The Justice Department is officially going after Hillary Clinton over the Uranium One scandal and President Trump is jubilant over it. So is the rest of America. Finally, maybe some justice will be done here at long last. Jeff Sessions has declared there will now be an investigation. “If the attorney general feels there’s a need for that investigation, he should absolutely look into that – and obviously he sees cause for it,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters yesterday. That’s a green light if I’ve ever seen one.
A report surfaced a couple of days ago that DOJ prosecutors were interrogating FBI agents concerning a prior probe into the Uranium One deal. That deal is directly connected to both Bill and Hillary Clinton through the Clinton Foundation and collusion with the Russians. It’s a b*tch when the tables get turned on corrupt politicians. NBC News reported that agents are being asked to explain the evidence they found and whether there was any “improper effort” to stop a prosecution.
This is part of a broader move by the DOJ to appoint a second special counsel examining Obama administration-tied controversies. The GOP has been pushing for this for a while and it is finally taking shape. In November, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed “senior federal prosecutors” to make recommendations on whether such an appointment is warranted and whether “any matters not currently under investigation should be opened.” Sessions is finally doing his job. Good deal. Better late than never.
Sessions told the media that the DOJ is cooperating with congressional investigators on Uranium One and other issues… this includes making available a confidential informant. He said a “senior attorney” has been supplied with “the resources he may need” to review cases and make a recommendation. Don’t screw this up guys and I mean that. This needs to be done right this time.
“I think the end game would be if they found something, they certainly would be potentially capable of reopening the investigation and handling it as though it were an active, ongoing criminal matter,” said Thomas Dupree, former Justice Department official under the George W. Bush administration. That statement is in regards to Uranium One. There’s no way to know just yet whether Sessions will appoint a second special counsel or not to reopen the probe. The American people, the GOP and the President want it, so I suggest he consider his next moves carefully. This comes amid Republican criticism of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential collusion with Trump associates.
The pressure is increasing here, as it should. Earlier this month, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) expanded his own investigation into the sale of the Canadian mining company to a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear company. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works fired off a letter to the heads of the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeking more information – specifically, on how uranium under the Russian firm’s control made its way out of the US.
Barraso was assured in 2011 by NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko that the companies did not hold a specific “NRC export license” and would not be able to export uranium from the US without one. The Hill reports that although the NRC never issued the license, it did approve “the shipment of yellowcake uranium” from the US mines to Canada in 2012 through a “third party.” The Obama administration later approved some of that material to go to Europe “and the approval involved a process with multiple agencies.”
The Uranium One deal popped back into the headlines in October after The Hill reported the FBI had evidence as early as 2009 that Russian operatives used bribes, kickbacks and other dirty tactics to expand Moscow’s atomic energy footprint in the US related to a Rosatom subsidiary. Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill quickly started asking questions about how the deal was approved the following year by an inter-agency committee. Questions regarding the payments to the Clintons and their foundation have also resurfaced.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is bringing forth the $500,000 speaking fee to Bill Clinton that was paid via a Russian investment bank in 2010. The bank in question has senior officers that include former Russian intelligence personnel and sources have described the company as an “extension” of the Russian government.
“Notably, in the same month as the Clinton speech, Uranium One and Rosatom notified CFIUS of the Russian government’s intent to acquire twenty percent of the United States’ uranium assets. The next month, in July 2010, Renaissance Bank reportedly assigned Uranium One a ‘buy’ rating, a move that would principally benefit its Russian investors,” Grassley wrote. “The donations raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest for Secretary Clinton and the Obama administration.” Further, individuals connected to the company have donated a reported $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.
All of us want answers on the Clinton corruption being exposed here. This is real Russian collusion.
Terresa Monroe-Hamilton is an editor and writer for Right Wing News. She owns and blogs at NoisyRoom.net. She is a Constitutional Conservative and NoisyRoom focuses on political and national issues of interest to the American public. Terresa is the editor at Trevor Loudon's site, New Zeal - trevorloudon.com. She also does research at KeyWiki.org. You can email Terresa here. NoisyRoom can be found on Facebook and on Twitter.