The Hill notices money laundering claims

The Hill Twitter account makes note of the Simpson testimony regarding Russian mob connections with the Trump Organization, but it's only one tweet buried amongst many on other topics that repeat time after time (The Hill's usual Twitter habit). Anyway, here's the article it links.

In more than 150 pages of testimony released by the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of the firm behind the so-called “Steele dossier,” alleged a constellation of business deals that he said suggested the Russians could be laundering money through then-candidate Donald Trump.

Simpson stopped short of saying the firm had found definitive proof of such dealings, telling investigators that, “evidence, I think, is a strong word.”

[...]

The testimony is likely to reinforce battle lines surrounding the dossier, a compendium of opposition research memos compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele as part of the firm’s research into the real estate mogul.

[...]

The testimony provided a handful of new details about the production of the dossier.

Simpson told investigators that, to his knowledge, Steele did not pay any of his sources for the memos.

  The Hill

What is it about "the dossier" that makes it the focal point of so many articles? Why can they not move on?

Some of the allegations in the [Steele] memos have been disproven, and Republicans have largely argued that the document is a politically motivated hit job on the president.

Which allegations would that be? The Hill doesn't tell us.

Other elements of the dossier have been confirmed and supporters of the document say it broadly describes an observable pattern of concerning contacts between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Which elements? Go figger.

The release of the transcript comes as the political fight over the dossier continues to roil Capitol Hill. Some Republicans have suggested that the bureau inappropriately used the dossier — once described by former FBI Director James Comey as “salacious and unverified” — as the sole basis for the federal investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to Russia.

Earlier this month, Grassley and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into Steele, with Graham accusing the former spy of “shopping this dossier all over the world” while acting as an informant for the FBI.

The problem with that is the dossier was not used as the reason to open an FBI investigation (and so what if it was). It was merely one source of leads. How is that different than any other document the FBI has used in any investigation? The Steele dossier has become a straw man for Trump backers, which includes pretty much the entire Republican party.  If somebody decided to release that damned pee tape, all their talking points would be shot to shit.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.