The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday asked for permission to interrogate an FBI informant who helped agents reveal a major corruption scheme by Russian nuclear officials who were trying to aggressively expand their U.S. business under the Obama administration, The Hill reports.
The undercover witness, whose name was not made public, spent about five years providing help to agents so they can build a case that resulted in one of Russia’s top nuclear industry officials in the United States, a Russian financier and an American trucking executive to plead guilty in 2015 to charges related to a racketeering scheme that prosecutors said involved bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering.
The informant owns information about the extent of Russian efforts to curry favor inside the United States that he has been prevented from revealing to the courts and Congress because he signed an FBI nondisclosure statement, his lawyer Victoria Toensing told The Hill on Tuesday.
The undercover witness tried to reveal some of the information in a lawsuit during last year’s election but was threatened by Justice officials who forced him to withdraw his legal action, the lawyer alleged.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, sent a letter Wednesday night to Toensing asking to interview her client, saying he was troubled that the Obama administration in 2010 approved the Uranium One deal allowing Moscow to have control over 20 percent of America’s uranium supply when the FBI was aware of the corruption inside the Russian nuclear industry.
“It appears that your client possesses unique information about the Uranium One/Rosatom transaction and how the Justice Department handled the criminal investigation into the Russian criminal conspiracy,” Grassley wrote. “Such information is critical to the Committee’s oversight of the Justice Department.”
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