Fact Checker Analysis: The repeated, incorrect claim that Russia obtained ‘20 percent of our uranium’ – by Glenn Kessler (Washington Post – October 31, 2017)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

“How is it that our government could approve a sale of 20 percent of our uranium at the same time that there was an open FBI investigation?”
— Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), interview with Fox News’s Neil Cavuto, Oct. 26, 2017

“Knowing what you know about Russia, was it really a good idea for the Obama administration and the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to approve a deal giving the Russians control of 20 percent of our uranium supply? . . . Why did Hillary’s office and the Obama administration sign off on giving the Russians a fifth of our uranium? . . .

Why is that a good idea to give a hostile power 20 percent of our uranium supplies? It’s insane though. . . . How would Hillary Clinton not know if a Russian company was getting 20 percent of our uranium supply? What was she doing?”
— Tucker Carlson, on Fox’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Oct. 23

More than a year ago, the Fact Checker labeled as false various claims that Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, had made about Hillary Clinton’s alleged role in the approval of the sale of a Canadian company, Uranium One, with mining rights in the United States to Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear energy agency.

We’ve delved deep into the tale and recently wrote an update since Rep. Devin Nunes, head of the House Intelligence Committee, announced that Congress would launch a new probe.

Here, we are going to take a closer look at a key claim: that the sale involved “20 percent of our uranium.” Look at how often Tucker Carlson brought up this line in a recent show, saying it was “insane” for Clinton not to realize that “a Russian company was getting 20 percent of our uranium supply.”

For the rest of this article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/31/the-repeated-incorrect-claim-that-russia-obtained-20-percent-of-our-uranium/?utm_term=.118a491be8c7