Here are the facts. In 2010 Rosatom , the Russian nuclear authority, bought a piece of Uranium One, a Canadian company that held rights to mine a share of U.S. uranium deposits. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved the deal. The State Department, then run by Ms. Clinton, was one of nine agencies represented on that committee, though the Treasury Department had the lead. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also had to approve the deal, and President Barack Obama had the final call.
The conspiracy theory is that people related to Uranium One had given money to the Clinton Foundation, mostly before the 2008 election, and therefore Ms. Clinton pressed the deal through. But given the structure of the committee, the separate NRC approval and the president’s role in the process, it was not really Ms. Clinton’s decision to make, even if the Russians had tried to influence her. In fact, a key premise of the conspiracy theory — that the United States gave up a big chunk of its uranium to the Russians — is simply wrong; none of the uranium could legally be exported, anyway.
