GAG ORDER LIFTED The Justice Department said W
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The Justice Department said Wednesday night that it had lifted a gag order preventing an FBI informant from telling Congress details about an Obama-era deal in which a Russian-backed company bought a uranium firm with mines in the U.S.
In a statement, the department said it had authorized the informant to discuss the 2013 agreement -- known as Uranium One -- and related matters with the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Oversight committee, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Uranium One refers to the name of a Canada-based company with mines in the U.S. that was bought by Rosatom, a company backed by the Russian state. The State Department, then led by Hillary Clinton, was one of nine U.S. government agencies that had to approve the deal.
All three congressional committees launched their investigation after The Hill reported that the FBI had evidence that Russian nuclear officials were involved in fraudulent dealings -- including extortion, bribery and kickbacks -- in 2009 before the uranium deal was approved. Congressional Republicans have since questioned how the deal was approved the following year by an inter-agency committee.
Republicans have also raised concerns about some of the investors in the deal and their ties to the former president. Canadian financier Frank Giustra, a top Clinton Foundation donor, sold his company, UrAsia Energy, to Uranium One, which was chaired by Ian Telfer, also a Clinton Foundation donor.
Giustra has said he sold his stake in the deal in 2007, while Clinton and Barack Obama were vying for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Former President Bill Clinton also received a $500,000 speaking fee in Russia and reportedly met with Vladimir Putin around the time of the deal.
The committee's chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, tweeted Tuesday that the Justice Department should appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Uranium One deal.
The informant's attorney, Victoria Toensing, told Fox Business Network Monday that her client can "tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made." The informant was prevented from testifying by former attorneys general Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, according to Toensing.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/25/ju...gress.html