(CNSNews.com) - The Justice Department announced on Wednesday night that it has "authorized" an undercover FBI informant to give Congress "any information or documents he has" concerning alleged corruption, bribery and money-laundering involved in the Uranium One deal, where the Obama administration agreed to give the Russians 20 percent control of the U.S. uranium market.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is calling for a special counsel to probe the Uranium One deal.
"It seems to me that there's so many people within the Justice Department that maybe have conflicts of interest that I asked for a special counsel in regard to the investigations of Russia versus the Obama and Clinton involvements with Uranium One," Grassley told Fox & Friends on Thursday.
Among the conflicts in the Justice Department, Grassley noted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller served as FBI director for President Obama at the time when the uranium deal was approved.
Grassley said the current allegations deserve the same independent investigation that the Trump-Russia investigation is supposed to be getting.
In releasing the FBI informant from his non-disclosure agreement with the FBI, the Justice Department said the unnamed man is free to speak to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and the House intelligence committee "as well as one member of each of their staffs."
Grassley called the closed-door questioning of the FBI informant by a handful of people a good start. But he also wondered why the Justice Department isn't allowing the man to testify before the full committees in public.
"Now, there may be national security reasons, there may be reasons for his personal protection that I don't know about," Grassley said. "So I can’t draw a conclusion. But this is quite a move on the part of people that we thought were trying to maybe cover up things within the bureaucracy of Justice or FBI," Grassley said.
"Now that we have this informant being able to speak a little bit, and we'll get more information, draw more conclusions, later on."
President Trump on Wednesday called the U.S. uranium sale to Russia -- "and the way it was done, so underhanded, with tremendous amounts of money being passed -- I actually think that's Watergate, modern age."
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved the Uranium One deal in 2010, at a time when the FBI was investigating corruption among people involved in the deal. But Congress only recently learned about the FBI investigation. Press reports said members of the Obama administration knew about the FBI probe but approved the deal anyway.
According to The Hill, the three congressional committees also want to know about "Russian efforts to curry favor with Bill and Hillary Clinton."
As CNSNews.com reported, nine investors in Uranium One gave $145 million to the Clinton Foundation prior to, during, and after CFIUS approved the sale of Uranium One to Russia’s Rosatom 2010. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was a member of CFIUS, as was Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
The FBI director at the time was Robert Mueller, who is now the special counsel investigating the Trump campaign for alleged collusion with Russia.
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) chairs the House subcommittee that oversees the FBI. He told Fox News Thursday morning he wants to know if the FBI was investigating people involved in the Uranium One deal; and if members of the Obama administration did know about the FBI's corruption probe, "How could they have possibly gone ahead and awarded this contract?" King asked. "So that to me is the ultimate question."
King also said there are issues about the Clinton Foundation receiving money from the Russians around the same time the deal was going through, and whether the Clintons were aware that the donations were part of a Russian plan.