Republicans launch uranium deal probes

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Tuesday launched new inquiries looking back at the Obama administration and Democrat Hillary Clinton’s emails.

The announcements of the investigations by three GOP committees were criticized by Democrats as a “massive diversion” from congressional probes into potential coordination between the Kremlin and associates of the Trump campaign — and from two witnesses close to President Donald Trump that appeared privately before the House intelligence panel as part its Russia probe.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., held a news conference Tuesday to announce a committee investigation into an Obama-era uranium deal.

Nunes earlier this year stepped back from the committee’s investigation into Russian election interference after criticism that he was too close to the White House. But he has continued to be involved with some aspects of it, including signing subpoenas.

Nunes’ investigation into the uranium deal will be a joint effort with the House Oversight and Government Reform panel. The oversight committee also announced a second new investigation Tuesday along with the House Judiciary Committee into the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation and the decision not to prosecute her.

Nunes and other Republicans who announced the probe said they want to know more about whether Obama’s Department of Justice was investigating the purchase of American uranium mines by a Russian-backed company in 2010. The agreement was reached while Hillary Clinton led the State Department and some investors in the company had relationships with former President Bill Clinton and donated large sums to the Clinton Foundation.

While Democrats have dismissed the issue, which was also brought up during the campaign, as widely debunked, Trump has called it “the real Russia story.”

California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, said the investigations show Republicans’ “fundamental lack of seriousness” about Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

Other developments

Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his former campaign digital and data director, Brad Parscale, were both interviewed by the House panel behind closed doors Tuesday.

Cohen, a former executive with the Trump Organization who had been subpoenaed by the House panel earlier this year, was in talks to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, but ended those negotiations as Trump’s White House bid caught fire.

In a statement to the Senate intelligence committee in August, Cohen said the proposal was “solely a real estate deal and nothing more.”