An article in The New York Times on Jan. 31, 2008, though carefully worded, seemingly implied that former President Bill Clinton used political influence in Kazakhstan to allow Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra, 51, to invest in what turned out to be a very profitable uranium venture in return for Giustra’s major donations to Clinton’s foundation. Other media outlets parroting the story in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s nomination as secretary of state have been less subtle, suggesting there was an outright quid pro quo.
The Times story is premised on the coincidence that Giustra and Clinton were both in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 6, 2005, exactly the time when Giustra was pressing his case to invest in several uranium properties there. Clinton was in Kazakhstan to announce a Clinton Foundation agreement enabling the government to buy low-cost HIV drugs. The Times seems to suggest that Clinton’s appearance with Giustra, together with his public praise of the president of Kazakhstan, somehow helped Giustra with his uranium deals.
Did the Times read too much into Clinton’s role? Giustra and Clinton definitely think so. Giustra and Clinton’s aides point out several inaccuracies that persuade me that the Times may have been too quick to judge.
The Times defends its story, saying it “simply reported the sequence of events” and never claimed there was a quid pro quo. But the narrative clearly leads the reader to believe Clinton’s presence had something to do with Giustra successfully completing the deals.
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Chief among Giustra’s complaints is the Times‘ claim that he was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan. As the accompanying picture indicates, Giustra had done major mining deals in Kazakhstan as far back as the mid-1990s. And as to uranium specifically, Giustra made a study of the uranium market back in 2004 and knew that the need for nuclear plants in India and China, as well as elsewhere, would boost demand.
Through an intermediary, Giustra learned that interests in three properties–but not 100% interests–were being put on the market by private investors. Giustra began negotiating to acquire portions of these three separate uranium properties in April 2005. Other stakes were held by Kazatomprom, the state-owned uranium company.
After several interviews with Giustra in Vancouver and a number with his and Clinton’s aides, the truth appears to be that Giustra, the eminently successful deal maker, and his team from Vancouver began negotiating and doing due diligence in Kazakhstan long before Clinton’s arrival.
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The Times makes much of Giustra’s post-trip pledge to the Clinton Foundation of $31 million but failed to mention that Giustra had already pledged in July 2005 an initial $5 million months prior to the trip. As Khan tells it, at the time of the trip “all the president knew was that Frank was in the mining business and wanted to become a world-class philanthropist.”
Indeed, Giustra’s contributions to Clinton’s charitable efforts have continued unabated. In 2007 Giustra, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú and Swedish mining magnate Lucas Lundin each pledged $100 million to the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative to promote social welfare projects in Latin America and Africa, where mining is an important industry. Giustra has also pledged 50% of his annual mining profits to that same program.
