After weeks of public pressure from the White House, the Justice Department said Monday that federal prosecutors are evaluating whether a special counsel should be appointed to investigate Donald Trump’s campaign rival, Hillary Clinton, who has long been dogged by allegations that donations made to the Clinton Foundation were tied to an Obama-era decision to allow a Russian nuclear agency to purchase Uranium One, a Canadian mining firm with licenses for about 20 percent of U.S. uranium extraction capacity.

In a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee ahead of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s congressional testimony Tuesday, the department said that several federal prosecutors, appointed by Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, would “evaluate certain issues” flagged by Republican lawmakers. Their function would be to recommend whether any new investigations should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation need more resources, and whether it might be necessary to appoint a special counsel. Despite recusing himself from matters related to the election and to the Clinton Foundation, Sessions, alongside Rosenstein, will oversee the prosecutors’ decision to appoint the special counsel, the letter said.

In remarks before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Sessions declined to say whether he had or had not recused himself from the effort, noting that such information would reveal whether an investigation was already underway. He did, however, rebuff calls for a special counsel before there was evidence to support such a move. “We will use the proper standards and that’s the only thing I can tell you, Mr. Jordan,” Sessions said, pushing back against Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who outlined a series of allegations directed at the previous administration. “You can have your idea but sometimes we have to study what the facts are and to evaluate whether it meets the standards it requires.” When Jordan said it “looks like” the F.B.I. and the Democratic Party colluded to turn a piece of opposition research—the Trump-Russia dossier—into an intelligence document, Sessions responded tersely: “I would say ‘looks like’ is not enough basis to appoint a special counsel.”

Even so, Sessions’s tentative move shores up his bona fides with conservatives at a critical time. While House Republicans are already investigating the 2010 sale of Uranium One to Rosatom, Russia’s state atomic energy agency, many on the right have called on the Trump administration to do more. (Trump himself has repeatedly berated his attorney general, in public, about not aggressively pursuing his enemies.) A long-standing theory favored by Republicans suggests that Russian interests donated to the Clinton Foundation in order to win her support. The claim is particularly cherished by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, as well as one of Trump’s favorite Fox News personalities, Jeanine Pirro, who often berates Sessions for failing to probe Uranium One on her show. According to The New York Times, Pirro recently met with the president to discuss the Justice Department’s role. (Pirro also reportedly interviewed for the role of deputy attorney general during the transition.)

Fixated with conspiracies about Clinton, Trump’s interest in this particular theory has grown in tandem with the intensification of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election campaign, which the president has repeatedly, and furiously, dismissed as a “witch hunt.” In recent weeks, Trump has reportedly asked aides and advisers why Mueller is not investigating the Uranium One case. According to the Times, the response has been that Mueller’s remit is only to look into Russian interference in the election. Trump has protested that Uranium One also relates to Russia.