Glenn Simpson testimony:
4/ Simpson did research for the conservative Free Beacon from September/October 2015 to April/May 2016—so, somewhere between 7 and 9 months of opposition research for conservatives. He'd done research for the Democrats for about 30 days—that's it—before Steele went to the FBI.
11/ This is key: Fusion's major leads were developed when it was being paid by conservatives; Perkins Cole provided money for them to follow those leads further than they already had. That includes Steele's work—which was built off Felix Sater leads paid for by Free Beacon money.
13/ Simpson confirms that, after working for GOP figures for 7 to 9 months, he only engaged Steele for 30 days with the money from Perkins Coie (DNC). Easily missed fact.
17/ Interesting, and newsworthy: Simpson says he doesn't think the Free Beacon was a front for any GOP candidate. For many months, it was said Fusion was working for a specific GOP opponent of Trump's during the primaries.
Seth Abramson?Verified account @SethAbramson
18/ Again, it was conservative (Free Beacon) money that *launched* a thorough investigation into Trump-Russia ties—the DNC's law firm was half a year away from getting involved in any way (and once they did, it was merely via money, not logistical support or investigative leads).
19/ While Fusion was being paid by the Free Beacon, Trump brought Paul Manafort on board his campaign—and Simpson had already done a lot of research on Manafort and his ties to Russia, so alarm bells went off for Fusion. In March 2016. While they were being paid by conservatives.
20/ Simpson confirms that Fusion found "patterns suggestive of money laundering" while they were working for *conservatives* (the Washington Free Beacon).
21/ Holy cow! Simpson: "We had a [Russian] gangster [nick-]named Taiwanchik living in Trump Tower running a high-stakes gambling ring out of Trump Tower—while he himself was a fugitive for having rigged the skating competition at the Salt Lake Olympics and other sporting events."
[ I've posted about the Russian mob gambling ring busted at Trump Tower on my Trumpety thread. Trumpety is "mobbed up." ]
22/ Holy cow (again)! Simpson: "And when Mr. Trump went to the Miss Universe pageant [in Moscow] in 2013, 'Taiwanchik' was there in the VIP section with Mr. Trump and other Kremlin biggies. That raised questions with us."
23/ Here's a brief explanation, from Simpson, of why Trump doing business with *Russian mafia*, as opposed to other nation's mafias, suggested the possibility, to Fusion, that Trump could have illicit ties to the Russian government (note: Fusion was being paid by conservatives):
[ It's a mob run country right now. ]
24/ More from Simpson, here, on what Fusion had concluded—while they were being paid by conservatives—prompting them to eventually contract with Chris Steele and Orbis:
25/ While working for conservatives, Fusion was investigating Trump properties in Toronto and Panama, Trump golf courses in Ireland and Scotland, the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, Trump-branded vodka—all Trump initiatives involving suspicious (possibly Russian) partners.
26/ If Trump and his closest associates—like Michael Cohen and Sergei Millian—hadn't kept lying about their business, backgrounds, and associations over and over and over again, Fusion (while being paid by conservatives) wouldn't have been so certain Trump had shady Russian ties.
27/ Simpson goes into detail on Michael Cohen's ties to the former Soviet Union and to Russian mafia. These men—Trump included—are so up to their eyeballs in dirty Russians and their money, and it's so well-documented, it's crazy Trump ever said he had nothing to do with Russia.
28/ Simpson: "It gradually reached a point where it seemed like most of the people around Trump had a connection to Russian organized crime or Russia in one way or another." So does Trump "have anything to do w/ Russia"? Yes—more than any pol in US history. More than Rohrabacher.
30/ Simpson makes a great point that media should regularly make: by the mid-2000s Trump was a self-professed billionaire who wasn't creditworthy—he couldn't get a bank loan. So where was all the cash coming from? Don Jr. says Russia; Eric Trump says Russia. Why not believe them?
31/ This is a crazy statement by a Republican—Rooney. It's crazy because in fact Trump's frauds and shady associations and adulteries and public lies and racism were ALL KNOWN prior to the election and not ONE of these House Republicans came out and said this man can't be POTUS.
33/ Simpson is having no difficulty giving Rep. Rooney examples of things in the Steele Dossier that were later proven correct *and* could not have been known by Steele's sources beforehand unless they were (as Steele and Fusion have claimed from the start) extremely well-placed.
34/ It's too complex to tweet out, but Simpson gives Congress a very good investigative road map—including names and organizations—for doing what the House Intel Committee is partially charged with doing, which is finding out if Trump had illicit Russian ties during the campaign.
38/ Critical point: Simpson says the Steele Dossier is a *post-disinformation-sifting* document. Meaning, what we call the "Steele Dossier" is *exclusively* information that Christopher Steele believed, to a high degree of professional (MI6) confidence, *wasn't* disinformation.
39/ Check this out (h/t DM): The Russian mobster Simpson mentioned to the HIC, who lives in Trump Tower, lives one floor below Trump—in other words, on the same floor as Felix Sater. (And—if I'm not mistaken—one floor *above* where Don Jr. brought the Kremlin agents in June '16).
40/ (To be clear, I'm referring to Felix Sater's *business offices* for Bayrock. I don't actually know if Sater also lived on that floor of Trump Tower.)
43/ The idea that Michael Cohen—the only person who Trump had attorney-client privilege with who was with him throughout the presidential campaign—was the person holding all Trump-Russia information during the campaign is, along with the rest of what we know, *extremely* telling.
44/ Simpson describes one of Trump's alleged real estate scams: via Sergei Millian, get Russian oligarchs to say they're going to buy units in a new Trump property because once a certain number are "pre-sold," Trump can get a loan. But then the units are sometimes *not* bought.
45/ Whoa! Simpson alleges that Nigel Farage, the Brexit mastermind, slipped a thumb drive to Julian Assange (WikiLeaks) during a secret trip to the Ecuadorian embassy. Farage has many ties to Trumpworld. This is some wild stuff—far wilder than anything on this feed. Fascinating.
48/ This is surprising: Glenn Simpson concedes that his second round of discussing the Dossier with the press—late October—was an angry reaction to him and Steele feeling that the FBI had buried the Trump investigation and then re-opened the Clinton case in violation of DOJ regs.
49/ One part of me thinks the GOP might jump on that, but then another thinks, "Actually, no—because what Simpson and Steele are implying is that there was a massive FBI conspiracy to aid Trump and harm Clinton, which we know there was, at least in the New York FBI field office."
50/ What's amazing is this: Simpson goes to the media in late October to even the scales—let the media know both candidates are under investigation—then the FBI tells NYT there's nothing on Trump. At that point, it's clear Simpson/Steele believed there was a fullblown conspiracy.
51/ And there it is—the Mayflower Hotel. The Mayflower Speech. Who wrote it, who edited it, who established the "VIP list" for who would hear it. The Center for the National Interest *hosted the event* and says *it* invited Kislyak, Russian pipeline advocate McFarlane, and so on.
59/ I had no idea Dmitry Rybolovlev, who basically gifted Trump $54 million in a 2008 real estate deal, was a close associate of Igor Sechin—who is former KGB, Putin's right-hand man, and the head of Rosneft (Russia's oil company). That makes it look like a straight Putin payoff.
60/ What strikes one most, after a year of writing about Trump, is that almost *everyone* he deals with is a current or former criminal. It's actually staggering: the President of the United States has made a *conscious decision* to consort for *decades* with *known criminals*.
61/ Don't take my word for it: read the HPSCI Simpson transcript. The number of known criminals Trump did and does business with is absolutely staggering, and the same goes for Jared, the same goes for Ivanka, the same goes for Don Jr. The Trump family is the mafia's best friend.
63/ The second thing that strikes one—after writing on Trump for a year—is how important it was that Trump hide his taxes. He was *never* going to release them. Criminal investigators would have a f*cking field day with the madcap criminal adventures revealed in those documents.
64/ It looks like the Free Beacon also had Fusion do some oppo on Ted Cruz, and that Fusion did come across potentially negative information about Clinton in the course of doing work for other clients—so by no means has Fusion never uncovered research bad for the Democrats. |
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