Twitter Murders Shorts, Squeezes Over 20 Percent Intra-Day $TWTR

Shares of Twitter ($TWTR) traded above $20 for the first time in months, savaging short sellers on better than expected third quarter earnings and the addition of 4 million users. Shares traded up over 20 percent in intra-day trading, hitting a high of $20.63.

The San Francisco-based social media giant’s loss narrowed to $21 million, or three cents / share, vs. a net loss of $103 million, or 15 cents, year over year. Not including certain items, $TWTR booked a profit of .10c / share vs. analyst estimates of seven cents. 

Revenue did fall 4% to $590 million, however this also beat estimates of $587 million.

Twitter said revenue during the quarter was driven in part by strength in its video and direct response ads. The platform has struggled to attract advertisers and its overall advertising revenue fell 8% to $503 million. Video remains its largest type of advertising and a “significant” source of growth, the company said. It has also benefited from diversifying into services like data licensing and by expanding abroad. –Forbes

Twitter Revenue Growth, YoY: -4%. 3rd straight neg q. Stock up 12% pre-market – expectations are everything. $TWTR pic.twitter.com/WjD8UQB7gG

— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) October 26, 2017

The company also guided up bigly, saying it could turn its first-ever profit next quarter – calling for adjusted profits of $220 – $240 million in the fourth quarter, well above the $200 million forecast. Twitter added “at the high end of our adjusted EBITDA range, we will likely be GAAP profitable,” which would also be the first time the company turned a profit on that metric.

I can’t wait until $TWTR hits $20 so I’m only down 50%

— Ramp Capital™♿️ (@RampCapitalLLC) October 26, 2017

Growing user base

Monthly active users rose 4% to 330 million, which the company attributed to its use of email, push notification and a more efficient timeline to help people find relevant content. Daily active users grew 14% y/y – the fourth straight quarter of double-digit growth.

That said, the company also announced that it had been overstating its user base for years

The company said it discovered that since 2014 it has mistakenly included users of certain third-party applications in its monthly active user count. So, for instance, while Twitter reported it had 328 million monthly active users last quarter, it has now revised that figure to 326 million. –Forbes

Twitter $TWTR COO @anthonynoto says on Q3 2017 call:

“We are ahead of my plans from January 2017 in terms of the return to revenue growth”

— Rich Greenfield (@RichBTIG) October 26, 2017

Fending off evil Russians

Under pressure over claims of Russian influence in the 2016 election, Twitter announced that it’s banning Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik from advertising on the platform:

“This decision was based on the retrospective work we’ve been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government,” the company said.

Twitter confirmed that the two media firms are the only ones that it found to have tried to interfere with the election. While it has banned both outlets from running ads, it will allow them to retain their accounts on the service “in accordance with the Twitter Rules.”

It added that it will donate the revenue it has received from RT advertising efforts — which it puts at $1.9 million to date — to fund research into the use of its service in civic engagement and elections. The company promised to share more details on that soon. –TechCrunch

Off-boarding advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik.

We’re donating all projected earnings ($1.9mm) to support external research into the use of Twitter in elections, including use of malicious automation and misinformation. https://t.co/zIxfqqXCZr

— jack (@jack) October 26, 2017

Boston-based General Electric ($GE) is trying to jettison its transportation and healthcare technology-related, CNBC reports.

GE is looking to partner, spin off or possibly sell operations which primarily produce diesel-powered locomotives and railroad equipment, the sources said in the report. The business is one of the industrial conglomerate’s oldest and reported $4.7 billion in revenue last year.

Reuters also reported the company is “exploring” selling its healthcare information technology business, which includes such brands as API Healthcare and Centricity EMR, according to people familiar with the matter.

Flannery notably moved from GE’s healthcare division to the head of the company, while the head of GE Transportation, Jamie Miller, will become GE’s CFO on November 1 after announcing the departure of current CFO Jeffrey Bornstein on December 31.

GE stock meanwhile is a total shit show – down over 32% YTD with nearly 10% of that in the last five days. 

originally published by ZeroHedge

The mystery surrounding Mandalay Bay security guard Jesus Campos grows increasingly bizarre by the day.  Following Stephen Paddock’s October 1st massacre in Las Vegas, Campos, who may or may not have been shot by Paddock, flaked on a press conference that he reportedly scheduled then went missing for days before suddenly resurfacing on the ‘Ellen’ show.

Now, Fox News has uncovered Customs and Border Patrol documents showing that Campos apparently crossed the border into Mexico days after the Vegas massacre.  Campos reportedly crossed the border at the same place in January but, for whatever reason, was driving a rental car this time around instead of his own vehicle.  Per the New York Post:

Mandalay Bay security guard Jesus Campos mysteriously left the country just days after the Las Vegas massacre, a report says.

Customs and Border Patrol documents obtained by Fox News show that the 25-year-old entered the United States from Mexico at the San Ysidro border crossing in California — one week after the mass shooting.

It’s unclear how long Campos was out of the country. The documents only show that he entered back into the US.

The young man reportedly crossed the border at the same location in January.

While Campos was driving his own vehicle with Nevada plates during that trip, sources told Fox that he took a rental car this time around — which was registered in California.

Stephen Schuck and security guard Jesus Campos of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, pose during the taping of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in Burbank, CaliforniaOf course, this raises a number of new questions including, but certainly not limited to, the following: (1) why would the FBI allow a material witness to flee the country during an ongoing investigation, (2) if Campos was shot, why/how did he spend hours in a car on a road trip to Mexico rather recuperating in a hospital bed and (3) if this was a “pre-planned” visit, as his union suggests, then why did investigators seem so baffled by his disappearance.

  The new information raises even more questions about Stephen Paddock’s Oct. 1 massacre — such as why authorities would allow Campos to leave the country in the middle of their investigation or how the security guard managed to make it down to Mexico with a gunshot wound to his leg.

Campos reportedly took a bullet from gunman Stephen Paddock at the start of his killing spree.

The union that represents him told Fox that they were aware of his trip to Mexico and claimed it was pre-planned visit. What’s unclear, though, why the group didn’t report his whereabouts in the days following the massacre.

So what say you?  Was this just an innocent, pre-planned trip to Mexico or is there a lot more to the Jesus Campos saga?

An FBI informant who was made to sign an ‘illegal’ gag order has been cleared to testify before congress about a Russian uranium scandal involving bribery, kickbacks, the Clinton Foundation and the Obama Administration.

BREAKING: DOJ authorizes FBI Informant to speak with Congress concerning alleged corruption involving Clintons & Uranium One. #MAGA #DTS

— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) October 25, 2017

“As of tonight, the Department of Justice has authorized the informant to disclose to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as one member of each of their staffs, any information or documents he has concerning alleged corruption or bribery involving transactions in the uranium market, including but not limited to anything related to Vadim Mikerin, Rosatom, Tenex, Uranium One, or the Clinton Foundation,” she said.

The Hill reports:

Multiple congressional committees have been seeking to interview the informant, whose name has not been released publicly, because he stayed undercover for nearly five years providing agents information on Russia’s aggressive efforts to grow its atomic energy business in America.

His work helped the Justice Department secure convictions against Russia’s top commercial nuclear executive in the United States, a Russian financier in New Jersey and the head of a U.S. uranium trucking company in what prosecutors said was a long-running racketeering scheme involving bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering. 

As iBankCoin previously reported, The Hill published a bombshell report revealing the FBI’s mole gathered substantial evidence that “The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions.”

The FBI informant is represented by Attorney Victoria Toensing – a former Reagan Justice Department official and former chief counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Toensing said her client was made to sign an illegal – and therefore invalid NDA, and he should be free to share evidence gathered proving that Russian nuclear officials were involved in a racketeering scheme in 2009, before the Uranium One deal was approved.

Toensing told Fox’s Lou Dobbs she’s never heard of a criminal penalty for violating an NDA, stating “If it does and it is unconstitutional and it’s invalid, if it prohibits my client from giving information to the legislature, the executive cannot say to people, ‘Hey, you can’t give information to another body of the government.”

The Washington attorney said that her client’s direct knowledge of the pay-for-play scheme involving the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One is significant, adding “He can tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made,” Toensing said on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

Obama DOJ threatened FBI informant if he spoke to congress regarding his knowledge of the Uranium One deal. https://t.co/dhzdJdLFpY pic.twitter.com/SQBvKpej0t

— Nick Short ?? (@PoliticalShort) October 19, 2017

Let’s rock and roll bitches…

Newsweek is out with a chilling new report detailing how far-right extremists used “leaked NATO and British Intelligence documents” to “spread white supremacism across the world,” according to the UK’s Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

Stalking innocent voters over internet message boards such as 4chan, the think tank says “far-right groups, targeting anxieties over immigration, terrorism and race” used “memetic warfare albums such as ‘normie memes,’ and psychological operations resources” to influence the 2016 U.S. election as well as the 2017 German election.

“Ahead of the AfD success in the German federal election—in which it secured 26 percent of the vote and marked the first time that far-right party has won seats in the German parliament since the Second World War—U.S. ‘alt-right’ activists spreads tips on messaging board 4chan.” -Newsweek

Note that after the establishment has spent nearly 18 months trying to tie Donald Trump to the Kremlin, the word “Russia” isn’t mentioned once in the article… continuing a pivot away from Russian Influence which started in late September.

Also absent from the ISD’s analysis on the rise of “nationalism” is the possibility that people around the world simply see what’s happening in Sweden – the “rape capital of Europe,” and don’t want to turn their countries into 3rd world caliphates.

Deep State of Mind

Perhaps relevant, not sure, but the ISD’s Head of Strategy, Farah Pandith, was a Bush and Obama appointee – and was the “Special Representative to Muslim Communities” for the latter administration – tasked with “emphasizing the President’s and the Secretary’s policy of creating new partnerships with Muslim communities around the world.”

In other words, Newsweek is relying on a study by the obviously biased and very liberal ISD for a new, ham-handed pivot away from “Russia did it” – coincidentally entering the public dialogue as revelations have emerged that Hillary Clinton, the Podesta Brothers, Paul Manafort, and the Obama Administration were as thick as thieves with Russian oligarchs – selling 20 percent of American uranium to the Kremlin after the Clinton Foundation received $145 million in suspicious donations.

To review: Racist nationalists around the world – NOT Russia – are using stolen NATO / UK intel documents to spread election-influencing racism over internet message boards – according to an institute whose executive leadership includes the Obama administration’s “Special Representative to Muslim Communities,” Farah Pandith

Tucker Carlson gave an explosive monologue last night after a former executive of the Podesta Group contacted the Fox host with “direct personal knowledge” of a report that former FBI director Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel is investigating the Washington Lobbying firm founded by John and Tony Podesta.

The former executive who has been “extensively” interviewed by Mueller’s team, said the FBI probe is now focusing on people in Washington who have worked as de-facto operatives on behalf of Russian government and business. To that end, Carlson’s source made several shocking claims about Paul Manafort and the Podesta Group peddling Russian influence throughout Washington D.C. – focusing primarily on access to the Obama administration, and heavily involved with the Clinton Foundation and the Uranium One deal.

“They are more focused on facilitators of Russian influence in this country than they are on election collusion,” Carlson’s source told Fox.

To be clear, a former long-time executive of the Podesta Group has told Robert Mueller’s team the following (and more):

Details: 

• Lobbyist and temporary Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is at the center of the Russia probe – however the scope of the investigation has broadened to include his activities prior to the 2016 election.
• Manafort worked with the Podesta Group since at least 2011 on behalf of Russian interests, and was at the Podesta Group offices “all the time, at least once a month,” peddling Russian influence through a shell group called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU).
• Manafort brought a “parade” of Russian oligarchs to congress for meetings with members and their staffs, however, the Russia’s “central effort” was the Obama Administration.
• In 2013, John Podesta recommended that Tony hire David Adams, Hillary Clinton’s chief adviser at the State Department, giving them a “direct liaison” between the group’s Russian clients and Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
• In late 2013 or early 2014, Tony Podesta and a representative for the Clinton Foundation met to discuss how to help Uranium One – the Russian owned company that controls 20 percent of American Uranium Production – and whose board members gave over $100 million to the Clinton Foundation.
• “Tony Podesta was basically part of the Clinton Foundation.”
• Believing she would win the 2016 election, Russia considered the Podesta Group’s connection to Hillary highly valuable.
• Podesta Group is a nebulous organization with no board oversight and all financial decisions made by Tony Podesta. Carlson’s source said payments and kickbacks could be hard for investigators to trace, describing it as a “highly secret treasure trove.” One employee’s only official job was to manage Tony Podesta’s art collection, which could be used to conceal financial transactions.

Former Podesta Group Exec: Paul Manafort was in PG offices "all the time" representing Russian political and business interests. #RussiaGate pic.twitter.com/6dFB1MJRdP

— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) October 25, 2017

"Tony Podesta was basically part of the Clinton Foundation," Podesta Group may be concealing financial transactions through art collection. pic.twitter.com/yyyo57THMJ

— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) October 25, 2017

See the entire monologue below: 

While many aspects of Manafort’s Russian ties are still unclear, one has to wonder how he became Donald Trump’s campaign manager, and why he was suddenly fired from the position after  less than three months on the job – two months before the election. Was Manafort pitched to Trump to leverage his vast DC connections, only to be fired after the scope of his involvement with Russia was revealed? Or was Manafort ejected when the left began the Russian witch hunt?

As iBankCoin previously reported, the Podesta Group was subpoenaed in late August along with four other public relations firms who worked with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort during a 2012-2014 lobbying effort for a pro-Ukraine think tank – the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine (ECMU) – tied to former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

Yanukovych fled from Ukraine to Russia after he was unseated in a 2014 coup.

Two of the subpoenaed firms include Paul Manafort’s Mercury, LLC and the Podesta Group. 

White House Access

Visitor logs reveal that Tony Podesta visited the White House at least 114 times during the Obama administration, and was said to have had ‘special access‘ to the administration through his brother, John Podesta, while lobbying for various pro-Kremlin interests.

During a 2015 interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, former president Obama admitted that his administration ‘brokered a deal‘ for the 2014 coup in Ukraine – all while John Podesta was a West Wing advisor and Tony Podesta lobbied for an organization which opposed the coup.

Uranium One and Joule Unlimited

The Podesta group earned $180,000 lobbying for Russian-owned mining company Uranium One during the same period that the Clinton Foundation was receiving millions from UrAsia / U1 interests.

Last week, two bombshell reports published by The Hill revealed that the FBI – headed by Robert Mueller at the time – discovered that “Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow” – a deal which would grant the Kremlin control over 20 percent of America’s uranium supply, as detailed by author Peter Schweitzer’s book Clinton Cash and the New York Times in 2015.

So – after Russia took control of the Uranium, the Podesta Group received $180,000 to lobby for Uranium One during the same period that the Clinton Foundation was receiving millions from U1 interests, and after Russia took majority ownership in the “20 percent” deal (source – you have to add up the years).

And now, a former Podesta Group executive tells the world that the real Russian collusion story starts with Paul Manafort and the Podesta Group and ends with Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration. 

A Swedish journalist who referred to Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange as a “criminal” over since-dropped rape allegations has been accused of rape and sexually assaulting underage victims as young as 14.

Frederik Virtanen – who also hosts a talk show on Swedish TV, was called out during the #MeToo social media campaign created in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein Hollywood scandal.

Virtanen was first accused of raping Swedish feminist Cissi Wallin in 2006 when she was 21. Four years later, she said an “older man with power” had sexually assaulted her.

“I cannot be quiet anymore,” Wallin said in her Instagram post, adding that she should “have screamed his name long ago.”

After Wallin spoke up, Swdish author Camilla Läckberg voiced her support, claiming she had heard the same stories about Virtanen from “so many others.”

“Cissi is not alone, I’ve heard from so many others about the same man. For years. Still silence,” wrote Läckberg on Instagram.

Following Wallin and Läckberg’s posts, several more accusers shared their own stories about Virtanen – claiming he sexually assaulted victims ranging in age from 14 – 19 years old.

Feminist Fridah Jönsson was one of those women, alleging Virtanen asked her to sleep with him when she was 14. Another two women claimed Virtanen raped or sexually assaulted them – one of them having been lured to the journalist’s apartment for drinks when she was 16, and another alleged victim who said he tried to rape her when she was 19 in the southern Swedish city of Eskilstuna 17 years ago.

Keep up with the latest on accused Swedish rapist and giant hypocrite with the hashtag #virtanengate

@Daily_Star Famous swe, journalist drugs and rapes women.
Grooms underaged.
Swedish MSM puts the lid on.#virtanen #virtanengate pic.twitter.com/rILNcTwoBa

— Osmo Biffhage (@biffhage) October 17, 2017

I DID IT MY WAY#virtanengate#PervoVirtanen#snuskfarbrorn#svpol#meetoo pic.twitter.com/dfAI2apPvE

— Olof Von Garken (@MaximilianMaxi8) October 19, 2017

Originally published by ZeroHedge | 10.24.17

As a reminder, nothing lasts forever…

The World Bank’s former chief economist wants to replace the US dollar with a single global super-currency, saying it will create a more stable global financial system.

 “The dominance of the greenback is the root cause of global financial and economic crises,” Justin Yifu Lin told Bruegel, a Brussels-based policy-research think tank.

“The solution to this is to replace the national currency with a global currency.”

The writing is on the wall for dollar hegemony. As Russian President Vladimir Putin said almost two months ago during the BRICs summit in Xiamen,

 “Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.”

As Pepe Escobar recently noted, ‘to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies’ is the politest way of stating what the BRICS have been discussing for years now; how to bypass the US dollar, as well as the petrodollar.

Beijing is ready to step up the game. Soon China will launch a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan and convertible into gold.

This means that Russia – as well as Iran, the other key node of Eurasia integration – may bypass US sanctions by trading energy in their own currencies, or in yuan.

Inbuilt in the move is a true Chinese win-win; the yuan will be fully convertible into gold on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges.

The new triad of oil, yuan and gold is actually a win-win-win. No problem at all if energy providers prefer to be paid in physical gold instead of yuan. The key message is the US dollar being bypassed.

China’s plans for oil futures trading go back more than two decades, with the government introducing a domestic crude contract in 1993 and stopping a year later amid an overhaul of its energy industry.

But in 2013, we first hinted at the birth of the petroyuan was looming…

 In doing so China is effectively lobbing the first shot across the bow of the Petrodollar system, and more importantly, the key support of the USD in the international arena… setting the scene for the petroyuan.

And now, we are within two months of it becoming a reality as China prepares to roll out a yuan-denominated oil contract within the next two months…

 “Approval of the trading rules by the securities regulator marks the clearance of a major hurdle toward launch of the contract,” Li Zhoulei, an analyst with Everbright Futures, said by phone.

“The latest rules raised entry threshold for investors from the draft rules, which shows the government wants to avoid volatility when it first starts trading.”

Which, according to Adam Levinson, of hedge fund manager Graticule Asset Management Asia, will be a “wake up call” for investors who haven’t paid attention to the plans.

A Yuan-denominated oil contract will be a “huge story” in the fourth quarter.

“The contract is a hedging tool for Chinese oil companies. We’re convinced Chinese oil companies will be anchor investors in the Aramco IPO.”

All of which fits with recent comments and actions from Russian and Venezuelan officials…

 “Venezuela is going to implement a new system of international payments and will create a basket of currencies to free us from the dollar,” Maduro said in a multi-hour address to a new legislative “superbody.” He reportedly did not provide details of this new proposal.

Maduro hinted further that the South American country would look to using the yuan instead, among other currencies.

 “If they pursue us with the dollar, we’ll use the Russian ruble, the yuan, yen, the Indian rupee, the euro,” Maduro also said.

Additionally, Levison warns Washington that besides serving as a hedging tool for Chinese companies, the contract will aid a broader Chinese government agenda of increasing the use of the yuan in trade settlement… and thus the acceleration of de-dollarization and the rise of the Petro-Yuan.

 “I don’t think there’s any doubt we’re going to see use of the renminbi in reserves go up substantially”

Levinson was even more sanguine about China’s growing credit exposure.

While Chinese debt-to-GDP continues to rise, we note that Chinese sovereign credit risk has collapsed to 9 year lows…

Which as Levinson notes, “All the issues in China are occurring without fully understanding the asset side of the balance sheet.” He is not concerned about China credit issues in the near-term, defining the near term as the next two years, as “the capacity of the sovereign to deal with an issue, should it occur, is pretty significant and therefore important.”

Which appears to the market’s perspective as China is now the least risky relative to US in four years…

Finally, while he is less concerned about China’s credit, Levinson warns that the lack of volatility as stocks and bonds rally is the “scariest part” of global markets…

 “If I am concerned about anything it’s where the level of implied volatility trades,” Levinson said in an interview in Singapore on Tuesday.

“It is extremely low. If there is something to be concerned about in global markets, it’s the endogenous level of where implied volatility is trading.”

Small market declines could escalate quickly, Levinson said.

“You don’t know when an event or an issue is going to present itself,” he said.

“But when it does, the nature of the volatility construct in markets today is such that if you have a modest correction it will turn into a much more severe one in a short period of time, because of the entrenched structural short-selling of volatility.”

Any increase in market turbulence could trigger dramatic selling and the biggest of those events could be a broader adoption of China’s PetroYuan contract… as Levinson says “will be a huge story” in Q4.

With housing prices hitting record highs around the country, a new report from TransUnion suggests that around 10 million homeowners are expected to take out home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) over the next four years.

CNBC reports:

That would be more than double the amount of originations between 2012 and 2016. This comes as the amount of available home equity has jumped to more than $13 trillion today from $6.3 trillion in 2011, the bottom of the last housing crash.

HELOCs, which are often loans after the primary mortgage, usually rise and fall along with home equity, but that didn’t happen following the recession. There was a significant pullback in lending, as banks considered the loans too risky and too difficult to originate, given the stricter underwriting guidelines that were implemented.

Because leveraging a highly appreciated asset in a rising-rate environment with household debt already at record highs has never led to disaster…

Experts, of course, assume the HELOCs are going to be used to ‘repair and renovate’ homes – instead of upgrading and maintaining the gluttonous lifestyles of millions of homeowners – just like last time.

“Recent strengthening of the U.S. economy, tight housing inventories, and healthy home equity gains are all working to boost home improvement activity,” Chris Herbert, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies, wrote in a recent survey.

“Over the coming year, owners are projected to spend in excess of $330 billion on home upgrades and replacements, as well as routine maintenance,” Herbert said.

Sure Chris.

It won’t all be drunken pirate borrowing, I’m sure. HELOCs are a great way to consolidate high interest debt from credit cards and auto loans – however homeowners should keep in mind that the penalty for defaulting on a HELOC is losing one’s home.

An undercover FBI informant blocked from testifying in front of Congress by Obama AG Loretta Lynch in the Russia-Uranium scandal has been advised that an iron-clad non-disclosure agreement (NDA) which threatens criminal prosecution is not legal and therefore invalid.

As detailed by The Hill last week, the informant was a mole deeply embedded in the Russian nuclear industry gathered extensive evidence that Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – a scheme of bribes and kickbacks to the company which would ostensibly transport the U.S. uranium sold in the ’20 percent’ deal.

In short; the FBI knew about a Russian racketeering scheme in the U.S. uranium sector before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal which would allow Russia to mine 20 percent of American uranium and sell it back to us at an enormous profit.

“The Russians were compromising American contractors in the nuclear industry with kickbacks and extortion threats, all of which raised legitimate national security concerns. And none of that evidence got aired before the Obama administration made those decisions,” a person who worked on the case told The Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by U.S. or Russian officials. –The Hill

Both the House and the Senate have opened probes into the Uranium One scandal.

The FBI informant is represented by Attorney Victoria Toensing – a former Reagan Justice Department official and former chief counsel of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Toensing says her client was made to sign an illegal – and therefore invalid NDA, and he should be free to share evidence gathered proving that Russian nuclear officials were involved in a racketeering scheme in 2009, before the Uranium One deal was approved.

Toensing told Fox’s Lou Dobbs she’s never heard of a criminal penalty for violating an NDA, stating “If it does and it is unconstitutional and it’s invalid, if it prohibits my client from giving information to the legislature, the executive cannot say to people, ‘Hey, you can’t give information to another body of the government.”

Toensing said that her client’s direct knowledge of the pay-for-play scheme involving the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One is significant.

“He can tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made,” Toensing said on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

As far as actually invalidating the NDA, Fox Business reports that The House Oversight Committee is investigating the Obama-era Uranium One deal, and Reps Ron DeSantis (R-Florida) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) are calling for the Justice Department to remove the NDA that prevents the former FBI informant from testifying.“We are glad Ron DeSantis is doing it because he is a former federal prosecutor, and he is a go-getter on this and I think he’ll do a great job,” Toensing said.

Watch here: 

Obama DOJ threatened FBI informant if he spoke to congress regarding his knowledge of the Uranium One deal. https://t.co/dhzdJdLFpY pic.twitter.com/SQBvKpej0t

— Nick Short ?? (@PoliticalShort) October 19, 2017