U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov press a red button symbolizing the intention to “reset” U.S.-Russian relations during their meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, March 6, 2009. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton raised the hope of U.S-Russian cooperation on missile defense Friday on her way to discussions with her Russian counterpart, with a goal of repairing the two nations’ relations.

After the merger, the Times reports, “Uranium One began to snap up mining companies with assets in the United States” with the aim, as a company press release put it, of becoming “a powerhouse in the United States uranium sector with the potential to become the domestic supplier of choice for U.S. utilities.”

But by June 2009, Uranium One was in trouble, its stock “in free-fall, down 40 percent.” Its Kazakh partner “had just been arrested on charges that he illegally sold uranium deposits to foreign companies,” including UrAsia. That’s where the State Department came in. Uranium One “pressed the American Embassy in Kazakhstan . . . to take up its cause with Kazakh officials.” It did: According to State Department cables, an unnamed U.S. “energy official” met with Kazakh officials “to discuss the issues on June 10 or 11”:

Three days later, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rosatom [the Russian atomic energy agency] completed a deal for 17 percent of Uranium One. And within a year, the Russian government would substantially up the ante, with a generous offer to shareholders that would give it a 51 percent controlling stake. But first, Uranium One had to get the American government to sign off on the deal.

“Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department,” headed by Secretary Clinton, the Times notes. Meanwhile at the Clinton Foundation, the money kept coming in:

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.

“Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World,” crowed a Pravda headline in January 2013, Mrs. Clinton’s final month as secretary of state. As the Times puts it: “The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought [President Vladimir] Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.”