Shepard Smith leaves viewers irate after six-minute segment debunking theory of Hillary Clinton’s ‘crimes’ in Uranium One deal

Daily Mail

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith infuriated a large number of the network’s viewers on Tuesday after a six-minute segment in which he debunked far-right conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton’s alleged wrongdoing in a sale of American uranium.

The segment was surprising given that a number of broadcasters on Smith’s own network have promoted the idea that Clinton broke the law in approving the sale to foreign buyers who also donated to her husband’s foundation.

Smith said many claims about Clinton’s supposed role in the uranium sale were ‘inaccurate’ – even as President Donald Trump and his supporters are calling for a federal investigation.  

The Fox News host began the segment by summarizing the particulars of the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian firm with rights to mine US uranium.

Rosatom, a Russian firm, acquired a majority stake in Uranium One in 2010 and bought the remainder of the company in 2013.

Because Uranium One had holdings in American uranium mines, which at the time accounted for about 20 percent of America’s licensed uranium mining capacity, Rosatom’s 2010 purchase had to be approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

That committee, known as CFIUS, is made up of officials from nine federal agencies, including the State Department, which Clinton ran at the time.

Other agencies represented on the committee include the departments of Treasury, Defense, Commerce, Energy and Homeland Security and the Office of the US Trade Representative.

The matter took on new life after a report last month said the FBI was investigating possible Russian attempts to influence the US nuclear sector at the time the CFIUS was considering the sale of Uranium One to Rosatom.

The report said members of the committee, including Clinton, should have known about the investigation and it questioned why they would have approved it.

In his segment, Smith then stated what the allegations against Clinton were.

‘Nine people involved in the deal made donations to the Clinton Foundation totaling more than $140million,’ Smith said.

‘In exchange, Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton approved the sale to the Russians, a quid-pro-quo.

‘The accusation first made by Peter Schweizer, the senior editor-at-large of the website Breitbart in his 2015 book “Clinton Cash.”

‘The next year, candidate Donald Trump cited the accusation as an example of Clinton corruption.’

Smith said the accusations were ‘inaccurate in a number of ways,’ one of the reasons being that ‘the Clinton State Department had no power to veto or approve that transaction.’

He said that most of the donations to the Clinton Foundation were made by the founder of the Canadian company before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state in 2009.

Frank Giustra, the company founder, ‘says he sold his stake in the company back in 2007,’ three years before the uranium/Russia deal and ‘a year and a half before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state,’ Smith said.

‘The accusation is predicated on the charge that Secretary Clinton approved the sale,’ Smith added.

‘She did not. A committee of nine evaluated the sale, the president approved the sale, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and others had to offer permits, and none of the uranium was exported for use by the US to Russia.’

The segment infuriated Fox News viewers who demanded Smith be fired.

‘Shep Smith needs to be fired for his biased reporting,’ tweeted one Fox News viewer.

‘I feel like [Fox News is] actually CNN (fake news) when Shepard Smith is on,’ tweeted another viewer.

‘You need to get that hack out of Fox News,’ tweeted another viewer.

The clamor on the right for an investigation against Clinton is putting pressure on the attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

Sessions said Monday that prosecutors were looking into whether a special counsel should be appointed to investigate Republican concerns.

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, which is holding an oversight hearing Tuesday, the Justice Department said Sessions had directed senior federal prosecutors to ‘evaluate certain issues’ recently raised by Republican lawmakers.

If prosecutors do appoint a special counsel, speculation could arise with regards to the independence of federal investigations under President Trump.

The list of matters he wants to look into vary but include the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5084385/AP-Explains-What-happened-Russia-bought-Uranium-One.html#ixzz4yW4GAISG
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook