The House Intelligence Committee and the House Oversight Committee will investigate a 2010 deal for mining rights which gave Russia control over one-fifth of U.S. uranium production.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, (R-Calif.), says his committee will examine how and why a Canadian mining company, renamed Uranium One, was sold to Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom.
The Uranium One deal not only gave Russia legal control over one-fifth of U.S. uranium production, it gave Russia control over lucrative mines in Kazakhstan.
The deal was approved by nine U.S. agencies including the State Department, then under Sen. Hilary Clinton, and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, (CFIUS) on which Clinton held a seat.
Many of the people on the Canadian end of the deal were friends of the Clintons or major contributors to the Clinton Foundation, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Also, a bank selling Uranium One stock paid former president Bill Clinton half a million dollars as a speaking fee.
The committees will be investigating potential conflicts of interest.
News reports indicate that the FBI has been investigating subsidiaries of the Russian company for bribery and improper business dealings since 2009.
Rep. Nunes said the investigation would focus on whether there was an FBI probe at the time and “if so, why was Congress not informed of this matter.”
“It’s important that we find out why that deal went through,” Rep. Peter King, (R-N.Y.), said.
The committee is seeking information from a confidential FBI informant who has not been able to testify because of a non-disclosure agreement. Committee members are working with the Justice Department to determine under what conditions the informant might be allowed to testify.
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who sits on the Oversight Committee, suggested that the committee could issue subpoenas to get the information it sought.
Hilary Clinton addressed the new investigation in an interview on C-Span on Oct. 23, saying, “It’s the same baloney they’ve been peddling for years, and there’s been no credible evidence by anyone. In fact, it’s been debunked repeatedly and will continue to be debunked.”
Further Probes Into Clinton Email Case
The House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee have announced a new investigation into how the FBI handled the matter of then-candidate Hilary Clinton’s use of a private server for some government emails.House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, (R-S.C.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, (R-Va.) released a statement saying, “Decisions made by the Department of Justice in 2016 have led to a host of outstanding questions that must be answered.”
This investigation will focus on four aspects of the case:
*The FBI’s decision to publicly announce the Clinton email investigation but not announce the probe of Trump campaign associates.
*The decision to notify Congress that the bureau was revisiting the email probe in the fall of 2016.
*The decision to “appropriate full decision making in respect to charging or not charging Secretary Clinton to the FBI rather than the DOJ.”
*The FBI’s “timeline in respect to charging decisions.”
The FBI recently released emails showing that ex-Director James Comey might have been drafting his July 2016 statement exonerating Sen. Clinton of criminal charges regarding the emails, in May of that year.
Most of the emails are largely redacted, so it is unclear at this time what issues they addressed.
In June, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that his decision to make a public statement was influenced by a meeting between Bill Clinton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch that occurred earlier in the month.
He also told the House Judiciary Committee in September 2016 that he made the decision not to recommend criminal charges “after” the FBI interviewed Clinton.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) believe these potentially contradictory statements deserve further investigation.
