying our technological advancements bare for Russia to see? Schweizer says it’s the latest version of detente, the Nixon-Kissinger strategy of thawing relations through collaborative efforts.
“The idea is that by helping Russia develop its version of Silicon Valley, we would make them more prosperous and supposedly more stable and more cooperative. They would be tied to us economically so it would make them less aggressive. That was the theory,” said Schweizer.
As with the previous allegations of pay-to-play, Schweizer says the money trail here is also very curious.
“Many of them had close Clinton links financially. Of the 28 American companies that were invited to participate, 17 of them were major Clinton Foundation donors,” said Schweizer. “On the Russian side, the Russian official directing it was a major Clinton Foundation donor, as were some of the participants.”
However, the Clintons have been very prominent figures for many years. Is it possible they simply have good relationships with the firms most likely to take part in the Skolkovo project?
“It might explain part of the American participation, but it does not mention the Russian participation. There’s no reason why a guy named Viktor Vekselberg, who is the Russian overseeing this intiative, who is a Putin oligarch, there’s reason for him to be a Clinton Foundation donor – or a gentleman who was in charge of the nuclear cluster at Skolkovo,” said Schweizer.
“There’s no reason for him to donate to the Clinton Foundation absent the fact that she is the secretary of state steering this technology project,” said Schweizer.
Schweizer says it took about two years for the U.S. Army to figure out what Russia was really doing through this program designed to build trust and cooperation between the two nations.
“In 2011-2012, the U.S. Army does a study and comes to the conclusion that a lot of what’s going on in Skolkovo has military application, that in fact there’s a hyper-sonic cruise missile and other weapons being developed at what is supposed to be a civilian technology city,” said Schweizer.
It didn’t stop there.
“Then you had the FBI come a year later, which sends a letter to companies involved in this and said you should know that the ultimate purpose of this is for them to get access to classified technologies that can be applied for military purposes,” said Schweizer.
Schweizer says he less concerned about Russia directly using our own technology against us than he is about the Russians being willing to sell what they have to rogue nations and terrorist groups, just as it has assisted Iran and North Korea with their nuclear programs.
In addition to the military intelligence gathered, Schweizer says Skolkovo has developed a sinister reputation for something else.
“Skolkovo was identified, beginning back in 2011 by cyber security experts as a main area of cyber attack by Russia, that they were launching cyber attacks and engaging in cyber crimes directed at Ukraine and other targets,” said Schweizer.
He says if Russia is involved in the hacking of Democratic Party institutions, it’s possible it’s origins lie in Hillary Clinton’s reset strategy.
“It is not inconceivable at all that a tech initiative that Hillary Clinton launched and oversaw as secretary of state is now the location of hackers who are hacking into sites in the United States,” said Schweizer.
