Uranium Indictment in Maryland Not 'Coincidental,' Tom Fitton Says

A Maryland transportation firm executive’s indictment last week in the FBI investigation of a corrupt uranium deal was not “coincidental,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton suggested on Fox and Friends Monday morning.

The charges come after reports released in late December revealed that the Justice Department was taking a fresh look at the Uranium One deal that gave a Russian company control of 20 percent of the U.S. uranium industry while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.

Fitton couldn’t say for sure if the fresh scrutiny led to the indictment, but added, “It’s, I don’t think, coincidental, a few months after it’s reported about the fact that the Justice Department under Obama was hiding this [Uranium One scandal] in plain sight from the American people, and certainly hiding key information from Congress, and then the Justice Department under Jeff Sessions responds, ‘Hey, we’re going to take another look at this.'”

He added, “This is about, in the end, what steps they’re going to take about what happened with Hillary Clinton.”

Mark Lambert is facing 11 counts of money laundering and wire fraud for allegedly bribing a Russian official at a subsidiary of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corp. in order to win contracts to transport uranium.

The New York Post is reporting that the investigation “grew from charges that the Obama administration covered up an FBI probe of the uranium business.”

The indictment, handed up in Maryland, says Lambert tried to conceal the payments with the code words “lucky figures,” “lucky numbers” and “cake.”
Lambert’s aim was to win contracts to ship uranium to the US.

The federal investigation grew from charges that the Obama administration covered up an FBI probe of the uranium business — and thus allowed the Russian firm Tenex to buy a stake in Uranium One, a Canadian company that mines uranium in Wyoming and elsewhere.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reportedly told Congress in 2010 that uranium purchased by the Russian company could not be exported, yet as The Hill reported in November, some of the uranium mined after the deal ended up as far away as Europe.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said at the time that it was “disturbing” to see that some of the yellowcake uranium had made its way overseas despite promises from the U.S. government to the contrary.

“The more that surfaces about this deal, the more questions it raises,” Grassley said in a statement.

“It now appears that despite pledges to the contrary, U.S. uranium made its way overseas as a part of the Uranium One deal,” Grassley said. “What’s more disturbing, those transactions were apparently made possible by various Obama Administration agencies while the Democrat-controlled Congress turned a blind eye.”

Many Republicans suspect the Uranium One deal is tied to allegations of pay-to-play at the Clinton Foundation — allegations Clinton has repeatedly denied and called “baloney.”