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By John Ubaldi
Contributor, In Homeland Security

George Washington University constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley famously remarked, “Be careful for what you wish for you may end up getting it.”

Turley was commenting on the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel investigating allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. Democrats were delighted by Mueller’s appointment.

Russian Uranium Deal

This exuberance was muted last Tuesday, when it was revealed that the Obama administration had approved a controversial deal in 2010. The deal allowed the sale of a Canadian uranium mining company to Russia’s atomic energy agency and gave Moscow a 20 percent control of U.S. uranium.

At the same time, the FBI obtained considerable evidence implicating officials from Russia’s nuclear industry in substantial and serious illegal activities to expand Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy industry.

As reported in The Hill, The FBI had a confidential U.S. informant inside the Russian nuclear industry who, as early as 2009, was able to obtain extensive financial records, make secret recordings and seize emails that show how Moscow violated the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The informant had documented evidence showing how Russian nuclear officials routed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation when Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State. At the same time former President Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 to give a speech at a Russian bank with ties to the Kremlin.

DOJ Slow Walks Russian Bank Investigation

Instead of bringing charges, the Department of Justice perused the matter slowly for four more years, essentially hiding this information from Congress and the American people. At the same time, the Obama administration made critical decisions benefiting Putin’s Russia.

The first decision came when the State Department and the Treasury Department’s  Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the partial sale of Canadian company Uranium One to Rosatom, a large Russian nuclear company. That deal virtually gave Moscow a 20 percent control of U.S. uranium.

Obama Administration, the Clintons and Russia

The Obama administration and the Clintons vehemently denied any wrong doing. They said there was no evidence that Russia or any financial donors associated with Russia engaged in any wrong doing. Also, there were no national security implications to oppose this deal.

One member of the Committee on Foreign Investment was then Attorney General Eric Holder, who approved the Uranium One deal. So far,there is no evidence to support the claim that the FBI or the DOJ contacted Congress or members of the committee about the alleged criminal activity.

Many of the key players during this investigation now hold prominent positions in the DOJ. They include then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointee who now serves as DOJ deputy attorney general in the Trump administration; also then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who is now deputy director of the FBI under Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee.

Rosenstein, McCabe and former FBI Director Mueller all played crucial roles in uncovering the Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.

Another Investigation Takes a Unique Twist

This is not the only federal investigation to take a unique twist.  On Wednesday, two executives of the intelligence firm Fusion GPS, Peter Fritsch and Thomas Catán, invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination at a closed-door hearing before the House Intelligence Committee. Fusion GPS is at the center of the Russian collusion controversy,

The controversy began last year when Fusion GPS produced a dossier of allegations of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump. The company had hired a former MI-6 British intelligence operative to look into the suspected collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

The dossier that was released in January contained unverified allegations of misconduct and collusion between Trump associates including his son in law and the Russian government.

Initial funding for Fusion GPS’s research came from Republicans who didn’t want to see Trump as the Republican Party presidential nominee. But when Trump’s nomination became inevitable, the Republicans bowed out and a Democratic donor took over the funding. The central question is who actually paid for the dossier?

Did the Fusion GPS Dossier Influence a FISA Court Ruling?

Another federal investigation being conducted by both the House and the Senate is whether the Obama administration used the “Trump Dossier” as evidence before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) to spy on Trump campaign aides and his transition team.

We learned last year that the FBI used the Fusion GPS dossier to secure permission to monitor the communications of Trump associate and foreign policy advisor Carter Page. Page “came under fire last year after reports emerged that he had met with high-level associates” of Putin in Moscow in 2016. Page says he won’t testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Politico reports.

According to Fox News, “Samantha Power, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was ‘unmasking’ [Americans] at such a rapid pace in the final months of the Obama administration that she averaged more than one request for every working day in 2016 – and even sought information in the days leading up to President Trump’s inauguration, multiple sources close to the matter told Fox News.”

It was learned that the unmasking was done under her name but she never made any request to do so. Investigators want to know if she never made the requests, who did and for what purpose?

The various federal investigations have a taken an unfortunate twist for those who were once so exuberant about the Mueller appointment. They now have their own questions that need to be answered.