What Is the Uranium One 'Scandal?' Well...

Would you like cheese with your nothingburger?

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Periodically, we hear about the so-called "Uranium One" scandal, a conservative fantasy in which Hillary Clinton somehow engineered the sale of nuclear materials to Russia. Strangely, it seems to crop up every time there's a damaging news report about President Trump's own ties to Russia.

NBC News reported Thursday morning that the Justice Department, under the direction of Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, is once again looking into the Uranium One deal—and even whether a special counsel is needed to investigate. Notice how eager Republicans are to work "Russia," "special counsel," and "Hillary Clinton" into a news story. And notice that there's also a report today that could bolster the obstruction of justice case against President Trump:

You'd want people to talk about uranium, too. NBC provided a lowdown on what Republicans say the Uranium One scandal is:

At issue is a 2010 transaction in which the Obama Administration allowed the sale of U.S. uranium mining facilities to Russia's state atomic energy company. Hillary Clinton was secretary of state at the time, and the State Department was one of nine agencies that agreed to approve the deal after finding no threat to U.S. national security...As the New York Times reported in April 2015, some of the people associated with the deal contributed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. And Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for a Moscow speech by a Russian investment bank with links to the transaction.

What NBC doesn't mention up top is that the story was fed to the Times from a book called Clinton Cash, which was written by a Breitbart editor and funded by a political action group tied to Steve Bannon and his billionaire benefactor, Robert Mercer. Essentially, this story is the product of a verifiable swamp of Trumpists. It is not real, which NBC lays out farther down:

Nonetheless, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, approved the deal by a unanimous vote, according to public reports. Clinton was just one member of the nine member CFIUS by virtue of her role as Secretary of State. The other eight members of CFIUS came from Treasury, Homeland Security, Commerce, Defense, Energy, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Office of Science & Technology, and the Justice Department.
Defenders of the deal point out that the Russians don't have a license to export the uranium out of the U.S., and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found no risk to national security. Clinton has said she was not involved in the deliberations and played no role in the decision. Jose Fernandez, a former assistant secretary of state, told the Times that he represented the department on the committee, and that "Mrs. Clinton never intervened with me on any C.F.I.U.S. matter."

This story was also debunked months ago, and more recently. Those debunkings include one by Shep Smith of Fox News:

They also include an expert cross-examination of a conservative talking head by MSNBC's Joy Reid:

This scandal is not real. It's a distraction. You know that because, as usual, Donald Trump has made the political machinations of the Republican Party explicit. In his eagerness and his foolishness, he spelled out the plan to reporters:

"That's your Russia story," said the president. "That's your real Russia story. Not a story where they talk about collusion—and there was none. It was a hoax. Your real Russia story is uranium."

Hey, Mr. President: You're giving away the game again. The Republicans' goal here is to get another Russia storyline going that targets Trump's vanquished opponent, or get a second special counsel appointed, or both. That way, they can muddy the waters and say that there was all kinds of collusion, and Russia was everywhere, and why is the Fake News Media and the corrupt Robert Mueller (whom, when he was first appointed, Republicans almost universally praised) only concentrating on the president?

This is classic authoritarian politics, where the line between fact and fiction is gradually erased until all that matters is what team you're on. Oh, you say Trump colluded? Well I say Clinton colluded, and she gave them uranium! Never mind that they can never export the uranium, and that there's no evidence Clinton had anything to do with the deal.

The Republican caucus.
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This isn't the only way Trump's authoritarian lackeys are trying to muddy the waters, either. Just yesterday, Politico reported that House Republicans are trying to gin up corruption claims against officials at the Justice Department and the FBI. The move is led by Devin Nunes, who now has an extensive record of trying to obstruct Russia investigations that includes switching cars so he could go to the White House grounds late at night, undetected, to receive classified information from an unidentified source. Talk about embracing your role providing oversight of the executive branch.

If authoritarianism does take root in this country, it will be thanks to pathetic hand servants like Nunes and other Republicans in Congress, who are terrified of their own base—or who are perhaps worried that someone has leverage over them. For now, there is only one Russian issue subject to formal probes, and one special counsel. If they get their way, there will be however many are necessary to get the Don off the hook.

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