Fox & Friends uncritically parroted debunked allegations made by Republican activist and strategist Peter Schweizer in his book Clinton Cash in order to falsely suggest wrong-doing at Hillary Clinton's State Department regarding the Uranium One deal that gave the Russian government ownership of U.S. uranium mines. 

During a June 21 interview on WMUR's CloseUP with Josh McElveen, Hillary Clinton shut down Schweizer's false claims made in Clinton Cash that the former secretary of state had pushed through the Uranium One deal after the Clinton Foundation received donations from stakeholders in the deal, noting that the claims had “no basis” behind them. Peter Schweizer responded in a June 22 op-ed for The New York Post, suggesting that Clinton's interview showed “grave incompetence or brazen dishonesty” and doubling-down on his assertion of a quid pro quo in the Russian uranium deal. Schweizer called Clinton's statement “an admission of extreme executive negligence,” and said it “strains credulity.”

Fox News parroted Schweizer's attacks on Clinton during the June 23 edition of Fox & Friends. Asking whether Clinton's involvement in the Uranium One deal was evidence of “incompetence” or “deceit,” host Elisabeth Hasselbeck speculated that donations to the Clinton Foundation may have influenced the outcome of the deal. Reciting Schweizer's talking points, Hasselbeck called into question Clinton's statement that nine government agencies were involved in approving the deal:

ED HENRY: As you can imagine, Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, believes that was pointed at him when she said that there was a partisan axe that was dealt here. So he's got an op-ed  in the New York Post today.

HASSELBECK: Yeah, and it said this, quote 'The transfer of 20% of U.S. uranium -- the stuff used to build nuclear weapons -- to Vladimir Putin did not rise to the level of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's time and attention? Beyond being an admission of extreme executive negligence on an issue of utmost national security, Hillary's statement strains credulity to the breaking point for at least three other reasons.' And those three are this: at least nine of the investors who profited from that uranium deal collectively donated $145 million to the Clinton Foundation. Okay, one of them happened to go globe trotting with her husband and donated $100 million in pledges there. The second point that would bring up, and his third, is that Clinton said that there were nine government agencies. Okay, so she's correct in saying that who signed off on the deal. She forgets to mention that her State Department was one of the nine and happened to be the only agency whose chief, he states, received $145 million in donations from shareholders in that deal. Who, by the way, brings you back to point one -- who ended up donating to the Clinton Foundation. And by the way, Bill Clinton received $500,000 for a single speech he delivered in Moscow, and she couldn't answer to that either. 

But Schweizer's allegations of wrong-doing by Hillary Clinton in the Uranium One deal have been repeatedly debunked -- even the author himself has admitted to overreaching on his claim that Clinton had power to “veto” the deal. Schweizer was criticized by the media for ignoring the process behind the deal in his allegation. According to Time, Clinton Cash “offers no indication of Hillary Clinton's personal involvement in, or even knowledge of” the “extensive bureaucratic process” that led to the deal. In addition to the other agencies -- including Defense, Treasury, and Energy -- that had to sign off on the matter, approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Utah's nuclear regulator, and Canada's foreign investment review agency were also required.

Schweizer's book has been roundly denounced and discredited as a smear campaign which presents erroneous evidence to support its claims.