Obama-Era Uranium Deal Now Under Investigation

While some Democrats have been desperately trying to connect the Trump administration to Russia, there suspiciously hasn’t been any investigation into the uranium deal struck with Russia during the Obama era.

That was until now.  

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and Senator, John Barrasso is looking for answers and has requested documents from the U.S. Energy Department and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to give an explanation about the uranium deal. He has set a deadline of January 31 to receive the documents.

The uranium deal gave Russian control of roughly 20% of the U.S. supply of uranium after the U.S. government agreed to sell Uranium One, a Canadian mining company to Russia’s Rosatom nuclear company.  

What was extremely suspicious was how the uranium was exported out of the U.S. and how Barrasso was misled about this process.

“Beginning in 2012, Uranium One exported U.S. uranium by ‘piggy-backing’ as a supplier on an export license,” said Barrasso.  

However, the former NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko told him that the companies did not obtain the specific “NRC export license” and would not be permitted to export the uranium from the U.S.

Except, as reported by The Hill, memos show that the NRC did approve “the shipment of yellowcake uranium” from the U.S. to Canada via a third party carrier. Some of this material also went to Europe. Again, the NRC license was never issued.  

The Hill also said that the NCR could have covertly added an amendment to an existing export license where Uranium One was added “to the list of clients whose uranium it could move to Canada.”

Allegedly, it was the Department of Energy secretly approving exports.

“Reporting by the Casper Star Tribune shows that, upon receipt of my letter to President Obama, the White House forwarded the letter to the DOE which then referred this matter to the NRC stating: ‘Because the subject of the letter does not fall within the purview of the Department of Energy, we are forwarding the letter to your agency.’ By stating DOE had no role in the matter, the DOE concealed the possibility of subsequent exports and their responsibility in reviewing them,” wrote Barrasso in the letter. “The DOE’s concealment, together with Chairman Jaczko’s deception, created a false narrative that there was only one agency and one process by which Uranium One could export uranium.” 

Republicans have questioned this for years, but this deal is finally being investigated after multiple mainstream media reports about how starting in 2009, Russian operatives were bribing officials to expand Russia’s energy business in the U.S.

The Clinton Foundation is at the center of the Uranium One controversy. Both Bill Clinton and the foundation received donations from several of the Uranium One’s owners.  

$145 million was given to the foundation. This fueled speculation that Hillary Clinton, who was the secretary of state when Rosatom’s purchased Uranium One, was behind the deal. To put it simply, she could have aggressively pushed for the sale to appease her donors.

Clinton has repeatedly denied these claims and said back I October that “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.”

Author’s note: We are glad to see a formal investigation be set in motion. Hopefully, the investigation will also look into the Russian funds given to the Clinton Foundation and what was exactly Hillary Clinton’s role in the deal.