The bureaucratic wheels finally have ground to the point that the Department of Justice last night took the first step toward disclosure of its evidence in the Uranium One case.  Up until last night, a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) gagged the FBI's informant.  But the gag won't completely come off, because there is a strategy at work.

As Fox News reported last night:

The Justice Department said Wednesday night that it had lifted a gag order on a former FBI informant involved in a high-profile Russia bribery case, clearing the individual to speak to Congress about Moscow's Obama-era uranium deals in the U.S. market and other schemes.

In a statement, the department said it had authorized the informant to speak to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, House Oversight Committee, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in addition to select staffers.

The department said the informant could provide "any information or documents he has concerning alleged corruption or bribery involving transactions in the uranium market," including Russian company Rosatom, subsidiary Tenex, Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation.

This is the first stage of getting the evidence on the public record.  Keep in mind that if there is any effort underway under A.G. Sessions to prosecute any of these crimes, they have to keep the evidence close to their vests.  The NDA is an essential tool for the prosecution to control disclosure – thus the limited circle of disclosure.  With Victoria Toensing representing the interests of the informant and Jeff Sessions's own head of the Criminal Division in place, I am reasonably confident that strategic considerations are being given great thought and a plan is moving forward.

For now, an identifiable number of people will know what they have on everyone implicated in the corrupt approval of this deal that was clearly not in the national interest.  That includes a lot of people in both the Clinton and Obama spheres – including the very people so far unsuccessfully going after President Trump for collaboration with the Russians.

Any criminal involvement at all was enough to have ruled out approval of the Uranium One deal by the CFIUS committee on which Hillary and Eric Holder both sat.  That makes the approval process corrupt, even without regard to the national security stakes involved.

I admit that I am impatient to know as much as possible about the evidence, but I suspect that there are niceties of criminal procedure at stake.  We wouldn't want to see any miscreants handed a technicality on which to skate.