Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for looking into creating another special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton’s relationship to an Obama-era deal that allowed Russia to buy a stake in a company with U.S. mine holdings.
“The threat to our democracy right now comes less from the Russians and more from the internal damage that we are doing to ourselves,” Schiff, the ranking Democrat of the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC News on Wednesday.
“If Jeff Sessions and the Justice Department go along with this, it will be an obliteration of independence of the Justice Department. We will be nothing more than the countries that we criticize, where the winning party tries to prosecute the losing party,” he said.
In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday, the Justice Department outlined its interest in investigating a variety of issues, including the Uranium One deal, a reference to the Obama administration’s approval of the 2010 sale of a Canadian mining company to Rosatom, a Russian nuclear power company, the New York Times first reported. That company has access to uranium mined in the U.S., and it’s being investigated by the House Intelligence Committee and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
A report last month revealed that the FBI has evidence dating as far back as 2009 that nuclear industry officials from Russia had been involved in bribery, kickbacks, extortion, and money laundering that benefited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy project expansion with the U.S. The report also verified that Russians sent millions of dollars to a Clinton charitable foundation from 2009 to 2013 while Clinton was serving as secretary of state.
Sessions’ letter said he wants to probe how the FBI had managed its investigation concerning Clinton’s private email server and allegations against the Clinton Foundation for misconduct.
Sessions testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, where he fielded questions about the Trump campaign’s communications with Russian officials.
Schiff views the effort to look into Uranium One as a mechanism to distract from Sessions’ involvement in various congressional committees’ investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. He said members of the Trump campaign have a “selective memory” concerning interactions with Russian officials.
“You see people around the president and his campaign that have very selective memories about the facts of their interactions with Russians — during the campaign and after campaign,” Schiff said, adding that Sessions’ testimony “is very much a part of that pattern.”
President Trump has criticized Sessions for not looking into the allegations against Clinton and told reporters earlier this month the Justice Department “should be looking at the Democrats.”
Additionally, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., has called on Sessions twice this past year to hire another special counsel to look into “matters that appear to be outside the scope” of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.
