The belief that Trump was being blackmailed stemmed in part from Steele’s findings that a number of Trump properties didn’t make money and the “valuations of the properties are questionable.” You know, I agreed, it’s potentially a crime in progress.”Ģ. In any event, he said don’t worry about that, I know the perfect person, I have a contact there, they’ll listen to me, they know who I am, I’ll take care of it. I don’t remember the exact sequence of these events, but my recollection is that I questioned how we would do that because I don’t know anyone there that I could report something like this to and be believed and I didn’t really think it was necessarily appropriate for me to do that. I didn’t originally agree or disagree, I just put it off and said I needed to think about it. So he proposed to – he said we should tell the FBI, it’s a national security issue. From my perspective there was a law enforcement issue about whether there was an illegal conspiracy to violate the campaign laws, and then somewhere in this time the whole issue of hacking has also surfaced. He thought from his perspective there was an issue – a security issue about whether a presidential candidate was being blackmailed. SIMPSON: “After the first memo, you know, Chris said he was very concerned about whether this represented a national security threat and said he wanted to – he said he thought we were obligated to tell someone in government, in our government, about this information. Christopher Steele insisted on contacting the FBI because he believed Donald Trump was being blackmailed. Here are five of the key exchanges from Simpson’s ten hours of testimony:ġ. It was later reported that the FBI was investigating its claims, largely because many of its findings matched the agency’s own independent investigation, begun in July 2016.įeinstein published the entire transcript on her Senate website yesterday. Its existence was first made public by CNN – along with the news that both President Obama and Trump himself had been briefed on its findings. The gist seemed to be there was reason to believe members of the Trump campaign were not only aware of the Russian government’s attempts to influence the presidential election – they were happy to accept the help. “The dossier,” as it came to be known, was compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer hired by Fusion GPS to research Trump, and its contents had circulated for months among certain journalists, members of Congress, and employees of the FBI. To back up: A year ago, BuzzFeed published an incendiary document compiled by a private firm, Fusion GPS, containing allegations about ties between various members of the Trump campaign and Russia (including, infamously, the existence of compromising video footage of then President-elect Donald Trump in a Moscow hotel suite). Her Republican colleagues had previously refused to release the transcripts, despite calls from Simpson and his colleague, Peter Fritsch, for full transparency. 14, Schiff and Conaway told reporters.On Tuesday, California Senator Dianne Feinstein made the unilateral decision to release transcripts of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Simpson and Levy met with the committee for about three hours on Wednesday, reaching the agreement for Simpson to testify to the panel behind closed doors on Nov. Simpson’s ability to assert privileges in this investigation,” Levy said. Simpson will instead sit for a voluntary interview next week, and nothing will be said at that interview – per the agreement of Mr. House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Trump campaign contacts with Russia, had “agreed to withdraw a subpoena” served on Glenn Simpson, a founder of the firm. Bernsteinįusion GPS lawyer Joshua Levy said in a statement that Republican Representative Mike Conaway and Democrat Adam Schiff, leaders of the U.S. elections, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 1, 2017. Mike Conaway (R-TX) talk, as executives appear before the House Intelligence Committee to answer questions related to Russian use of social media to influence U.S.
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