An undercover informant, who was under contract with Tenex, has been giving information to the FBI for around eight years now.  His efforts largely helped indict Vadim Mikerin’s illegal activities involving bribery and money laundering, and exposed the illicit dealings of Russia’s state-owned nuclear enterprise, Rosatom, within U.S. borders.

This comes as controversy surrounds the Clinton Foundation’s potential connection to illicit Russian nuclear money. While there is a significant lack of empirical evidence between Mikerin obtaining unlawful funds and those funds making into the Clinton Foundation, many have argued that the surrounding facts point in that direction.

On Wednesday, The Hill received confirmation that the informant has been released from his confidentiality agreement with the FBI, enabling him to testify in front of Congress. This may shed more light on the investigation, bringing it past Mikerin’s indictment and on to more significant players. The Department of Justice‘s Director of Public Affairs, Sarah Isgur Flores, has authorized him to shed light on, “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.”

The informant’s name is remaining confidential.

In Mikerin’s indictment affidavit, the informant is referenced as CS-1 (confidential source one).  He was initially approached by Mikerin by recommendation of a mutual contact–the informant had previously known this mutual contact (whose name has been redacted as the investigation continues) to be “loosely affiliated with Russian and Eurasian organized crime elements.” It would seem that he was on his toes from the beginning in regards to these dealings.

It wasn’t long until Mikerin approached the informant with the idea of providing Tenex (Rosatom’s commercial arm within the U.S.) with some illegal kickbacks. The confidential informant was approached,

…to provide TENEX with lobbying and ‘lobbying and consulting services’ and ‘assistance and public relations support with the Russian Nuclear Energy Industry,’ in exchange for kickbacks. MIKERIN referred to these transatctions as ‘the system’ or ‘the window’ in communications regarding the transactions. CS-1 was uncomfortable with the agreement and approached the FBI with information about the scheme.”

From there, the FBI authorized their new informant to play along, and he was able to officially document Mikerin’s illicit activities, including a kick-back scheme that would involve hundreds of thousands of dollars getting moved to the informant and Mikerin.

Mikerin is now serving a prison sentence, much thanks to this informant. As he begins to talk, we will see if and how this massive kick-back and money laundering scheme connects to Rosatom, the Clinton Foundation and the Obama Administration (there seems to be some concern as to how much the administration knew to begin with).

Featured image: the Department of Justice. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.