Senate Republican’s Uranium One Witness Is Ex-Lobbyist for Russian Firm

A witness for the Senate Republican probe into the Uranium One scandal identified himself Thursday as a former lobbyist for a Russian firm — and promised that he has important information about the controversial 2010 deal.

Reuters reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee probe into Hillary Clinton’s role in approving the 2010 deal that sold 20 percent of U.S. uranium reserves to Russian energy giant Rosatom centers in part on the testimony of William D. Campbell — a confidential FBI source in an investigation of the head of a U.S. unit of Rosatom for whom Campbell worked as a lobbyist.

According to Reuters, Campbell will testify about the deal, and provide documentation. Senate Republicans would not name him, but Campbell identified himself as the informant and told Reuters he was concerned about Russian meddling in the U.S.

Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President and Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer broke the Uranium One scandal in his book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. In the book, he reported that Clinton’s State Department, along with other federal agencies, approved the transfer of 20 percent of all U.S. uranium to Russia and that nine foreign investors in the deal gave $145 million to Hillary and Bill Clinton’s personal charity, the Clinton Foundation.

The New York Times confirmed Schweizer’s Uranium One revelations in a 4,000-word front-page story by a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. In October, The Hill reported that ahead of the deal, the FBI had uncovered “substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering” to expand Russia’s nuclear footprint in the U.S. as early as 2009.

According to The Hill, the agency also found that Russian nuclear officials had routed “millions of dollars” to the U.S. to benefit the Clinton Foundation. 

Clinton, along with some allies in the media, has sought to downplay the importance of the Uranium One deal — with some pointing out that it was not Clinton’s State Department’s decision. Yet Clinton was a member of the nine-member board that approved the deal — and it is unlikely it would have gone ahead without the State Department’s nod.

“This latest iteration is simply more of the Right doing Trump’s bidding for him to distract from his own Russia problems,” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told Reuters.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions told lawmakers he was considering appointing a special counsel to investigate concerns about the deal in light of recent reports, and has directed his prosecutors to investigate whether one is justified. Both House and Senate committees are looking into the deal.

Campbell declined to give details to Reuters, but made it clear that he has important information to share in congressional investigations:

“I have worked with the Justice Department undercover for several years, and documentation relating to Uranium One and political influence does exist and I have it,” Campbell said.

Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.