Kelly calls for probe into Clinton, DNC funding of Russia dossier
White House chief of staff John Kelly on Monday said that a special counsel should be appointed to investigate an Obama-era uranium sale and Democrats’ roles in funding a controversial opposition research dossier on President Trump.
In an interview on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Kelly said that Americans have a right to know what the U.S. government is doing “on any given day” and that an “objective” investigator is necessary to look into “accusations” against Democrats.
“One of the strengths I have in looking at issues in my job, I think probably as a layman looking at this kind of thing, we need to find someone who’s very, very objective, who can get to the bottom of these accusations,” Kelly said. “I think it’s important. Again, the American people have an absolute right to know these things.”
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Kelly also denied allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and said that the Trump administration had been transparent and forthcoming with the American people, pointing to the president’s recent decision to release all the remaining files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as evidence.
Kelly’s comments come as associates of Trump find themselves under scrutiny in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
On Monday, Mueller unsealed charges against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a business associate of Manafort’s, including money laundering and tax fraud, marking the first charges of the special counsel’s probe.
At the same time, Republicans on Capitol Hill have moved to open investigations into the sale of Canada-based Uranium One, which provided much of the United States’ uranium supply, to a subsidiary of a Russian state-owned energy corporation. That sale was subject to approval by the State Department under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic opponent in the election.
Some GOP lawmakers have suggested that the State Department approved the deal after the Clinton Foundation, the nonprofit group started by Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, received a $145 million donation from Uranium One investors.
It was also revealed last week that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded the research contained in a controversial dossier alleging ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.