American researcher Clinton Ehrlich, who works at MGIMO, explains in Foreign Policy magazine why Putin and his team support Trump. If Hillary Clinton is elected president, the world will remember August 25 as the day she started Cold War II.

Last month, in a speech that was actually nominally about Donald Trump, Clinton named Russian President Vladimir Putin the godfather of extreme far-right nationalism. For those who follow the Kremlin's policies, this is not an accidental epithet. Two years ago, in the most famous speech of his career, Putin accused the West of supporting the armed seizure of power in Ukraine by "people of extreme views, nationalists, right-wing, including neo-Nazi, convictions." Clinton not only stabbed the Russian president, she did it in his own words.

Worse, these were words that were originally addressed to neo-Nazis. In Moscow, this was perceived as a repetition of Clinton's statement in which she compared Putin to Hitler. This added an element of personal animosity to an already strained relationship, but more importantly, Clinton characterized Putin as representing an ideology fundamentally opposed to the United States.

Even after the events of 2014 in Ukraine, when relations between Russia and the West are worse than ever before, the Kremlin has long argued that a new Cold War is impossible: while there may be disagreements, say, over the fate of Donetsk, there is no longer a fundamental ideological struggle. separating East and West. But now, from a Russian perspective, Clinton's statement looks like she has added this missing ingredient to bipolar hostility, portraying Moscow as the vanguard of racism, intolerance, and mercy on a global scale.

Russians find it difficult to recognize their country in Clinton's description.

Discrimination against women? The Putin government provides working mothers with three years of paid parental leave. Intolerance? The President personally attended the opening of a large mosque in Moscow. Racism? Putin often praises Russia's ethnic diversity. It seems to Russians that Clinton is trying to come up with an explanation for her hostility.

As the only Western researcher at MGIMO - in the words of Henry Kissinger, the "Russian Harvard", the "crown jewel" of the Russian national security think tank - I faced the daunting task of finding a more reassuring explanation for Clinton's behavior. In fact, however, the institute is not so much like Harvard as a hybrid of West Point. (US Military Academy. - Open Russia) and the School of the Diplomatic Service of Georgetown University: MGIMO prepares the elite of the Russian diplomatic corps, while the country's most influential centers of expertise operate under its roof. There is no better place to assess how Moscow views a possible future Clinton administration.

To be blunt: Moscow perceives the former secretary of state as a threat to its very existence. From the Russian foreign policy experts with whom I spoke, it is impossible to hear even the most meager praise for Clinton. They believe that during her tenure as secretary of state she did a lot of harm, and the most destructive moment was the NATO intervention in Libya, which Russia could have prevented by using the veto in the UN Security Council. Moscow only gave permission because Clinton promised not to use the no-fly zone as a cover for regime change.

It is clear that Russian leaders were furious when not only toppled the former President of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, but also a video of the last minutes of his life, made on the phone, showing US-backed rebels rape the former president with a bayonet. And Clinton's reaction to the news infuriated the Kremlin even more: “We came, we saw, he died,” the secretary of state said and laughed. This strengthened her reputation in the eyes of Moscow as a two-faced warmonger.

When Clinton became a candidate, Moscow felt something like déjà vu: it again demanded the establishment of a humanitarian useless zone in the Middle East - this time in Syria. Russian analysts are convinced that this is just another pretext for regime change. Putin aims to save Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from the fate of Gaddafi, and he brought Russian aircraft, navy and special forces into Syria to defeat anti-Assad rebels, many of whom are American trained and receive American support.

Given the ongoing Russian operations, a "no-fly zone" is a polite euphemism for permission to shoot down Russian planes if Russia does not abandon its air campaign. Clinton understands this. When asked during the debate if she was going to shoot down Russian planes, she replied: “I don’t think it will come to that.” In other words, she is confident that Putin, if driven into a corner, will falter before the US starts a real war with Russia.

This is a dubious assumption; for Moscow the rates are much higher than for the White House. Syria has long been Russia's strongest ally in the Middle East, with the only Russian military base outside the former Soviet Union. When relations with Turkey deteriorated, the naval garrison in Tartus acquired particular strategic importance, because this base allows the Russian Black Sea Fleet to operate in the Mediterranean without passing through the straits controlled by Turkey.

Two weeks ago, Putin doubled his military presence in Syria, launching airstrikes using strategic bombers from an air base in northwestern Iran. Russia paid for this privilege with considerable diplomatic capital. After that, there is no longer an acceptable scenario in which Moscow will retreat and allow anti-Assad forces to take Damascus, which Washington considers its ultimate goal, judging by publicly available intelligence reports.

Clinton justifies his threat to attack the Russian air force by saying that it "gives us some leverage in our negotiations with Russia." This sounds suspicious, much like the "madman's strategy" attributed to former President Richard Nixon, who tried to maximize his "leverage" by convincing Soviet opponents that he was crazy enough to start a world war.

Nixon's bluff was a flop; even when he invaded Cambodia, Moscow never doubted his mental health for a moment. But now Russian analysts have no such confidence in Hillary Clinton's sanity.

Her temperament became legendary in Moscow when she broke diplomatic protocol and left a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov immediately after exchanging pleasantries. The impression that she was unstable was reinforced by reports that during the years of the State Department's leadership, she drank heavily; this accusation is especially weighty in a country where his alcoholism is blamed for many of Boris Yeltsin's failures.

External cultural differences made the situation even worse. In Russia, where smiling at a stranger is considered a sign of mental illness, leaders are expected to behave in a stern and cold-blooded manner. From this point of view, Clinton's behavior during the election campaign looks annoying: she is barks doggy, it's funny shakes head then grimaces... In my opinion, there are no signs of mental damage, but in Moscow many perceive it this way.

Another factor that annoys Russian analysts is that, unlike former hawks like John McCain, Clinton belongs to the Democratic Party. This allows her to drown out the voices of those who usually oppose intervention, although even the "architect of the Iraq war" Robert Kagan boasts that Clinton is pursuing a neocon foreign policy under a different name. Now the only one who advocates rapprochement with Russia is Clinton's opponent Donald Trump. If she wins, she will have a free hand for any aggressive actions against Russia, which are traditionally liked by the republican "hawks".

Moscow prefers Trump not because it believes he is easy to manipulate, but because his "America first" strategy coincides in its own views on international relations. Russia seeks to return to classical international law, in which states agree with each other on the basis of equally understood interests without any ideology. From Moscow's perspective, only the predictability of "real politics" can provide the coherence and stability needed for a lasting peace.

For example, Crimea has actually become a part of Russia. The proposal to officially acknowledge this fact is the most powerful card the next president can play in future negotiations with Russia. But Clinton castigated Trump too much for putting the card on the table. For ideological reasons, it prefers to pretend that Crimea will return to Ukraine someday - even if Moscow builds a $ 4 billion bridge connecting the peninsula to its main territory.

Moscow believes that Crimea and other important points of bipolar tensions will evaporate if America simply chooses a leader who will pursue the country's "main interests" - from supporting Assad against ISIS to reducing NATO by getting rid of freeloaders. Russia respects Trump for taking these realistic positions on his own initiative, even if it is politically impractical.

In Clinton, Moscow sees the exact opposite - a progressive ideologue who stubbornly maintains a highly moral position, without thinking about the consequences. In addition, Clinton has financial ties to George Soros, whose Open Society Foundation Moscow considers one of the greatest threats to Russia's internal stability, suggesting that he was involved in the "color revolutions" in Eastern Europe.

The Russian security apparatus is confident that Soros dreams of overthrowing Putin using the same methods he used against Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine: by secretly organizing a mass protest with the participation of armed provocateurs. The only question for the Kremlin is whether Clinton is reckless enough to back the plans.

Putin condemned the United States for planning such an operation in 2011, when Secretary of State Clinton spoke favorably of a massive protest against his party's victory in parliamentary elections. And her recent rhetoric does not give him any reason to believe that she has given up the idea of ​​Maidan on Red Square.

That fear was heightened when Senate Democratic minority leader Harry Reid, a politician close to Clinton, recently accused Putin of trying to influence the American election through cyber attacks. This is a grave accusation - President Hillary Clinton could repeat something like this to justify a war with Russia.

Original article: Clinton Ehrlich,"The Kremlin really believes that Hillary wants to go to war with Russia." , Foreign Policy, 7 September. Translation:

EVERY FOUR YEARS IN THE USA, ONE OF THE MOST ADVANCING SHOWS IN THE WORLD TAKES PLACE- presidential elections. 2016 gave us a political circus, which is interesting to watch, but the further, the more terrifying. The Republican Party is getting closer to the nomination aggressive populist Trump, who has only two rivals, one of whom is the no less chauvinist and religious fanatic Ted Cruz, and the other is the anti-abortion fighter John Keysick. The Republicans will try to stop Donald directly at the party congress, but this will no longer have a direct bearing on the elections.

The strife within the Republican Party has led to the fact that the most realistic victory seems to be a Democratic candidate - the self-proclaimed socialist and "darling of the Internet" Bernie Sanders or one of the most powerful women in world politics, the former first lady and secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Today she looks like the main favorite of the race.

Hillary now has 1,758 delegate votes out of 2,383 needed to win - against Bernie's 1,076, and ahead of the vote in the states of New York and California. The most authoritative predictor of US election results, analyst Nate Silver (his model correctly predicted the results in all constituencies in the 2012 elections) gives Hillary more than 90% chances of winning in these largest states. Clinton remains ahead, even if one does not count the votes of the "superdelegates" - the party establishment, which could theoretically defect at the last moment, so her chances look very high.

The personality of Hillary Clinton is always discussed much more hotly than her political views, which are quite traditional for Democrats: Clinton's path to the presidency is interesting primarily not ideologically, but humanly. The press and voters are constantly asking the same questions: is she a feminist or not? How much of calculating cynicism is in her ideology, and how much of sincere faith? Is she something without a husband? Why, in the end, is she the one who deserves to become the first woman president of the United States and how did she manage to come to this?

The woman at the helm

We live in a post-Thatcher world, where women in politics, although they have not yet achieved full equality, do not look surprising: Angela Merkel is at the head of Germany, Dilma Rousseff is at the head of Brazil. Today women are in power, for example, in Lithuania, Argentina, Chile, Liberia and CAR; the list is not endless, but no longer short. And yet, becoming the first woman to serve as president of the United States is a task of a completely different scale. U.S. politics is conservative, and Trump's successes show that the racist and misogynistic tendencies of ordinary Americans should not be underestimated.

While Clinton is far from the first successful woman in American politics, she is the first to realistically claim the White House. If you try to formulate as briefly as possible why exactly she succeeded, then, judging by the numerous articles and detailed biography of Karl Bernstein "A Woman in Charge", her secret is in great self-confidence.

Where many women, under the pressure of society and circumstances, began to doubt themselves and gave weakness, Hillary was only tempered. She could admit (which is less common) or try to forget (which is more often) her mistakes, she could change the environment, differently approach the problem, but she never allowed, at least so that friends or colleagues noticed it, to doubt that she everything is within her powers that she is on the right path.

"Feminatsi"
or traitor
ideals of feminism?

Clinton, in this sense, “covers the entire spectrum”: she was previously accused of radical feminism, but today she is scolded for the fact that young women are much more willing to vote for her rival, an elderly white man, Bernie Sanders.

The reason for this is that Hillary has been in politics for a very long time and has gone through a difficult transformation: she grew up in a conservative family in the suburbs of Chicago. Her father, a former army physical education instructor and Republican Hugh Rodham, was a despot, humiliated her mother and children, and was, no matter how you look, an unpleasant person. He often made fun of his wife, but never allowed his daughter's opportunities to be somehow limited because she was a girl. He gave a good education to both her and her brothers, and subsequently they all said that a difficult childhood hardened them rather than broke them (although only Hillary's fate was so successful - the brothers often turned out to be a burden to her reputation).

At Hillary College, predictably for the revolutionary sixties, she hit the African American rights movement, feminism and went over to the Democrats. In doing so, she managed to earn a reputation as a skillful organizer and master of compromise: at the prestigious Wellesley Women's College, she achieved an increase in the number of African American students and professors, but at the same time was able to avoid disorder and channel the energy of protesting youth into seminars and petitions, rather than processions and clashes with by the police.

During her life in Arkansas, where Bill Clinton was governor, she actually abandoned the ceremonial role of the first lady of the state and practiced law, and when during the first election, Bill was asked if there was a conflict of interest in this (her clients were large companies and businessmen), she snapped: "I could sit at home and make cookies." The campaign headquarters was then flooded with cookies by housewives angered by such arrogance, and Hillary was labeled as an opponent of traditional family values.

At the same time, all her radicalism seems to be rather sluggish today. In rhetoric, she is far from the feminists of the 21st century: although Clinton advocates economic equality for women, paid maternity leave and the right to abortion (in the United States there is still no compulsory paid decree, and abortion is de facto illegal in many states), she advocates these positions are less violent and less clear-cut than the self-proclaimed socialist Sanders. The main thing is that many people think that she will be ready to postpone the adoption of difficult measures, such as new taxes, in order to pay the state's expenses for the protection of women, and will go to half measures in order to compromise on other issues.

Keeper of Principles or Dodgy Opportunist?

For forty years in public politics (twenty of them in Washington), Clinton broke a lot of firewood, but she achieved no less. She owes her long career primarily to her adaptability and willingness to compromise if it is important to achieve her larger goals.

The topic of such compromises and double standards is one of the most important for both critics and supporters of Hillary. For example, she voted to send troops to Iraq in 2003, when she was a senator from New York, and now says that it was a mistake. She agrees that the banking system is in need of reform, but receives huge campaign contributions from Wall Street. She stands for peace and condemns Bush for his foreign policy, but convinced Obama to intervene in the conflict in Libya and topple Gaddafi - and so on. Hillary was even accused of the insincerity of the very sounds of her speech - her accent changes so much depending on the audience.

All this taught Hillary simple principles: "the one who does not try to do anything, does not make mistakes, but he will definitely not achieve anything."

The first experience of adaptation, a series of which largely shaped her personality, was college, where she, at first desperate to fit into a new environment for herself, wanted to return home, but braced herself and won the respect of fellow students and teachers. Then there was Arkansas, where, in a conservative province, she first became one of the first female professors, and then the only female partner in a large law firm. There she also learned to speak in such a way as to better resemble her own - with a southern dialect, uncharacteristic for her native Chicago. Then there was the White House, where it was even harder for her, and the whole situation and environment seemed (and often were) extremely hostile and alien.

She did not always succeed in achieving quick success: due to Hillary's tough position on a number of issues, Bill lost his first gubernatorial re-election. The conflict with the press and the desire to single-handedly change the American insurance system (a project similar in spirit to Obama's modern reforms failed, largely due to the excessive stubbornness of Hillary, who oversaw it) almost cost her and Bill a position in the White House after their first term.

All this taught Hillary simple principles, which can be formulated as follows: "the one who does not try to do anything, does not make mistakes, but he will definitely not achieve anything" and "it is better to make concessions and do part of what was planned than to do nothing at all." There is little idealism in this, but there is a certain common sense.

An offended wife or an independent figure?

Even before Hillary took the Clinton surname and became famous, many seriously predicted her presidential or at least just a very successful political career. Marrying Bill Clinton was probably the toughest decision Hillary has ever made.

She refused him more than once before she agreed, and really hesitated - much longer than later deciding to go to the polls or agreeing to become Secretary of State. By the time of graduation, Hillary Rodham was a star: her graduation speech at Wellesley was published by Life magazine, at Yale she gained knowledge and experience in the field of child rights protection, and immediately after her studies she got into the Commission of Inquiry into the Watergate scandal, which brought the case to the resignation of Nixon. ... After that, a variety of doors in Washington were opened in front of her: the way to an elective office or work in public organizations. But she chose to leave for one of the most backward states in the country, to Bill's homeland, where he was going to build a political career, and thus, as many then thought, buried her own ambitions.

Although Hillary was an independent and very independent woman by the standards of a conservative southern state, she had to give up one principle quickly: at the time of marriage, she did not take her husband's surname, being true to her childhood vow to always remain Hillary Rodham. But when Bill was not re-elected for a second term, and one of the reasons was the voters' distrust of the governor's wife, she, on her own initiative, took the name Clinton, and at the same time headed the headquarters for her husband's re-election, which eventually returned him to the governor's chair for another 12 years.

Friends and acquaintances always talked about the Clintons, which was incredibly interesting for them together - from the first days of their acquaintance at Yale, they spent hours discussing issues of law, art, history. More importantly, they quickly realized how well they complemented each other. Bill is a polymath, a man of the sharpest mind and great knowledge, a musician, a charismatic, an orator and a born leader, but at the same time he does not know how to concentrate, control himself, he is ready to say almost anything to please others. And Hillary - diligent, able to highlight the main thing and focus attention, firm in her convictions and moral attitudes, strong character - they made an ideal political couple and, according to relatives, admired each other all their lives.

The Clintons went to the 1992 elections under the slogan "Two for the price of one": many researchers call their first term co-presidency, a symbol of which was the fact that Hillary was the first (and last) of the presidential wives to occupy a cabinet not in the eastern, "secular" wing White House, and in the West - "political", where the vice-presidents usually sat.

The Clintons went to the 1992 elections under the slogan "Two for the price of one"

The joint presidency was not successful - there were many reasons, but by the second term, Hillary's role in governing the state was significantly reduced, she began to devote a lot of time to working on herself and international missions in the field of women's rights.

However, it was she who saved her husband's career when a scandal erupted over his infidelity with Monica Lewinsky. From the point of view of public opinion - because she supported her spouse, demonstrated the ability to forgive, aroused compassion (never - neither before nor after - her personal popularity was not so high), but she lost in the eyes of many feminists. From the point of view of the procedure - because she organized the protection of her husband, used all her political skills and was able to achieve the cancellation of his impeachment in the Senate.

It is important to understand that their relationship was characterized by one trait - passion. Hillary knew about Bill's intemperance from the beginning. As far as is known, he cheated on her even before marriage and did not stop his adventures almost never, but this does not mean that she cynically ignored them. On the contrary, scandals with screams and broken furniture were not uncommon, which, to the shock of the members of the administration, were replaced by the most tender reconciliation. According to acquaintances who answered the journalists' questions, she believed that Bill loves only her and all the other women in his life occupy a completely different, much less significant place.

← It was Hillary Clinton who saved her husband's career when a scandal erupted over his infidelity

In addition, Hillary reasonably believed that not everything that was said about her husband was true. Around him - popular, attractive - there were really many women, whose attention he gladly accepted. But the situations were different, and one of them in 1988 almost led to a divorce: then Bill admitted that he fell in love with another woman (and not just succumbed to physical attraction). The marriage, through the efforts of Hillary, survived, but Bill, due to fear of the press attention to his personal life, had to refuse to participate in the presidential elections (he successfully took part in them four years later).

The story with Lewinsky was a big blow for Hillary, because at first she believed her husband, who denied everything, and thought that after everything that happened, he would not lie to her. But she also gave her strength and power: many colleagues said that after each scandal with treason, Hillary for some time received tremendous power over Bill, who, as if asking for forgiveness, could not deny her any question.

She emerged victorious from this humiliating story: even before the end of the Clinton presidency, she, the first lady, became a senator from the state of New York, and from that moment on her career was really completely independent, and Bill only had to act as an adviser and assistant, with which he has done well and is doing well during her presidential campaign.

A conservative without charisma or an ardent defender of the family?

Clinton is often accused of a lack of flamboyance in her rhetoric: compared to Obama or Bill, her speeches are less impressive, but her speeches have cross-cutting themes that she has stuck with very tenaciously for many years. Voters are often attracted not so much by how she carries herself and sounds, but how convincingly she speaks.

Her favorite topic is family and child protection. Hillary's mother had a nightmarishly difficult childhood, and she herself was impressed as a child to see the life of poor African American families during scouting and church charities - in the area where the Rodham family lived, there was nothing like this. Hillary has been engaged in the topic of children's rights, adoption and orphans since the early years of law school, oversaw school reform in Arkansas and never backed down from it, which is a good demonstration promotional video of her current campaign.

She is a religious person - the ideas of morality, forgiveness, the principle of "hating sin, not a sinner", she got a desire to work on correcting the world in the philosophy of Methodism and over the years only strengthened her faith (her knowledge in the Bible impressed even conservative republican colleagues in the Senate) ...

Family values ​​and religiosity Clinton manages to reconcile with liberal views on abortion or gay marriage

All these - both family values ​​and religiosity - are very traditional and close to American voters, and Clinton manages to reconcile them with liberal views on abortion or gay marriage. On both issues, her public position has changed over the course of her career, but she now fully supports both.

It is difficult to assess the real, "applied" morality of Hillary: many charges of corruption were brought against him and Bill (the most high-profile case was the Whitewater case for the purchase of land in Arkansas), but they all ended in nothing, despite the many powerful enemies who were thrown into investigations great strength. This does not mean that he and Bill have never done anything wrong: among the materials of the cases, both according to Whitewater and the latest on the use of personal mail for business purposes, many unethical details have surfaced, but they all fit into the general philosophy of compromise for the sake of greater results and mistakes made by many ambitious people.

Why Hillary Clinton Can Become President?

Most likely, Hillary will become president simply because she is the strongest politician in this year's race. She may not be the best speaker, her position on many issues has changed more than once throughout her career, she has a lot of mistakes and enemies that have accumulated over the years of work, but she has an amazing sense of purpose, inner core and self-confidence that bribe even those who work who works with her, and those who vote for her.

She is pragmatic, but fell out with the press and hurt her career in order to protect the privacy of her family (and especially her daughter), she sometimes gives the impression of a robot, but the pain in her voice during the 2008 campaign was quite human (for which she then received a bunch of accusations of weakness and unpreparedness for "male" work), she loses the young female electorate to Sanders, but perhaps better prepared to fight for reforms with the Republican Senate and state authorities.

Hillary, even on paper, is not the ideal candidate that Obama seemed to many in 2008. But her victory will still be historical in many aspects and at least prove that a woman can rule the largest state in the world (and therefore anything) not only from behind or paired with a man, but also completely independently. If she succeeds, it will be fine, but even if the fears of skeptics are justified, another woman who will not have to experience such pressure will be able to become a really great president after her, and Hillary will most likely be only glad.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is once again at the center of a scandal. Congress is starting to investigate the transaction, as a result of which Uranium One came under the control of Rosatom. Hillary Clinton is accused of not interfering with the transfer of the company as Secretary of State. US President Donald Trump has already compared the uranium deal scandal to Watergate. RT figured out why, a year after the presidential election, the United States continues to be rocked by high-profile political scandals.

• Reuters
• Carlos barria

An informant from the Federal Bureau of Investigation will convey to the US Congress information on possible corruption ties between Rosatom, Techsnabexport, Uranium One and a charity owned by Bill and Hillary Clinton. The decision was made by the US Department of Justice on October 25, said agency spokeswoman Sara Flores.

The Ministry of Justice allowed the FBI informant, whose name was not disclosed, to convey to Congress and the Senate information regarding the acquisition by Rosatom's subsidiary of a controlling stake in the uranium mining company Uranium One (in 2010) and subsequently bringing its participation in the company to 100%. The deal was approved by the US Foreign Investment Committee. The US State Department, which at that time was headed by Hillary Clinton, has the right to vote in this committee.

On October 24, the chairman of the congressional intelligence committee, Devin Nunez, announced the start of an investigation into the sale of Uranium One to Rosatom, which was concluded during the previous US administration.

Switch attention

Even during the election campaign, the current US President Donald Trump accused his rival of corruption in connection with this deal. Trump suspects Clinton of not blocking the deal to transfer Uranium One to Rosatom while serving as US Secretary of State. According to Trump, Hillary Clinton gave Russia uranium deposits in the United States. At the same time, according to media reports, at the time of the transaction, the activities of Rosatom in the American market had already attracted the attention of the FBI.

• D. Trump
• Reuters
• Kevin lamarque

Uranium One Inc. registered in Canada, the company owns uranium deposits in Kazakhstan, Tanzania and the United States. It also owns a uranium mine in Wyoming. According to the Uranium One website, the design capacity of the Willow Creek mine in Wyoming is 500 tons of uranium per year. However, production has been cut since 2014 due to unfavorable market conditions.

According to Ivan Tsvetkov, Associate Professor at the Department of American Studies at the Faculty of International Relations, St.

“The focus of attention can switch to real problems in the United States and in relations between Republicans and Democrats,” the expert explained in an interview with RT. - For a long time, the Republicans and Trump were in a stalemate, but now the situation may change. In this story, the accusations are no longer directed against Russia, but against Hillary Clinton. "

Tsvetkov is sure that nothing threatens Rosatom in this story. “He acts as a bona fide buyer - negative consequences can affect only the Clintons,” the political scientist emphasized.

Suspicious charity

In 2015, The New York Times published its own investigation into the details of the Uranium One sale. The publication accused the Clinton Foundation of receiving large donations from investors interested in selling the company to Rosatom. According to the NYT, the preparation of the ground for the transfer of American uranium mines to Russia was carried out from the very foundation of Uranium One with the indirect participation of the Clintons.

For example, in 2005, UrAsia, owned by Canadian businessman Frank Giastra, acquired uranium mines in Kazakhstan. Just a few days before this deal, former US President Bill Clinton visited Kazakhstan, and in 2006 Giastra transferred a large donation to the Clinton Foundation - $ 31.3 million.

In 2007, the merger of UrAsia and a mining company from South Africa, writes NYT, formed the Uranium One company. However, the company's website indicates that Uranium One was founded in Canada back in 2005, and in 2007 absorbed UrAsia and acquired a number of uranium deposits in Kazakhstan. The company began buying uranium assets in the United States, and in 2008 began negotiations on investments with Rosatom. During the same period, the owners of Uranium One contributed $ 8.65 million to the accounts of the Clinton Foundation.

Also, a large amount was received by Bill Clinton as a fee for speaking at the annual conference of Renaissance Capital Bank in June 2010 - the ex-president then received $ 500 thousand.

• Bill Clinton speaks at the opening of the CGI session in the Middle East and Africa
• FADEL SENNA

At the same time, Rosatom acquired 51.42% of the shares of a Canadian uranium mining company, the deal was approved by the US authorities. In 2013, Rosatom already accumulated in its hands 100% of the shares of Uranium One.

According to The New York Times, Hillary Clinton could have influenced the approval of the sale of Uranium One to Rosatom by using her official position. However, the publication could not find any irrefutable evidence in favor of this hypothesis.

Rosatom denied all assumptions of the publication. As the official representative of the state corporation Sergey Novikov said earlier, the main interest for the company was not at all the mines in the United States, but the Kazakh assets of Uranium One.

Note that in Kazakhstan, Uranium One is developing six operating uranium mines. In 2016, the company, together with NAC Kazatomprom, produced 4,896 tons of uranium.

"Modern Watergate"

The official investigation into the uranium deals approved by the past White House administration begins amid another scandal. As The Washington Post found out, the collection of materials that formed the basis of the "Russian dossier" on Donald Trump was financed by his rival in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton. It was these investigations that became the basis for a special investigation in the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Republican's opponents accuse him of having links with Moscow - allegedly the Russian side, having information compromising the politician, can put pressure on him.

According to The Washington Post, the dossier on Trump was formed with the help of attorney Mark Elias, who worked for Hillary Clinton. Elias hired Fusion GPS to collect dirt against Trump.

The previously put forward version, according to which the dossier was compiled by order of Russia, was refuted by the representatives of Fusion GPS themselves.

“US-based customers paid for the Fusion GPS survey. None of the Russians participated in any way in paying for the work that Fusion GPS did, ”said attorney Joshua Levy, representing the company.

Having initiated a series of attacks on her political rival, Hillary Clinton herself has now found herself at the center of a series of high-profile scandals and proceedings. The ex-secretary of state believes that the investigation of the uranium contract is revenge on the part of Donald Trump, as well as an attempt to divert attention from the topic of "Russian ties" of the incumbent president.

“This is all complete nonsense, obsessively spreading and not supported by any credible evidence.<…>I have to give credit to Trump and his supporters, including Fox News, for showing they are real experts in distraction, ”Clinton said in an interview with C-Span.

The campaign against Clinton has already been actively supported by the GOP National Committee. On October 25, the committee issued a petition condemning the actions of the Democratic National Committee and personally Hillary Clinton.

"After a year of lies, it turned out that the crooked Hillary and the NKDP were paying companies with ties to Russia in order to harm President Trump with the help of a foreign agent," TASS quotes the text of the petition.

After the names of those who ordered the dossier became known, Clinton and the Democrats should explain themselves, Republicans say.

“The sales of uranium to Russia, as well as the way they were carried out, was a hoax. Huge amounts of money were transferred. I can say that this is just a modern watergate, ”Donald Trump commented on the investigation of the uranium deal in an interview with American journalists on October 25.

War of compromising evidence

According to experts, political competition has not reached such a degree of tension in the United States for many decades. A year has passed since the presidential election, but former rivals continue to fight fiercely.

“The war of incriminating evidence in the United States did not stop for a minute after the presidential elections. Such a tough political confrontation, already a year after the elections, is observed for the first time in the recent history of the United States. Yes, and in the phase of the pre-election struggle, there was no such bitterness before either, "Viktor Supyan, deputy director of the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with RT.

According to the expert, Donald Trump himself often gives reasons for criticism, taking too harsh steps and making provocative statements.

“It is difficult to predict where this turbulence will ultimately lead. However, the chaos in the work of political institutions and political life in general has already gone beyond ideologies, "Supyan explained.

According to Tsvetkov, the intensity of the political struggle in the United States did not decrease even a year after the elections, including due to objective prerequisites.

“In the American political sphere, objective prerequisites for chaos have also developed. For many years, there has been talk of a crisis in the Republican Party, and the Democrats have not been able to find a good candidate to run in the presidential elections. When two leading political players synchronously sit in a puddle, the system inevitably enters a state of chaos, "Tsvetkov summed up.

My friend Leva levik lives in New York since 1990. And he will, of course, vote for Hillary Clinton today! Here are his arguments:

Today the US is electing a president. Three weeks ago, Donald Trump's chances of winning this election looked microscopic. There were many reasons for this: even with very low expectations, he failed the TV debate and constantly shone in the news with another scandal. Today, Trump has almost caught up with Hillary Clinton in state polls, and his chances of winning are estimated at about one-third, which frightens me personally.

One of the reasons for this success is that Trump has reduced his presence in the media space to a calculated minimum. Whereas he could have tweeted some nightly sketch that would have shone from the front pages of news sites in the morning, now this behavior has stopped. Rumor has it that campaign management restricted his access to Twitter.

“I don’t understand,” Obama joked the other day, “if they don’t trust him even to use Twitter on their own, why do they expect that the whole country will entrust him with a nuclear suitcase ?!”

If in style Trump resembles Zhirinovsky, then in terms of the content of his campaign he is more like the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Its main motto - "Let's Make America Great Again" - looks into the nostalgic past, which, like "Soviet prosperity", never existed.

"The Chinese have taken your job," Trump says to the hard workers, "and I'll make her come back!" How he will do it, he really does not say. And God bless them, with the Chinese. But what about the robots that are replacing humans in an increasingly large part of the assembly line today? Are we deporting robots?

Most of the politicians of his own party turned away from Trump. For example, the Speaker of the House of Representatives announced that he would no longer support him in the presidential campaign. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, gave a forty-minute speech about why Donald is an unbalanced and dangerous candidate. Of the five living U.S. presidents (including two Republicans), not one is going to vote for Trump.

Many supporters of Hillary Clinton vote for her simply because they do not want to see an infantile and scandalous clown in the White House. And that alone would be reason enough to make that choice. But in this race, Clinton is no less of two evils, she is exactly the politician that America needs right now.

On her side is the sharpness of the mind and the depth of experience. Everyone who has ever worked with her speaks of her competence and pragmatism. Even the Republican senators she worked with from 2000 to 2008, reluctantly admit that she knows how to achieve results in her work and is willing to compromise in order to solve difficult problems.

I remember well the years that Hillary spent in the US Senate, where she represented New York. In 2000, I gave my vote for her with a grain of salt (like many others, I was not then sure that the first lady should get involved in politics). But after a couple of years, I was convinced that I made the right choice. As a Senator from our state, Clinton skillfully found a balance between national interests and the interests of New York. At the same time, in order to achieve legislative goals, she willingly collaborated both with fellow Democrats and with colleagues from the Republican Party.

In my opinion, one of the main problems in today's American political system is the intransigence of its participants. All politicians are afraid to cooperate with the opposite party, fearing that in this way they will appear as "weaklings" in front of their main electorate, and their opponents will be given political points. Therefore, the Republicans do not support the reasonable initiatives of the Democrats and vice versa. As a result, Congress is often unable to pass the simplest laws. The ability to compromise with the enemy in order to solve difficult problems is almost the main reason for my support for Hillary.

Clinton demonstrated this pragmatism by taking over as Secretary of State and proposing the famous "reset" to Medvedev during the first year of Obama's presidency. Today, many believe that of the two candidates, she is tougher towards Russia, but do not forget how Hillary tried to achieve productive cooperation between our two states, until relations soured due to the Ukrainian events. Yes, she is capable of taking a tough stance towards political (and geopolitical) opponents when such a strategy is dictated by the situation, but she is always ready to return to the negotiating table if she sees the possibility of a compromise.

There was a meme in the media stating that Clinton is a liar. In fact, this is not the case. The independent website Politifact estimates that Clinton speaks truth or half-truth in her statements 75% of the time. For comparison, Obama's figure is 76%, while Trump's is only 30%.

Unfortunately, this happens to all aspects of public perception of Clinton. In twenty-five years in federal politics, a fantastic amount of shit has been poured on her. Hillary was accused of numerous violations of the law, attributed to her and Bill everything - from contract killings to financial fraud. Huge resources were devoted to finding at least something for which a criminal case could be brought against Hillary. But nothing more serious than Monica Lewinsky and the server with emails were never found.

Today I will cast my vote for Hillary Clinton. Although, due to our outdated presidential election system, it does not mean much. I'm not voting that way because I'm afraid of Trump. Whoever wins, the country will not fall apart tomorrow: the peaceful transfer of power is one of the most important traditions of the state. True, I think that if he is elected, I personally will be a little ashamed of my country for the next four years (remember the two terms of Bush Jr.). I vote for Clinton because I believe she has the courage and experience to make the United States a better place. She is a candidate for smart, educated and level-headed people. For those who vote with their heads, not their hearts. Those who believe in liberal values, believe that America is already a great country, albeit with serious, but absolutely solvable problems.

In fact, she was determined to talk more about politics. But when a correspondent for the Politiken newspaper met her in Amsterdam, we were interested in something else: how you manage to force yourself to get out of bed in the morning when the dream of your whole life is shattered in the face of the whole world. How can you convince yourself that the little you can achieve now is also worth a lot? Hillary Clinton's book What Happened? (“What Happened?) Has just been translated into Danish. We sat down with her author to discuss why she lost to Donald Trump, why so many Americans hate her, and what dilemma she says every woman with ambition faces. Yes, and she also loves the Danish TV series "Government" ("Borgen")

Finally, this day has come. After years of preparation, humiliation and failure. For a decade, she stood ahead of everyone in the unofficial line of women candidates for the most powerful post in the world. The triumph has been postponed for eight years after Obama's victory, but the moment is close when the way seems to be open. The day Americans first elect a woman president, the proverbial glass ceiling will be breached, and Hillary Clinton will secure her place in history.

Hillary Diana Rodham Clinton

Born October 26, 1947 in Chicago. Father is a textile merchant and a staunch conservative. Despite this, the parents believed that their daughter should do well.

As a youth, Hillary supported the Republicans, but deserted to the Democratic camp in 1968 under the influence of presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, who opposed the Vietnam War.

Hillary Clinton holds a degree in political science from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and a law degree from Yale University, where she met Bill Clinton in 1971. They married four years later, after which their daughter Chelsea was born.

While Clinton was pursuing a successful legal career, Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas twice (1979-1981 and 1983-1992).

From 1993 to 2001, Clinton was the first lady.

From 2001 to 2009 - Senator from New York State.

In 2008, she lost to Barack Obama in the fight for the Democratic presidential nominee.

2009 to 2013 - US Secretary of State

It seemed that her triumph could not be prevented even by this moneybag and reality TV star with extensive media support. And Hillary herself did not doubt her victory at all, arriving with her husband on the evening of November 8, 2016 at the penthouse of the Peninsula Hotel in New York, in order to observe, with friends and associates, how the results from different states gradually add up to unconditional victory.

“I had no idea that we could lose,” says Hillary.

Here she is sitting in front of me in the middle of a large conference room in an Amsterdam hotel at a small square table with a white tablecloth. She came to our continent to give lectures, and I have only 20 minutes at my disposal. Obviously, we will be talking about politics rather than emotions. A candle flame flutters between us. Nearby is a vase of tulips, and here and there shadows of guards and bodyguards can be seen around us - they silently watch us.

“By all our information, and by all available information, the victory was in our pocket,” she explains.

However, alarming news began to arrive from North Carolina, and Bill Clinton nervously paced the room, munching on an unlit cigar. Hillary reassured herself that it was not necessary to win all the states, so she decided to take a nap - and let the elections go on as usual.

While she slept, things took an unexpected turn. The world seemed to sweep past her. When she woke up, they were still awaiting results from Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It seems that nothing has been decided. But Michigan lit up red (the color of the Republicans - approx. transl.)... And when Pennsylvania fell to Trump at 1.35, it was all over.

According to Hillary Clinton, it became difficult for her to breathe, as if all the oxygen had been pumped out of the room.

“I was in a real shock. It was very painful".

People gathered around the buffet table - family, friends and old colleagues.

"And they were all as discouraged as I was."

How to say at the same time "Sorry, I lost" and "Where the hell were you?" Hillary Clinton responded with a 478-page book, which she co-wrote with two speechwriters. This book is filled with personal, blood-soaked experiences - from grief and rage to guilt and outright bewilderment.

The other day the book "What happened?" was published in Danish. And the story of Hillary Clinton's defeat from her own lips came out much more unsmooth, angry and straightforward than her previous autobiographies, respecting the limits of decency. But, in addition, this is a sincere attempt to figure out what really happened, because as she herself writes: "Until now, it seems incredible to me."

Politiken: They say Americans don't like losers. Why did you decide to write a book anyway?

Hillary Clinton: On the one hand, to make amends to herself. But I also wanted to draw attention to many issues that continue to be relevant. After all, other forces were also involved in our defeat, which I could not influence. We began to guess about them only recently. Now our intelligence says that Russia is constantly interfering in our elections, and we have new elections in November. We didn’t take into account the great perspective, and the perfect storm was approaching, directed according to the laws of a reality show. We need to keep talking about it, and that's what I'm going to do. If no one else, then I will do it.

Strange moment

Hillary Clinton began her campaign evening by discussing her upcoming victory speech with speechwriters. They decided how to make the nation unite and how to reach out to those who voted for the loser. That is, for Donald Trump.

At the end of the evening, she made time to open the thick folders with the transition plan and the first issues she would take on as president. Here is an ambitious new infrastructure program that will create new jobs. Is everything ready. When the victory is officially announced, she will take to the lavish stage of the glass Javitz Center in Manhattan, where the floor is made in the form of a map of the United States. This is where she will stand, in the middle of Texas, in a white suit, the first woman to become the president of the United States. White is a sign of the importance of a historical moment. He and Bill even bought a house next door in the suburbs of New York, so that guests and service staff were more comfortable.

But when she woke up after a short nap, the world changed irrevocably.

“Questions came down one after another,” Hillary says. “What happened? How could we screw it up? What the hell is going on? "

The White House said that Obama fears that the result will be controversial and that a long trial will break out.

"You know, I had to talk to Trump." A smile crosses my face. "I still have a lot of questions, but the TV channels have already declared him the winner."

We sit on opposite sides of the white tablecloth and are silent. According to Hillary, it was the strangest moment in her entire life. Donald Trump spent months on fire her "corrupt Hillary." During the televised debate, he promised to put her behind bars. And at the rallies he conducted the crowd, chanting: "To her prison!" And then suddenly these antics became decent. And at the same time, writes Clinton, "there was a terribly mundane feeling, as if you were calling a neighbor and saying that you could not come to him for a barbecue."

The servants for the failed celebration were sent home. And while Bill sat and watched Trump's glee on television, Hillary went to prepare tomorrow's address. She asked her team to prepare a conciliatory speech. Little by little people dispersed. In the end, he and Bill were left alone. They lay down on the bed and he took her hand.

“I just lay there and stared at the ceiling until it was time to give a speech,” Hillary writes.

Others are to blame

The fact that this world is sometimes ridiculous and more like someone's fiction than the well-trained choreography that we consider to be reality, I had to remember in my modest hotel room in Amsterdam, where I saw a CNN report about how the President of the United States declared a world trade war.

The elderly, slightly plump gentleman with orange hair and sharp gestures on the flat screen looked more like a nightmare than a character from real politics. He is more of an eccentric Batman villain than a typical member of the political elite.

And as I walk a few hundred meters to the posh hotel Krasnapolsky, where I will spend 20 minutes alone with Hillary Clinton, I do not leave the feeling that something has been changed somewhere. The woman who got more votes than any white man gave her time to me, a rag reporter from a tiny country. This simply does not fit into the boundaries of what we used to call reality.

When What Happened? appeared on the shelves in the fall, some reviewers found that the book was sensibly written and very witty, and that Hillary was sharp on her tongue and did not spare anyone, not even herself. Others seemed to be reading a completely different book. "A poorly thought-out text that speaks most eloquently about the reasons for the defeat," said The Guardian, who called the book "an anotomical study of a failed campaign." According to The Guardian, the masses did not follow Hillary because her cold calculus failed when she mistakenly assumed that American politics still revolved around political agendas. But Trump understood perfectly well that now this is nothing more than a continuation of show business.

According to the New Yorker, Hillary lost because “she couldn't find the right language, conversation topics, or even facial expressions to convince enough American proletarians that she was their real hero. not a caricatured rich man. " And as you read, you notice how she tries to present herself in a favorable light in the face of history - after all, this is how she creates her legacy.

As she herself repeatedly emphasizes, the responsibility for the defeat lies with her alone. But at the same time he does not hesitate to shift some of the blame onto others.

Bernie Sanders for fueling Trump's campaign by accusing her of being a Wall Street dealer. On the Russians - for throwing fake news. Trump - for turning the presidential race into a clan war. For former FBI Director James Comie - for the fact that eleven days before the election, he promised to reopen the case on her work correspondence, which, in her opinion, cost her the victory.

And, of course, on the media. According to her, they "led to the victory of the most inexperienced, most ignorant and most incompetent president in the history of our country, making a mistake that I made, using my personal mail as Secretary of State, the key topic of the election campaign."

What does Hillary Clinton know that we would like to know too? In other words, what to ask her about? We ourselves see what is happening in the White House. And how the democrats quickly come to their senses after its defeat is already a task for the new growth.

It’s too late to complain that you didn’t manage to become the head of the world's greatest superpower, no matter how much you would like it. On the other hand, this defeat stunned the whole world. And we began to notice its consequences only recently. Then maybe this is what it is about: how do you feel when you lose in such a way that the whole world collapses? And how do you manage to get out of bed in the morning and convince yourself that the little that you can achieve now is also worth a lot?

"Who are you really?"

In a bright conference room, an elderly journalist from a Dutch newspaper persistently continues the small talk about submarines while I reread my questions for the umpteenth time. Suddenly, movement begins in the corridor, the Dutchman is asked to leave, they nod to me, and a second later she appears on the carpet, a shining blonde in a golden yellow kimono. She smiles broadly, and everything is written on her face except defeat.

“Hello Niels. Nice to meet you. I kept hoping that I could get to Copenhagen, ”she says as we shake hands. "I love your country."

So we started. She is here and ready to communicate. And although even here, in a corner of the old world, she continues to work on her image, she still seems more empathetic, alive and real than I imagined - she seems to be improvising. With just a few sentences, her voice can jump from a happy chirp when it comes to personal, to a gloomy half-whisper when it comes to politics and global issues.

Like many, I imagined Hillary Clinton as a man whose image is choreographically honed, and whose real face can only be guessed at when, like a sunny blonde, or rather, an elderly Teletubbie, dressed in primary colors, appears in stands around the world. cheerfully winking and waving a pen as if to random people in the crowd.

Apparently, all this is not new to her. She herself admits in her book "What Happened?" That it is strange for her to hear the questions "Who are you really?" and "why do you want to become president?" It is understood that there must be something bad behind this - ambition, vanity, cynicism. She finds it strange and widespread that she and Bill have, in her own words, "some special arrangement." After which he admits that they too are ashamed, “but this is what we call marriage,” she writes.

With the fact that millions of people hate her, she is reconciled. “I think this is partly due to the fact that I was the first female presidential candidate. I don't think my followers will have to endure the same. Although we'll see, - she answers my question about the reasons for such a massive dislike. - I was the first woman of the baby boomer generation (1940s - 1960s, approx. Transl.) And a working mother who became the first lady. I think people thought: uh, no, something doesn't appeal to just the president's wife, rather to a part of his headquarters. Hence their malice. "

And yet, it is Hillary Clinton who is considered by most Americans to be a woman worthy of emulation, according to a Gallup poll. “That's what's strange. When I do something, people respect me and praise my work. But when I look for a new job, everything changes. This is how it was when I was first a senator and then became the secretary of state. And when I ask people for support, it always causes conflicting feelings, as it always happens with women who have achieved power. "

- Why it happens?

- It seems to me that people think that something is wrong with women who want to become president. Like, what normal woman would want this? And others will say: yes, I do not know any such. My wife doesn’t want to, my daughter doesn’t want to. And my subordinates do not want to either. So something is wrong here.

Perhaps all this hype, all the intrigues that wandered around her during the election campaign, drove a wedge between her and the voters.

“Various fables were chatting about me, we considered them ordinary nonsense, but as it turned out later, it was because of them that many put a tick in front of another surname. They said that I was seriously ill and was on my deathbed, ”laughs Clinton. “It's like I'm the leader of a pedophile gang that keeps kids in the basement of a pizzeria. And other savagery, which was immediately picked up by the Russians, Trump and the right-wing media. Some even thought: maybe she is really dying, but she is fooling us. "

Yoga, white wine and anger

The post-election day in New York was cold and rainy. As she drove through the crowd of her supporters, many cried, while others showed their fists in solidarity. Hillary Clinton herself felt as if she had committed a betrayal. “In a sense, it was,” she writes. And he adds - I carried my fatigue like armor. " After a speech in which she admitted defeat, she and Bill drove to their old home in the suburbs of New York. It was only in the car that she allowed herself to smile. “The only thing I wanted was to get home, change into home clothes and never pick up the phone again,” Hillary recalls. Then it was the turn of the yoga sweatpants and fleece shirt. For the next few weeks. They were complemented by relaxing breathing exercises, yoga and copious servings of white wine. But at times, Clinton admits, she wanted to scream into her pillow.

She watched TV shows that her husband recorded for her. I prayed to God. I was mentally transported on vacation to Elena Ferrante's "Neapolitan novels", swallowing batches of detective stories and Henri Nouwen's texts about spirituality and the fight against depression. And she cried when actress Kate McKinnon, dressed like Hillary, sat down at the piano and sang Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah on one of the TV shows - “Even though I did only what I could // And followed the path of mistakes, trial // But I didn’t lie, I didn’t become a jester in a plague feast ”.

She almost maniacally wiped the dust from all the closets and went on long walks with Bill, but anyway, every time, as soon as he heard the news, the same question rolled over, unstoppable, like tears - how could this have happened?

For several days, it was simply impossible to think about anything else, she admits.

And then there was anger. She found it difficult to contain herself when Trump began hiring the same Wall Street bankers with whom he had recently accused her of colluding. It’s even more difficult when people who didn’t vote came to apologize. “How could you?” Clinton muses in the book. “You neglected your civic duty at the most inopportune moment for this!”

“It was just awful! She exclaims in response to my question about the first weeks after the election. - I warned our country about the danger posed by Trump. I saw clearly that he posed a serious threat to our democracy and its institutions. ” She catches my eye: "I was hoping I was wrong, Niels, you know?"

For Americans, it works flawlessly. Hearing their name, any of them seem to fly half a centimeter above the chair, filled with importance and self-confidence.

“I hoped,” she chooses her words, “that no matter how he behaved before and no matter what he said during the election campaign… he would feel the duty and responsibility of his post and would behave… appropriately. But the weeks went by and nothing happened. "

I ask if she has anything to blame herself for.

“For various particulars,” she answers quickly. "For not clearly explaining our agenda to people." I suppose this should mean that she has failed to change her image as a protege of the system in the eyes of a disaffected working class. And, she adds, for not handling Trump during the televised debate.

- This is when he went straight for you?

- Yes. He simply followed me around the stage. I immediately figured out what he was trying to achieve, and decided to simply ignore him. Now I'm not sure I did the right thing, because he turned TV debate into a reality show.

“I thought people wanted the president to be a modern person, who you can rely on, who would act like an adult: he didn't lose his composure and didn't behave like a child. I constantly replay these moments in my head and, I think, now I would try to act differently. "

“I had a world-class team, they helped Obama become president twice, and they were real docks in political technology. We planned a modern campaign, a kind of "Obama 2.0". And we succeeded. But Trump and his allies changed the script, and the campaign turned into a TV show. In my camp, unfortunately, they were not ready for this. "

“During my meeting with Putin, he reminded me of the type of men who sit on the subway with their legs wide apart, interfering with others. They seem to declare: "I will take as much space for myself as I deem necessary" and "I do not respect you at all and I will behave as if I were sitting at home in a dressing gown." We call it "manspreading".<…>Putin does not respect women and despises anyone who rereads him, so I am a double problem for him. "

Hillary Clinton on Vladimir Putin

“We saw that the Russians were up to something. But they did not guess their intention. We have understood a lot only now. And then we could not understand where all this dirt on me comes from, ”she says, referring to later reports of a whole cyber army of bloggers and fake social media profiles that portrayed Clinton in a bad light.

I ask which of her actions she would most willingly "outplay".

"Well, I would never use personal mail, being the head of the State Department," she laughs, and immediately adds, "despite the fact that it is completely legal, this is what my predecessor and my successor did."

The alpha male advantage

There was a place in the book for other claims to oneself. For the fact that, unlike Bernie Sanders, she did not make grandiose promises, simply because their implementation could take many years, although this would certainly entice voters. During her campaign, Clinton seriously considered offering Americans a guaranteed minimum income, a small, fixed income for everyone ( like the one that was introduced in Finland in 2017 for the sake of experiment - approx.), however, abandoned this idea, having weighed the pros and cons.

Now she thinks she should take the risk.

Clinton writes that her worst fears about her own "flaws" as a presidential candidate have been fully justified.

“Some of them are congenital,” she explains in response to my question. “I’m a woman and I cannot change that. And in our country there are many people who will never dare to support a woman in such a post. All our research kept repeating this, but it seemed to me that I could still get through thanks to my experience. "

Barack Obama's mother was very young, and his father returned to Kenya, so the boy was raised by his grandparents. He grew up to be a civil rights activist and professor of jurisprudence. An excellent biography to start a political career. Bill Clinton's father died before he was born. The family lived for years on a farm without running water and with an outside latrine. In addition, Bill had to calm down his stepfather every now and then, who was dismissive of his mother. And yet he became the first in their family to graduate from university. Hillary Clinton, by her own admission, cannot boast of such a dramatic biography. She grew up in an ordinary white middle class family in the suburbs of Chicago and had a happy childhood. In retrospect, she only regrets that she did not emphasize enough that she belongs to the generation of female pioneers who changed the world.

When she vied with Obama, the first black presidential candidate, she did not accentuate her gender. But this time it was different, she explains.

“Probably, I should have conveyed this idea in a different way, more effectively. I do not know. But I'm sure the next woman in my place will face the same dilemma. ”

Opinion polls showed that many Republicans and Republicans were against the female president. Even in the Democratic camp, skepticism reigned. In addition, there was "an inevitable barrier of derogatory sexist comments."

- How was it expressed?

- Well, for example, they say that women have too shrill voices. Although I have known quite a few men who literally scream their lungs out. In any case, this criticism does not concern them. It is addressed not only to me personally, but to any woman who dares to lean out and declare: "So, I'm going to become the governor or the president." There are many sexist misconceptions that many, I'm sure, don't even notice.

When her husband lost the gubernatorial election in Arkazas in 1980, it was partly because she spoke under her maiden name Rodham. When Bill 12 years later decided to run for the presidency, she added his last name to hers, but then she got it for making a lawyer's career. And when she replied that it cost her nothing to “go home and bake pies and have tea gatherings,” she was considered a smug careerist, looking down on American housewives.

When Hillary Clinton, after the election, read a "deep analysis" of her televised debate with Trump, she was surprised. “After the elections, I studied everything that was written about them,” she smiles. “And so I read: maybe she really looked more convincing and caught him more than once, but it was still impossible to take my eyes off Trump.”

She looks into my eyes.

“He behaves like an alpha male. He wants to be considered that way. Moreover, in the depths of our DNA, we also believe that this is how the president should be. I broke many barriers, but this, the last one, was beyond my strength. But I think I managed to clear the space for debate, and next time people will be more attentive. "

We sit for a moment in silence. Suddenly she declares:

"But I love the television series" Government " ("Borgen", a Danish TV series about a woman prime minister - approx. Transl.) I just love it. "

Here she embarks on a detailed analysis of the plot, acting and, last but not least, the tests that befell the main character.

“Keeping family and work in balance is just one of the challenges women face,” Hillary says, adding that when work is about power, there is no escaping a dilemma.

“On the one hand, no one wants to become a stranger to himself. On the other hand, you need to be able to remain yourself in a situation when people around you consider you a leader. And it's not easy. "

Too many opponents

Hillary Clinton pondered for a long time over whether she should participate in Trump's inauguration - she was afraid that she would be sanctified and greeted with shouts of "to jail her!" She agreed when she learned that Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush would be there. Little by little, she began to think about how painful it was for past losers when they were in the same situation.

AP Photo, Andrew Harnik Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton

She calls Trump's inaugural speech "a roar from the abyss of white nationalism."

“It's grim, dangerous and disgusting,” she says. “I kept thinking: wow, we really are facing difficult times - and my fears were justified.”

"Nils!" - one of the shadows, sitting at several tables from me, tactfully makes it clear that time is coming to an end.

“Two more minutes,” I ask, and I turn the conversation to the last questions.

- I was always interested in what people do after being president ...

- And you were the first in line for so long, and suddenly it was all over, and you never became president. How do you adjust to your new life?

- I spent a lot of time walking in the woods with friends in order to look into my future. After all, I was really sure that I would become president and do so much for our country. However, it didn't work out for me. But I'm not used to giving up. So I started looking for new ways to contribute.

She looks up.

“This is not just one comprehensive work, but many different interesting challenges. I support new political organizations and young candidates who challenge Trump's manners and republican order to restore the balance of democratic forces. "

- What is your goal in life now?

- Fortunately, I have a lot of things that I have been doing for many years. This is health insurance and all kinds of conflicts in our society. And I also help the struggling side rise.

“I do what I can to protect and defend our democracy,” she says, apparently unaware that with her “defend and protect” she unwittingly quoted the presidential oath, which she never had to take. ("... to the fullest extent of my strength I will support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States ..." - translator's note).

- And yet, how do you answer the question “what happened”?

- What happened was that there were too many opponents in front of me. A Trump campaign unlike anything we've dealt with before. Sexism. Russians who constantly influenced the outcome of the elections. Information has been used as a weapon, and we are only now beginning to understand the danger it poses to democracies around the world. I couldn't get over it all, and I'm really, really sorry, ”she replies.

And adds with a half smile:

"Because it seems to me that I would make a good president."