BREAKING NEWS

Republicans launch probes of Clinton emails decision, uranium deal

WASHINGTON- Republican lawmakers on Tuesday launched investigations to examine several of US President Donald Trump's longstanding political grievances, including the FBI probe of Hillary Clinton's emails and her alleged role in a sale of US uranium to a Russian firm.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy announced a probe to address "outstanding questions" about why former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey publicly disclosed the bureau's investigation of Clinton but never disclosed one into Trump's associates in the 2016 presidential campaign.
"These investigations were initiated on a partisan basis, and will shed no light on Russia's interference in the 2016 election, but then again they are not intended to do so," Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday in a statement.
Instead, said Schiff, "they are designed to distract attention and pursue the President's preferred goal – attacking Clinton and Obama."
Republicans in Congress also are investigating whether officials in former President Barack Obama's administration spied on Trump's campaign and whether Russians helped pay for a dossier on Trump commissioned by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm. So far, there is no evidence to support either allegation.
Clinton was Trump's Democratic rival in the 2016 US presidential election and faced questions about her handling of classified material after it became public that she used a private email server in her home for some of her correspondence.
Since winning the presidential vote last year, Trump has been beset by questions about Russian efforts to manipulate the US election and whether any of his campaign advisers, some of whom had contacts with Russian officials, were involved.