Dems roil probe with release of Fusion GPS transcript
By Katie Bo Williams and Jonathan Easley - 01/09/18 06:48 PM EST
Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in August that law enforcement officials had already been investigating President Trump’s team on Russia before the so-called “Steele dossier” was completed.
Simpson, whose opposition research firm complied the controversial dossier, pushed back in his testimony that his firm had produced a phony document, and told the panel behind closed doors that the document’s author, a former MI6 spy named Christopher Steele, told him that by September, the FBI already had “other intelligence” backing up claims in the dossier.
“It's political rhetoric to call the dossier phony. ... We can argue about what's prudent and what's not, but it's not a fabrication,” Simpson told the panel.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, unilaterally released Simpson’s more than 300 pages of testimony to the committee in a startling move on Tuesday that comes amid an escalating partisan fight over the FBI’s Russian investigation.
Some Republicans, at times echoed by Trump, have mounted a public campaign questioning the FBI’s handling of the Russian investigation. They have suggested the FBI used the dossier, described by then-FBI Director James Comey as “salacious and unverified,” as the predicate for a baseless investigation.
Simpson’s testimony calls into question that narrative, pushing back at the notion that the dossier was a partisan hit-job funded by Democrats. Its release infuriated Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who called Feinstein’s actions “confounding.”
According to Simpson, who had called on Grassley to release the transcript, Steele was so concerned by the possibility that a presidential candidate might be “blackmailed” by Russia that he reached out to the FBI of his own accord to share when he knew as “a security issue.”
Simpson in his testimony mounted a full-throated defense of the dossier work, denying that it was paid for by Russia and insisting that the firm was mostly interested in Trump's business dealings until Steele brought back “something ... very different.
He told investigators that Steele told him that the FBI had an informant in the Trump campaign. A source close to Fusion GPS told The Hill on Tuesday that Simpson misspoke, mischaracterizing a tip that an Australian diplomat gave the bureau related to Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos.
According to Simpson, Steele first met with the bureau in the first week of July of 2016. He later met an agent in Rome in the fall, a trip that the bureau reimbursed. The bureau launched its investigation into the Trump campaign in late July.
By Katie Bo Williams and Jonathan Easley - 01/09/18 06:48 PM EST
Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in August that law enforcement officials had already been investigating President Trump’s team on Russia before the so-called “Steele dossier” was completed.
Simpson, whose opposition research firm complied the controversial dossier, pushed back in his testimony that his firm had produced a phony document, and told the panel behind closed doors that the document’s author, a former MI6 spy named Christopher Steele, told him that by September, the FBI already had “other intelligence” backing up claims in the dossier.
“It's political rhetoric to call the dossier phony. ... We can argue about what's prudent and what's not, but it's not a fabrication,” Simpson told the panel.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, unilaterally released Simpson’s more than 300 pages of testimony to the committee in a startling move on Tuesday that comes amid an escalating partisan fight over the FBI’s Russian investigation.
Some Republicans, at times echoed by Trump, have mounted a public campaign questioning the FBI’s handling of the Russian investigation. They have suggested the FBI used the dossier, described by then-FBI Director James Comey as “salacious and unverified,” as the predicate for a baseless investigation.
Simpson’s testimony calls into question that narrative, pushing back at the notion that the dossier was a partisan hit-job funded by Democrats. Its release infuriated Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who called Feinstein’s actions “confounding.”
According to Simpson, who had called on Grassley to release the transcript, Steele was so concerned by the possibility that a presidential candidate might be “blackmailed” by Russia that he reached out to the FBI of his own accord to share when he knew as “a security issue.”
Simpson in his testimony mounted a full-throated defense of the dossier work, denying that it was paid for by Russia and insisting that the firm was mostly interested in Trump's business dealings until Steele brought back “something ... very different.
He told investigators that Steele told him that the FBI had an informant in the Trump campaign. A source close to Fusion GPS told The Hill on Tuesday that Simpson misspoke, mischaracterizing a tip that an Australian diplomat gave the bureau related to Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos.
According to Simpson, Steele first met with the bureau in the first week of July of 2016. He later met an agent in Rome in the fall, a trip that the bureau reimbursed. The bureau launched its investigation into the Trump campaign in late July.
