Clinton claims, in leaked e-mails, anti-fracking groups funded by Putin (Russia)

According to stolen/hacked/leaked emails, Hillary Clinton claimed in 2014 that anti-fracking groups were being funded by Russia (Putin). The emails came from John Podesta’s email account, and are transcripts of a private speech she gave on June 18, 2014, sponsored by tinePublic, a Canadian promotional group.

According to the leaked email, Hillary Clinton said: “We were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media. We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, ‘Oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you,’ and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.” (Source: Washington Times)

Back in that time period I reported on a similar claim of Russian Funding launched against the anti-Fracking protesters in Romania. Chevron had begun a pilot project to drill an exploratory well for fracking near Pungesti, and the locals rose up in revulsion that their land would be destroyed by Fracking, and launched an intense protest. The government crackdown on the protest was so severe it drew criticism from human rights watchdog groups. The protest was unable to stop Chevrons project, but Chevron ended up pulling out of Romania and Poland and Ukraine citing financial problems.

If true, how would this serve Russia’s interest? Russia wouldn’t be doing such funding for altruistic environmental reasons. We’re talking about Russia, right?

Russia has vast territories that are largely untapped, including huge natural gas and oil deposits. As the world warms it will become more possible for Russia to tap those deposits. Europe is starved of natural gas and oil deposits, and is dependent on sources outside Europe. Russia’s goal is to be the primary supplier of natural gas and oil to Europe, so that Russia can rake in megabucks, and also wield enormous political leverage over Europe.

As I reported back in that time, the geopolitical power brokers are highly concerned about Europes fossil fuel vulnerability. A Congressional Research Service report called this issue as being in the US National Interest, a code word saying the US would be willing to go to war to ensure Europe’s energy security, and to protect Europe from falling into that kind of control trap with Russia.

Since Hillary Clinton’s State Department launched a global effort to frack all frackable countries, she is obviously on the side of fracking, and is interested in promoting fracking. Therefore the statement attributed to her fits with her actions. Hence, I can believe that she actually made this claim.

She was not the only person to claim Russia was funding anti-fracking or other environmental groups. She was not the only person to say things like the above quote. Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton are almost certainly still getting top-secret briefings, and therefore have access to information we cannot have. Perhaps she was telling the truth.

It’s also possible that she is doing the bidding of the fracking companies, and pushing propaganda they want in the public.

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About David Herron

David Herron is a writer and software engineer living in Silicon Valley. He primarily writes about electric vehicles, clean energy systems, climate change, peak oil and related issues. When not writing he indulges in software projects and is sometimes employed as a software engineer. David has written for sites like PlugInCars and TorqueNews, and worked for companies like Sun Microsystems and Yahoo.