Dick Morris: 10 Russian spies assigned to 'get close to Hillary'

Members of several congressional committees have been told by an FBI informant that the Russians "bragged" that the Clintons' influence in the Obama administration would ensure approval of the Uranium One deal, according to the informant's lawyer, Victoria Toensing.

Hillary Clinton's State Department approved the sale of 20 percent of U.S. uranium reserves in 2010 to a Russian state-owned company at a time when interested parties were donating hundreds of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. Bill Clinton also was paid $500,000 by a bank tied to the Kremlin for a speech.

The FBI informant, William Campbell, said in his statement to Congress, which was obtained by the Hill, that he was told by Russian nuclear executives that Moscow had hired the American lobbying firm APCO Worldwide specifically because it was in position to influence Hillary Clinton.

Dick Morris, a longtime Bill Clinton adviser, writes in a commentary Monday that the Russians sought the Uranium One deal "very aggressively."

He says Campbell told Congress that in the years before the deal came up before the Committee of Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS), of which Hillary Clinton was a member, Russia deployed 10 spies in the United States with a single mission: to get close to Hillary Clinton to get her to approve the Uranium One deal.

CFIUS -- a multi-agency board that includes the State Department, the Defense Department and the Justice Department -- has the power to block deals that threaten national security.

Morris notes the FBI, then led by Robert Mueller, who now is special counsel investigating claims of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, found out about the Russian spies targeting Hillary Clinton.

"Fortunately, the FBI uncovered the next of spies one year before the deal came up for approval. (The Bureau acted to arrest the spies when it did because one of them had risen to a high position in a company owned by Hillary's finance chairman)," the report said. "Then, to seal the deal, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin arranged for former president Bill Clinton to address the Renaissance Bank in Moscow, an institution closely connected to the Kremlin," Morris writes.

"To try to keep word of the Uranium One deal under wraps and to bury the story about the Russian spies, FBI Director Robert Mueller arranged for the suspects to take plea bargains admitting to minor offenses and then spirited them out of the country quickly – in a prisoner exchange with Russia – before the media could interrogate them."

Two others involved were Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and recently ousted Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe.

McCabe's wife, who ran for political office, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from Hillary Clinton's friends even as her husband continued to investigate claims against Clinton's political opponent.

Morris said the information comes from Campbell, through his lawyer, Victoria Toensing.

The Russian donations to the Clintons' foundation amounted to $145 million.

Morris says Rosenstein and McCabe need to be investigated to determine if their handling of the Uranium One case was designed to shield Hillary Clinton.

Campbell's written testimony suggested Obama administration officials made decisions that ended up benefiting the Russian nuclear industry.

Campbell wrote that Russian nuclear executives "boasted" during vodka-fueled meetings monitored by the FBI about "how weak the U.S. government was in giving away uranium business and were confident that Russia would secure the strategic advantage it was seeking in the U.S. uranium market."

McCabe abruptly resigned just weeks before his scheduled retirement.

Toensing spoke with Radio America and WND when McCabe quit.

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Victoria Toensing: