Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) slammed House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on Thursday for running "a distraction campaign" after he launched a committee investigation into the sale of a uranium company to a Russian firm when Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonJoe Biden looks to expand election battleground into Trump country Biden leads Trump by 12 points among Catholic voters: poll The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden goes on offense MORE was secretary of State.

"This is part of the distraction campaign that I regret has been one of the areas that the chairman of the committee has engaged in for sometime," Speier, who is a member of the committee, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

"Our job is to look at the Russian engagement in the election and to what extent there was engagement by the campaign committee of Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBubba Wallace to be driver of Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin NASCAR team Graham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election Southwest Airlines, unions call for six-month extension of government aid MORE," she argued.

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"It would

appear he is engaged in trying

to shift the focus of our

committee and we are going to

reject that.

That is not what we are charged

to do, and I think it's important

that we continue our work much like

the senate is doing," she continued.

Speier's remarks come days after Nunes launched the probe into the sale of Uranium One during the Obama administration. Democrats, including Speier and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), have been critical of the committees possibly becoming distracted from other investigations.

The Hill reported last week that before the Obama administration had given the sale of Uranium One a green light, the FBI had collected evidence that officials from the Russian nuclear sector were taking part in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering as a means to gain access to the U.S. energy market.

Nunes and Republicans are looking to find out whether the FBI had probed Russian efforts to infiltrate the U.S. energy market and if Clinton and the Obama administration were correct to give the deal their stamp of approval in the first place.