Earlier this week, Shepard Smith – known as one of Fox’s most liberal hosts – won praise from liberals for a segment he did challenging the conservative narrative regarding the Hillary Clinton-Uranium One scandal.
The events of the scandal date back to 2010, but have been dominating headlines recently following explosive revelations that a foundation run by the chairman of Uranium One gave the Clinton Foundation millions while Hillary’s State Department gave its approval for the company’s purchase of U.S. uranium. The Russian state atomic agency Rosatom purchased its majority stake in the Vancouver-based company during a years-long process from 2009-2011, which were the same years that Hillary was Secretary of State. Former President Bill Clinton also received one of his highest speaking fees, $500,000, in June 2010 in Moscow for addressing an investment bank linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.
Smith said otherwise, however, claiming that Hillary didn’t have the power needed to approve the sale. “Many claims about Clinton’s supposed role in the uranium sale were ‘inaccurate’ – even as President Donald Trump and his supporters are calling for a federal investigation,” the host said at the opening of his monologue before summarizing the conservative narrative regarding the scandal. “The accusation first made by Peter Schweizer, the senior editor-at-large of the website Breitbart in his 2015 book ‘Clinton Cash.’ The next year, candidate Donald Trump cited the accusation as an example of Clinton corruption.”
Smith then claimed that the accusations couldn’t be true because “The Clinton State Department had no power to veto or approve that transaction.” He continued, “She did not. A committee of nine evaluated the sale, the president approved the sale, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and others had to offer permits, and none of the uranium was exported for use by the US to Russia.”
You can watch the segment below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnsAZzsdI1U
As we pointed out in quoting National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, however, there are plenty of proven factoids in the scandal uncovered that prove there was at least some sort of Clinton collusion in the deal. McCarthy wrote:
“In 2005, Bill personally intervened with the despicable Kazakh dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to grant uranium mining rights to Clinton’s major Canadian benefactor, Frank Giustra. This led to tens of millions of dollars pouring into the Clinton Foundation, and to Giustra’s merging his company (Ur-Asia Energy) into Uranium One – a deal valued at $3.5 billion. Later, when Putin leaned on Nazarbayev to put Uranium One’s holdings in jeopardy of seizure, putting downward pressure on its stock value, Hillary’s State Department immediately mobilized – mediating a deal that gave Rosatom a minority stake in Uranium One. Then, when the Kremlin wanted Rosatom to have a controlling interest in Uranium One, CFIUS signed off on the deal. We now know that, around the time that sign-off was under consideration, millions more in related donations were made to the Clinton Foundation and Bill was given $500,000 for a single speech by a Kremlin-tied financial institution. In addition, the Justice Department had a prosecutable racketeering/extortion/money-laundering case against Rosatom’s U.S. subsidiary. Bringing the case at that point would have made the transfer of U.S. uranium assets to Rosatom politically impossible (Republicans in Congress, though they knew nothing about the investigation, were already grousing about the transfer to Russia). Instead, the Justice Department sat on the investigation for four years – even as Rosatom’s U.S. subsidiary continued actively corrupting the U.S. energy sector. Here, it is worth pointing out that the Attorney General (then, Eric Holder), like the Secretary of State (then, Hillary Clinton) sat on CFIUS; yet, neither appears to have taken any action to stop the transfer of U.S. uranium assets to Rosatom.”
And judging by the response, few conservatives are buying Shep’s claims, as a growing number call for his exit from Fox News. In fact, according to Breitbart, (which fact-checked Shep’s fact-check) “send him to CNN” appears to be the consensus on this one.
https://twitter.com/CAoutcast/status/930802323160367104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fbig-journalism%2F2017%2F11%2F16%2Ffox-news-viewers-demand-shep-smith-fired-error-filled-uranium-one-report-send-cnn%2F
Shepard Smith needs to move to CNN. He is as big a Trump hater as the other fools on CNN. Fox should dump him.
— M F Thompson (@MikeTho99372094) November 7, 2017
https://twitter.com/jbro_1776/status/930789352053133312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fbig-journalism%2F2017%2F11%2F16%2Ffox-news-viewers-demand-shep-smith-fired-error-filled-uranium-one-report-send-cnn%2F
Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith should start a show on CNN called "Pink Hat Brigade" that's where you both belong. Shameful Fox, Get rid of these two asshats.
— Matt Couch (@RealMattCouch) November 13, 2017
https://twitter.com/limabean002/status/930536168961212418?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fbig-journalism%2F2017%2F11%2F16%2Ffox-news-viewers-demand-shep-smith-fired-error-filled-uranium-one-report-send-cnn%2F
Is Shepard Smith Hillary’s attorney or what?!?…..geez he has to be on her payroll OR he’s drank a gallon of her kool-aid today!! Sickening. He’s got Uranium One all figured out and Hillary is blameless… He needs to go to CNN or MSNBC ASAP!!
— Debra (@drlamb97) November 14, 2017
I normally don't tune into Shep's hour on FOX, can't stand his bias, but today while surfing channels he caught my interest…in 3 mts he argued Hillary's defense, how she had nothing to do with Uranium One and how Trump had lied about it. HE HAS TO GO!!!
— S☉L TI☉ (@SolMTio) November 14, 2017
https://twitter.com/Michael8326023/status/930537535847260161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fbig-journalism%2F2017%2F11%2F16%2Ffox-news-viewers-demand-shep-smith-fired-error-filled-uranium-one-report-send-cnn%2F
What do you think? Fox has already fired countless conservatives from the network whom viewers enjoyed. Do you think it’s time for Shep to finally hit the road?