Oh Nothing, Just The DOJ *ADMITTING* Hillary Clinton 'Uranium One' Scandal Is COOKED-UP BULLSHIT FROM A LIAR WHO LIES

Knows better. Gonna do it anyway.

When did Republicans lose their damn minds? We need to 'splain you yesterday's crazy Gowdy/Nunes/Uranium One fuckery, but honestly we're a little worried you're going to start backing away from us whispering, "Poor Wonkette! Looks like the strain of covering the Trump Administration finally got to them." And it has! But stick with us, because there is a vast rightwing, Hillary-hatin' conspiracy going on with House Republicans! And we are FOR SHOCKED. (No, for real this time! This stuff is NUTS.) Gowdy and Nunes have literally been hiding a witness that the DOJ told them was lying, so that they could go on Fox and scream, HILLARY! BRIBES! URANIUM ONE!

So weird that Trey Gowdy has suddenly decided to retire, right?

But we're getting ahead of ourselves! Okay, wish us luck!

Not this Uranium One BS again?!?

YES! Even after Planet Earth has fallen into the sun, we'll still be arguing over this nonsense.

To review, in 2010 a Canadian company called Uranium One was bought by Rosatom, an energy firm controlled by the Russian government. Uranium One's US assets included 20 percent of American uranium reserves. The sale was unanimously approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), of which Hillary Clinton was nominally a member as Secretary of State. The CFIUS is chaired by the Treasury Department, and includes the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Commerce, Defense, Energy, State, the Office of the US Trade Representative, and Office of Science & Technology Policy. There's no indication that Clinton herself was even briefed on the deal, which wasn't finalized until 2013 when she was no longer Secretary of State. And none of Uranium One's energy went to Russia. Nevertheless, the wingnut feversphere has been screaming for years that HILLARY CLINTON GAVE 20% OF AMERICA'S URANIUM TO VLADIMIR PUTIN!!!!!1!!!

Which makes no goddamn sense, unless you remember that it came from Steve Bannon.

Fuckin' Bannon? I KNEW IT!

See, one of Uranium One's prior owners had contributed $140 million to the Clinton Foundation. He sold his stake in the company long before it was sold to Rosatom, never discussed it with Clinton, and made no money off the sale. But those are facts, so PFFFFFFT. Per Mother Jones, 

In 2012, Bannon and Peter Schweizer, a conservative author [most notably of that POS Clinton Cash book], established a tax-exempt nonprofit organization called the Government Accountability Institute. They used funding from the family foundation of hedge funder manager and conservative mega-donor Robert Mercer. [...]

Schweizer’s biggest achievement was to get some of his claims into the the New York Times. The Times, eager to show it was serious about investigating Hillary Clinton, entered what it called an “exclusive” agreement to base a reporting project on Schweizer’s work. The result was an April 23, 2015, article headlined: “Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal.”

Excellent journalism, NYT!

Trump Tweets, Republicans Obey

So Donald Trump's campaign cut a million attack ads falsely accusing Clinton of taking bribes to give America's uranium to the Russians, and Fox viewers were treated to one million on-air Hannity-gasms. But the Justice Department failed to prosecute Hillary because BIASSSSSS. Or because there was literally nothing there, which is why Jeff Sessions didn't LOCK HER UP either.

But then!

Uranium deal to Russia, with Clinton help and Obama Administration knowledge, is the biggest story that Fake Media doesn't want to follow!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 19, 2017 

GAME ON!

Whoever in DOJ is capable w authority to appoint a special counsel shld do so to investigate Uranium One "whoever" means if u aren't recused

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) October 25, 2017 

It always comes back to Gowdy!

In October of 2017, Ron DeSantis (R-Florida Man) and Devin Nunes started showing up on Fox to say they had a hot new witness who was going to blow the lid off this whole Uranium One thing. Hillary was finally going down! Hannity's drycleaning bill for October was CRAZY!

Republican Members of the House Intelligence Committee (HIPSCI) were interviewing their star witness and getting all the sexxxxxxxy dirts on Hillary. But oddly enough, they wouldn't let HIPSCI Democrats near their guy.

Elijah Cummings and Adam Schiff sent multiple letters requesting access, but old Trey Gowdy just ignored them. Yes, we know that Devin Nunes is "Chair" of the House Intelligence Committee. But in case you didn't notice, he's dumber than string cheese. Which may be why Cummings wrote to Gowdy on November 7, 2017, and again on November 15 to protest the lack of access.

This is not a responsible way to conduct an investigation. I do not know why you are hiding this former informant, despite the fact that the FBI has authorized the individual to speak to both Republicans and Democrats. However, your refusal to allow Members of our Committee to speak with this individual and to evaluate this individual's claims raises serious questions about the credibility of the Committee's investigation.

Yes, yes it does.

Was Gowdy just being a dick like usual? Or was there more to it?

Are you new here? There's always a scheme with these slippery sonsabitches! Seems their star witness, William Campbell, was a little credibility-challenged. 

Campbell had been working at a Rosatom subsidiary when he got caught up in a 2010 kickback investigation. At first investigators thought Campbell was a victim. After interviewing him at length, however, they decided he was likely a participant in the crime and could not be used as a witness in the investigation. At no point during his FBI interviews did Campbell mention Clinton or bribes. But in 2017, he had a change of heart and memory and started claiming to have proof that Clinton had cooked up the Uranium One Deal on her Behghazi email server (probably).

So weird that Gowdy didn't want Democrats to have access to this guy, who is BASICALLY the same as the dude with the story about the yellowcake in Niger! (That was a deep cut for you olds, you are welcome.)

DO NOT mess with Elijah Cummings!

Which brings us to yesterday, when Elijah Cummings and Adam Schiff published their letter to Trey Gowdy and Devin Nunes outlining all of the above. Congressmen Cummings and Schiff also detailed a December 2017 briefing of the HIPSCI members where Jeff Sessions's Department of Justice trashed Campbell and cleared Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing, admitting their investigation turned up "no allegations of impropriety or illegality" by Hillary Clinton.

Let's repeat: Jeff Sessions's DOJ foundNO IMPROPRIETY OR ILLEGALITY BY HILLARY CLINTON.

So, to summarize, Gowdy, Nunes, and the rest of the Republican members of HIPSCI have been playing hide thesalamilying witness, because they knew he'd blow their HILLARY URANIUM bullshit right out of the water. They continued to go on Fox and peddle what they knew were lies, despite having been told by the Sessions's Justice Department that THERE IS NO HILLARY URANIUM STORY.

So, now what?

Well, now the Republicans have finally agreed to let Democrats interview their "confidential informant." BUT, they're not going to allow the interview to be transcribed, so there will be no written record of whatever nonsense he spews. Neat trick, huh?

WTFing FUCK?

YEAH. Well that explains Trey Gowdy's Road to Damascus conversion. The guy was a prosecutor -- he knows he's knee deep in wildly unethical shit.

. @TGowdySCon Mueller probe: "There may or may not be crimes, domestic crimes associated with that, but it's a foreign power trying to interfere with the gears of our democracy. The hack of the DNC server is a crime. The accessing of John Podesta's email is a crime." #TheStory   pic.twitter.com/7FnD7t37bx 

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 7, 2018 

He better damn well hope Republicans keep control of the House, because Democrats are going to run the Mother of All House Ethics Investigations when they're next in charge. They're already getting testy and posting Trey and Devin's nasty little secrets on Mediumwhen Republicans abuse the classification process to hide the fact that they're carrying water for the president. No wonder Gowdy's calling himself a "lousy politician" on the way to hightailing it out of the House of Representatives. Can confirm, NOT FAKE NEWS.

FOR. FUCKING. SHAME.

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[ Mother Jones / Reuters / Cummings/Schiff Letter / Medium ]