Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says he’s talked to people in the Senate about whether there will be an investigation into recently unearthed donations to the Clinton Foundation from people involved in a Russian uranium deal, and that people need to trust that a president “wouldn’t actually sell the country” while in the White House.

“The presidency is the commander in chief — you have to trust your commander-in-chief that they wouldn’t actually sell the country while they’re the commander-in-chief,” Mr. Paul said Monday on “Fox and Friends.” “Secretary of State is an incredibly important position. She got to be on the approval of whether or not a uranium company was sold to Russia, and she allowed it to happen while receiving money from the shareholders.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential frontrunner, has been dogged in the past week over questions resulting from a New York Times report that said the Clinton Foundation received $2.35 million from a businessman involved in a Russian uranium deal that required approval from the U.S. State Department.

Asked whether it constituted bribery, Mr. Paul said he thinks it “has the appearance of impropriety.”

“I’ve talked to people within the Senate about whether or not there will be an investigation,” he said. “I favor an investigation of this because we need to know that … if you’re going to elect someone to be president of the United States, whether they’ve been accepting gifts that might influence their [opinions],” said Mr. Paul, a 2016 presidential candidate.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign team has pushed back against the report, as well as excerpts from a new book called “Clinton Cash” by conservative author Peter Schweizer, saying the book fails to provide evidence of an explicit quid pro quo.

The campaign also said Mrs. Clinton herself was not involved in the State Department’s review of the deal and that State was only one of nine U.S. agencies involved in the U.S. government’s review of it.

On ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Mr. Schweizer acknowledged he didn’t have direct evidence that Mrs. Clinton actually intervened on behalf of donors.

“But it warrants further investigation because, again, George, this is part of the broader pattern,” Mr. Schweizer said. “You either have to come to the conclusion that these are all coincidences, or something else is afoot.”

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