One frivolous Nunes lawsuit down, another one in the works

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, filed in 2019 against Fusion GPS, the firm at the heart of the controversy surrounding Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Judge Liam O'Grady of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia wrote in a two-page ruling that Nunes’s complaint was too vague to move forward with a civil case and that the Virginia court was not the appropriate setting for the suit.

[...]

Nunes had sought $9.9 million in damages from Fusion GPS, its founder Glenn Simpson and a nonprofit watchdog group, Campaign for Accountability. Nunes claimed he was a victim of "active, coordinated and ongoing corruption, fraud and obstruction of justice" by the defendants. He said the alleged campaign against him was due to his investigation on the Intelligence panel into the firm’s role in raising allegations over Trump’s ties to Russia.

Fusion GPS was the firm that produced the Steele dossier.

[...]

Nunes said in his suit that the defendants targeted him with a litany of ethics complaints and negative publicity after he challenged the dossier’s veracity.

O’Grady said in his ruling that he would allow an adjusted version of the suit to be filed within 30 days, but that Nunes would have to steer clear of violating a federal law against court filings that are frivolous or unsupported by evidence.

  The Hill

California Rep. Devin Nunes said he intends to sue the Washington Post over a report that said he informed President Trump about a classified briefing about Russian interference in the 2020 election.

  Washington Examiner

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

Ooopsie

A message from Sergii Leshchenko.

Every time U.S. President Donald Trump’s sympathizers bring up my name, “Leshchenko,” at the U.S. House impeachment hearings, I can imagine the effort it takes. The name has a Ukrainian sound in the middle that for a lack of an English equivalent is transliterated as this complicated combination, “shch.” Not an easy one to say.

So to spare American politicians the trouble of having to deal with the “shch” sound, I want to clarify my actions and respond to the accusations made during the hearing by Congressmen Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and Steven Castor, Republican counsel for the House Oversight Committee.

  Kyiv Post

I see it's not just the president of Ukraine who's a comedian.

Republican politicians bring up my name in the context of two false narratives. Both narratives aim to feed the conspiracy theory that lies at the basis of Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, which in its turn started the impeachment inquiry.

The first narrative is that I was allegedly a source of information for Fusion GPS, a company that had been preparing a dossier on Trump and his possible connections in Russia. This was claimed by Nellie Ohr in her statement to the U.S. Congress last year.

In their statements, congressmen Jordan, Nunes and counsel Castor assume and sometimes even falsely claim that I was working for the Democrats and “digging” up dirt on Trump and his staff. To stop this flow of lies, I tweeted back at congressmen Jordan, Nunes and counsel Castor.

[...]

As a member of the Ukrainian parliament, which I had been until August, I have held thousands of meetings over the past five years. But I have never met these people. Perhaps they met me and introduced themselves using different names, but I definitely wasn’t talking to them as their source in the way Jordan, Nunes and Castor were trying to show.

I also do not rule out that when Ohr mentioned me as a source of information, she was referring to my public statements or press appearances. I don’t understand what she meant, and I can’t even ask her, because I don’t have her contacts.

The second narrative is that I allegedly tried to undermine Trump’s candidacy in 2016 by targeting his then-campaign manager Paul Manafort. I allegedly did so by publishing the papers known in Ukraine as the “black ledger” of the Party of Regions, the party of former President Viktor Yanukovych, ousted by the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014. Representatives of the Republican Party say that since the documents mentioned payments to Manafort during his work for Yanukovych, it must mean I did it to hurt Trump’s campaign. Yet these statements don’t pass even the most basic fact-checking.

[...]

I published the first portion of the “black ledger” on May 31, 2016. I published 22 pages from the secret manuscript of the Party of Regions, which was sent anonymously to my official email address at the parliament’s domain. The document listed under-the-table cash payments to Ukrainian politicians, lawmakers, judges and members of the Central Election Commission. However, Manafort was not mentioned there. His name was not in the 22 pages I obtained.

[...]

I now know it was an excerpt from more than 800 pages that the black ledger contained. Believe me, had Manafort’s name been in the pages I obtained, I would have published it, because I think Manafort helped establish one of the most outrageously corrupt regimes in the world, headed by Yanukovych.

I would correct that to "two of the most outrageously corrupt regimes in the world," since he was Trump's first campaign manager, and helped him get elected even after he was dismissed for his corrupt acts in Ukraine.

I learned that Manafort was featured in the full version of the black ledger only on Aug. 14, 2016 when the New York Times reported it. The day before, I was contacted by a Times’ journalist and asked if I knew anything about Manafort in Yanukovych’s records. I said I didn’t, and it was true. If I had that information, I would have been the first to publish it.

[...]

According to [a report by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, Manafort] received cash payments of more than $12.7 million.

[...]

Thus, the conspiracy theory of congressmen Jordan, Nunes and counsel Castor is falling apart, as I was not the original source of information about Manafort’s shady payments in Ukraine. I wouldn’t mind being the first one to publish the information about Manafort, but I simply didn’t have it. I found out about it the same way that everyone else did — from a New York Times article.

[...]

I can add that I have been openly critical of Manafort since the time he worked as a political mentor to Yanukovych. And, of course, the fact of Manafort’s involvement in Trump’s presidential campaign, along with the change of the Republican Party’s attitudes toward Ukraine on the eve of the American elections in 2016, could not but cause a critical reaction from Ukrainians.

Many Ukrainian politicians and journalists have spoken out against Trump on social media. However, such criticism has always been made openly and published on personal accounts. It is a manifestation of freedom of speech, a key value of a democratic society — and one that America has been promoting for centuries.

And such criticism has nothing to do with the whole set of measures taken by Russia to undermine American democracy in 2016, which were established by the U.S. investigation. Now it appears that Russia, using some U.S. politicians as well as its agents of influence in Ukraine, is trying to shift the responsibility for interfering in the 2016 elections to my country.

Russia, which has been waging war against Ukraine for five years, is the main beneficiary of this conspiracy theory. This conspiracy undermines U.S. bipartisan support for Ukraine and undermines the foundations of American democracy.

Therefore, I call on U.S. politicians to operate exclusively with facts and reliable quotes to establish truth in the events of 2016.

Prepare to be disappointed again, Mr. Leshchenko.

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

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.

Mainstream analysis of Simpson's House testimony

I expected this morning to see blaring headlines about the newly released Simpson testimony to the House Intel Committee last November. The Guardian, RT, al Jazeera, IB Times, Daily Intelligencer all have absolutely nothing. Not even a story down the page somewhere. So, I Googled for other sources.

CNN

California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, said the transcript reveals "serious allegations that the Trump Organization may have engaged in money laundering with Russian nationals."

Simpson "testified that if the Trump Organization did engage in money laundering with the Russians, it would be with the knowledge or approval of the Kremlin and constitute powerful leverage over the President of the United States," Schiff said. "Thus far, Committee Republicans have refused to look into this key area and we hope the release of this transcript will reinforce the importance of these critical questions to our investigation."

  CNN

It's like they've rolled right over the obvious criminal connections with the Russian mob to get to the Kremlin's possible interference in the election. To be fair, I guess possible criminal business activity is not in the purview of their investigation.

Rep. Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat on the committee, also said that Simpson "did not provide evidence," and suggested that the question of criminality was better suited for special counsel Robert Mueller than the intelligence panel.

Should somebody maybe suggest a Congressional investigation? Maybe back in November? Maybe somebody did and got nowhere?

At one point, Schiff seemed to ask Simpson for a blueprint for how to investigate Trump's potential financial improprieties -- a facet of the investigation Democrats have criticized Republicans in the House for not pursuing.

[...]

Simpson advised Schiff to subpoena the people involved in the business deals, the banks that handled their accounts, and the shell companies that are traditionally used to hide financial trails.

[...]

Democrats, including Schiff, pressed Simpson to detail Trump's alleged links to organized crime. In the interview, Simpson went over the connections his firm and Steele found between Russians and numerous figures in Trump's orbit, including Felix Sater, Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen. All have denied colluding with Russians during the election.

[...]

Simpson said before Fusion had hired Steele, the firm started looking into Trump's ties to Russia when it was investigating Trump's real estate deals and suspicions of money laundering through Russian officials.

In addition to the Trump Organization real estate, Simpson said that Fusion GPS had also investigated Kushner's real estate deal in Jersey City, New Jersey.

If I'm not mistaken (and I could be), this happened when Fusion was still being paid by Republicans to investigate Trump, before the Democrats hired the company. If that's true, the Republicans should be investigated as to why they dropped the investigation and rallied behind someone they had reason to believe was criminally involved with the Russian mob.

The criminal activities with the Russian mob, which I am personally convinced have been a part of the Trump organization for years concerns me much more than any Russian interference in our elections. Maybe it shouldn't. Maybe the interference is the scandal of scandals and most detrimental to our country. But I feel that our own politicians have gerry-rigged and interefered with our elections to a criminal degree for so long now that it seems almost silly to act like some other country might ruin our democracy. We've ruined it ourselves over many years with voter machine rigging, district gerrymandering, voter suppression, super delegates and corporate funding.

NBC

It was the second release of Congressional testimony by Simpson, and it contained no Earth-shattering revelations, but Simpson went into much greater detail with the House committee than he did with the Senate judiciary committee about his research into Trump’s alleged business dealings with Russians and organized crime figures, in passages that at times read like a work of pulp fiction.

  NBC

So, that's not "Earth-shattering"? Is foreign-mob related criminal activity by a US president just old hat? Meh.

“As we pieced together the early years of his biography, it seemed as if during the early part of his career he had connections to a lot of Italian mafia figures, and then gradually during the 90s became associated with Russian mafia figures,” Simpson said at one point, under oath, about the 45th president of the United States.

Pretty Earth-shattering. Or, it should be.

Simpson also delves into some of his own research on Trump’s business dealings, allegations familiar to reporters but not the general public. For example, Simpson testified that he believes Trump’s golf courses in Scotland and Ireland may have been financed with illicit Russian money, something media organizations investigated — but reached no conclusion about — during the campaign.

President Trump's son Eric told golf reporter James Dodson in 2014 that the family's company got much of its funding to build its golf courses from Russia, according to an interview Dodson gave last year to Boston public radio station WBUR. But Eric Trump then went on Twitter and denied saying that.

Simpson said he poured over the financial statements of the golf courses.

Time out. He didn't "pour over" anything. Bugs the heck out of me when I all too often read that somebody "poured over" something. No. You "pore over" documents. You "pour" gravy and sauce over something. Not over documents.  Not on purpose.

Another thing that grates on me every time I see it is the use of "lead" as the past tense of "lead". No, no, no. "Led" is the past tense of "lead".

Okay, that rant is over. Back to the "Earth-shattering" news that doesn't seem to be making much of a splash.

[Simpson's] team also observed patterns in real estate dealings involving Trump properties — purchases by unknown entities that were quickly re-sold for a loss — that "were suggestive of money laundering."

He singled out projects in Panama and Toronto where Russian mafia figures were listed as buyers, which he said "smacks of fraud."

[...]

“That's exactly my point, is that if we knew that Donald Trump was working with the Russian mafia to fund Doonbeg in Ireland, then there's no way he would be President,” [Representative] Rooney said, according to the transcript.

Oh, bullshit. Republicans wouldn't have cared.  There's no way they would vote for Hillary - or any Democrat - andour voting system, with the electoral college is so rigged that, even with 3 million or so more votes, the Democrat lost.

Simpson said at first it seemed to him that Trump's own lawyers would step in to prevent Trump from pursuing real estate deals in Russia, on the basis that transactions could trigger the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Michael Cohen? That lawyer? He's as dirty as Trump.

"What I later came to believe was that he was, in fact, developing different kinds of business relationships with the Russians," he told the committee. "He'd found other ways to profit from his relationship with that."

NBC doesn't clarify which lawyer they're talking about.

Simpson said he was shocked and angry when FBI Director James Comey said publicly he was reopening the Clinton email investigation in October 2016, just weeks before the presidential election.

“I was sitting on this piece of knowledge, which was that, in fact, the FBI was investigating the Trump organization for possibly having illegal dealings with the Government of Russia,” Simpson said. “We decided that if James Corney wasn't going to tell people about this investigation that, you know, he had violated the rules, and we would only be fair if the world knew that both candidates were under FBI investigation.“

It's my understanding that Comey's hand was pushed by the New York FBI branch with Rudy Giuliani's involvement threatening to release some incriminating, but discredited, information about Clinton. Maybe that doesn't absolve him. I thought it explained it anyway.

Simpson also asserted that the Russian government had “infiltrated “ the National Rifle Association, which spent more than $400 million in the 2016 election, according to public records. The NRA supports mainly Republicans.

[...]

"[A]nd there is more than one explanation for why,” he said in the testimony. “But I would say broadly speaking, it appears that the Russian operation was designed to infiltrate conservative organizations. And they targeted various conservative organizations, religious and otherwise, and they seem to have made a very concerted effort to get in with the NRA."

And, that's the other big story floating around, making it sound like we're practically a Russian subsidiary. This time around the "Red scare" isn't that you could wake up Russian, but that you already are.

FOX

The co-founder of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS told the House Intelligence Committee this past November that "people were arrested or died mysteriously" after the existence of the now-infamous "Trump-Russia dossier" was made public.

However, Glenn Simpson did not say whether those affected actually contributed information to the unverified dossier.

[...]

Simpson told the committee that he and Steele began shopping the dossier to media outlets in late October of 2016, after then-FBI Director James Comey announced that the Bureau was re-opening the investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's private email server. He said he was "angry" that Comey, in Simpson's view, had "violated the sort of one of the more sacrosanct policies, which is not announcing law enforcement activity in the closing days of an election."

[...]

In his testimony, Simpson described how Fusion GPS was retained by Perkins Coie, a law firm representing the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, in the summer of 2016. He said the committee was paid a "flat fee" of $50,000 per month, plus expenses to research Trump on the Democrats' behalf.

[...]

Simpson also detailed facts Fusion GPS claimed to have uncovered about the president while the firm was contracted by the conservative Washington Free Beacon to do research on then-candidate Trump and other GOP contenders for the White House.

"Various [Russian] criminals were buying [Trump] properties," said Simpson.

  Fox

So, Fox News is halfway through a somewhat lengthy article before it makes any mention of the mob ties. No Trump voter has read that far.

Even at that mention, the article identifies only one such criminal, makes a couple of comments about him being seen with Trump, and moves on to the Steele dossier. After a few paragraphs on that, it  then mentions Adam Schiff's claims of possible money laundering.

The committee's top Democrat, California Rep. Adam Schiff, said in a statement that Simpson had made "serious allegations that the Trump Organization may have engaged in money laundering with Russian nationals ..."

"Mr. Simpson ... testified that if the Trump Organization did engage in money laundering with the Russians, it would be with the knowledge or approval of the Kremlin and constitute powerful leverage over the President of the United States," Schiff added.

That's it.  The article then closes with three short paragraphs of Simpson speculating on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

I'm still waiting for The Most Notable Loser to watch a Fox & Friends segment and find out his mob ties are in the news. If, indeed, they even tell him.

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

Adam Schiff's statement on release of Simpson's testimony

“Today, the House Intelligence Committee voted on a bipartisan basis to release the transcripts of Glenn Simpson. Those transcripts reveal serious allegations that the Trump Organization may have engaged in money laundering with Russian nationals, the same subject which Mr. Bannon described in his interview with the author of Fire and Fury.

“Mr. Simpson, who, prior to his time at Fusion GPS, was an investigative journalist for the Wall Street Journal with a focus on Russia, the Russian government and mafia, and illicit financial transactions, testified that if the Trump Organization did engage in money laundering with the Russians, it would be with the knowledge or approval of the Kremlin and constitute powerful leverage over the President of the United States.

“Thus far, Committee Republicans have refused to look into this key area and we hope the release of this transcript will reinforce the importance of these critical questions to our investigation.”

  Democrats Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

This testimony was taken November 14, 2017. 

A bit of a surprise: House Intel released their Simpson transcript

Rather than home in on the nature of Simpson's relationship with Christopher Steele — the former British intelligence officer hired by Fusion to research Trump's Russia ties — Schiff and his Democratic colleagues asked Simpson pointed questions about Russian money laundering, Russian organized crime, and whether Trump could be susceptible to Russian blackmail.

The result was a long trail of breacrumbs for investigators probing Trump's relationship with Russia.

  Business Insider

This could add some time to the Mueller probe. On the other hand, I wonder if Mueller doesn't already know even more about those things.

"You mentioned that you'd done a lot of work as a journalist in terms of Russian organized crime, financial crimes, organized crime more generally," Schiff said. "What can you tell us about how the Russians launder their money and whether that was an issue of concern during the first phase of your work for Free Beacon?"

Yes, do tell. Free Beacon first hired Fusion GPS for opposition research on Trump in 2015.

"I guess the general thing I would say is that, you know, the Russians are far more sophisticated in their criminal organized crime activities than the Italians, and they're a lot more global," Simpson replied. "They understand finance a lot better. And so they tend to use quite elaborate methods to move money...I mean, if you can think of a way to launder money, the Russians are pretty good at it."

Simpson explained that "real estate deals" were a common Russian method of hiding and moving money. Asked whether Fusion had found "evidence" of corruption and illicit finance related to the purchase of Trump properties, Simpson replied that his firm had seen "patterns of buying and selling that we thought were suggestive of money laundering."

[...]

Simpson said Trump's golf courses in Scotland and Ireland were also "concerning" because financial statements obtained by Fusion showed "enormous amounts of capital flowing into these projects from unknown sources."

[...]

"And these golf course are just, you know, they're sinks. They don't actually make any money."

GOP Rep. Tom Rooney said "the story about [Trump] financing Doonbeg in Ireland through money that we can't really trace but has sort of the fingerprints of Russian mobsters" was "fascinating."

[...]

Simpson also suggested that the committee examine the travel histories of Trump's children, Don Jr. and Ivanka, " and whether they had other meetings with Russians."

"And specifically, the connections between the Abramovichs and Ivanka and Jared is something that requires looking into, if it hasn’t been," Simpson said, referring to Roman Abramovich and Jared Kushner.

Orange suits all 'round!

I'll just let you take it from here with this article, where names drop right and left. Get comfortable.

And buckle your seatbelt for a Trump twitter storm tomorrow morning.

I wonder how they convinced Nunes to let this out.  Maybe it was just too hot, and keeping it under wraps might have implicated Nunes in a cover up.

The transcript is also published at the end of this article.

...To be continued, no doubt.

Tumpettes will be clamoring

A report came out a couple of days ago in the Washington Times saying Fusion is walking back Glenn Simpson's assertion that there was someone in the Trump camp who reported to the FBI. They're saying Simpson "mischaracterized" the so-called mole in the Trump campaign, claiming the other person is actually the Australian diplomat Papadopoulos spilled the beans to.

That could be true, and it could be a cover for the actual mole. Simpson's testimony was given before the Australian angle was public knowledge, and it wasn't in the Steele dossier, so it's not even certain that Simpson knew about the Australian when he gave his testimony.

We'll find out when Mueller is done. In the meantime, we'll have to hear Trumpettes screaming that this proves people are lying about Trump's connection to Russians. In fact, The Most Notable Loser himself tweeted it out this morning. Or, retweeted.

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

What the fuck is he talking about?

Still saying it's "possibly illegal".  No, it's not.  And he's got some nerve whining about somebody else being disrespectful to anyone.  But, what's this about a cold?

"The one regret I have is that I should have spoke with Senator Grassley before. And I don't make an excuse but I've had a bad cold and maybe that slowed down my mental facilities a little bit,” she said, according to a tweet from a fellow NBC producer.

She did not necessarily voice regret for releasing the transcript itself, however. The 312-page transcript detailed Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson’s August interview with committee investigators.

  Fox News

Slight difference from what The Most Notable Loser suggests.

Does she need favors from Grassley?  (And, yes, Dianne, that IS an excuse you just made.)

But surely she didn't say mental "facilities"?

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

Another summary of the Simpson testimony transcript

Elizabeth McLaughlin here.  "Jesus. If he isn't impeached after this, America is toast."

[Ed: America is toast.]

Excerpt:

I'm gonna need a little more explanation

On Monday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein released a 312-page transcript of Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson's August interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that transcript, Simpson attorney Josh Levy tells the committee that his client "wants to be very careful to protect his sources."

"Somebody's already been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier and no harm should come to anybody related to this honest work," Levy explains.

[...]

[I]t has been speculated that Oleg Erovinkin, a former KGB general and chief of staff to Igor Sechin, was one of the primary sources for the document.

Sechin, the CEO of state-owned Russian oil giant Rosneft, plays a major role in the dossier, which accuses him of having secret meetings with Trump campaign officials as an intermediary of the Russian government. Erovinkin was found dead in his car in December 2016, according to Russian media. It was later claimed that he died of a heart attack.

  CBS

So, is that the guy we're talking about? If so, why does Levy/Simpson believe it strongly enough to say it as fact?

And, of course, the Pee Tapes can't be far away

I haven't read the Simpson transcript myself, so I'm not absolutely certain that Abramson's statement "that includes the salacious stuff" was actually said by Simpson, or whether Abramson is adding that himself.  I would hope it's the former.  At any rate, here's a link he provides to Trump 'compromising' claims from the BBC.

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

As expected: Grassley is furious with Feinstein

In a statement, [Senator Grassley's] spokesman, Taylor Foy, said that Feinstein's decision to release the transcript without first consulting Grassley compromises the Judiciary Committee's ability to conduct its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

"Her action undermines the integrity of the committee’s oversight work and jeopardizes its ability to secure candid voluntary testimony relating to the independent recollections of future witnesses," Foy said.

  The Hill

Although I'm not yet finding this Mother Jones report, I'll stick this in here as is:

Why didn't the Republicans want the Fusion GPS transcript released?

See if you can spot a reason.

Transcript excerpt:

Transcript

Seth Abramson reading.

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

Oh, shit. DiFi has gone rogue

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Tuesday released the full transcript from Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

"The innuendo and misinformation circulating about the transcript are part of a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice," Feinstein said in a statement. "The only way to set the record straight is to make the transcript public."

  CNBC

Since Fusion GPS had been asking to have its testimony (given in an unclassified Sentate Judiciary hearing) released and the GOP wouldn't do it, this may be the first time I've ever liked something DiFi has done. Grassley is probably having a cow at this very moment. There'll be some serious trash-talk coming out about her now.

The interview, with Glenn R. Simpson of Fusion GPS, took place last summer and was expected to shed light on the origins of the firm’s work, its concerns about the Trump campaign’s activities, and what the F.B.I. may have done with the information.

Mr. Simpson and Peter Fritsch, the firm’s co-founders, had called for the transcript’s release last week in an op-ed in The New York Times in which they accused Republicans of concealing their testimony in an effort to smear the dossier and distract from questions about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

[...]

Mr. Grassley last week rejected the firm’s request to release the transcript, citing concerns that its release could taint the committee’s ongoing investigations related to Russia’s election meddling and the F.B.I.’s response. He invited Mr. Simpson to instead testify publicly.

[...]

Mr. Grassley, along with another Republican on the panel, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, issued a criminal referral last week for the dossier principal author a former British spy named Christopher Steele. The senators said they had reason to believe Mr. Steele had lied to federal authorities about his contacts with the media.

  NYT

Another show and attempt to throw light off Trump and any GOP clowns who are caught up in the deal.

Released transcript here.

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

This is your Republican Party

More than a year after Republican leaders promised to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election, two influential Republicans on Friday made the first known congressional criminal referral in connection with the meddling — against one of the people who sought to expose it.

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior committee member, told the Justice Department they had reason to believe that a former British spy, Christopher Steele, lied to federal authorities about his contacts with reporters regarding information in the dossier, and they urged the department to investigate.

  NYT

I would suggest an investigation of Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham. What are they hiding by directing the focus on other people?

The decision by Mr. Grassley and Mr. Graham to single out the former intelligence officer behind the dossier — and not anyone who may have taken part in the Russian interference — was certain to infuriate Democrats and raise the stakes in the growing partisan battle over the investigations into Mr. Trump, his campaign team and Russia.

More than a year ago, Republican leaders in Congress agreed that committees in the House and Senate would investigate Russia’s efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

And I guess they never expected it to start encompassing a chunk of the Republican Party.

Republicans have deflected attention from the central issue and sought to cast doubt on Mr. Steele’s dossier and the political research firm that helped produce it, Fusion GPS, whose work was partly funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

[...]

The firm was first hired by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, in May 2016, and its work was later funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

[...]

[T]he dossier has emerged as Exhibit A in Republicans’ insistence that Obama-era political bias could have affected the F.B.I.’s decision to open a counterintelligence investigation in July 2016 into whether Mr. Trump’s associates aided the Russia election interference.

Republicans, including the two senators, have argued that the dossier is tantamount to political opposition research, and claimed that it might have been used by the F.B.I. to open its investigation.

A claim that has been soundly debunked by Fusion GPS' testimony, which the GOP won't release, forcing Fusion to make a public statement about its testimony.

Anyone can make a criminal referral to the Justice Department, which is not obligated to take up the matter. But a recommendation from a senior senator who runs the committee that has oversight of the department comes with added weight.

[...]

“Publicizing a criminal referral based on classified information raises serious questions about whether this letter is nothing more than another attempt to discredit government sources, in the midst of an ongoing criminal investigation,” said Joshua A. Levy, the lawyer for Fusion. “We should all be skeptical in the extreme.”

Indeed, this is yet another attempt by the GOP to muddy the waters and deflect attention from Mueller's investigation. The party has no credibility left.

The senator is not the only prominent Republican lawmaker pressing the Justice Department and Fusion GPS for answers on the dossier. Representative Devin Nunes of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has been locked in a standoff with the department over access to documents and witnesses he views as crucial to unraveling what the F.B.I. did with the dossier. And he has aggressively pursued Fusion GPS, subpoenaing the company’s bank records and sending two committee staff members to London last summer to try to meet with Mr. Steele unannounced.

Nunes and Grassley are two of the most rabid Republicans intent on shutting down the Mueller investigation. You have to wonder what they've done that they're afraid will come out. I don't know what Lindsey Graham's problem is. Until recently, he was a critic of Trump. Then suddenly, he became a best friend and golfing buddy.

Orange jumpsuits all 'round, please.

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

UPDATE:

This is Natasha Bertrand, Business Insider reporter:

It's necessary because they need to come up with everything they can to distract from what's happening with the Mueller investigation into Trumpland.

UPDATE 1/6/18:

Fusion GPS would like to clear the air on the Steeele Dossier

Republicans won't release the GPS testimony transcripts, and instead, keep using GPS to tarnish the Clinton campaign and to support their own false claims about the Russia investigation. GPS is tired of it.

In the year since the publication of the so-called Steele dossier — the collection of intelligence reports we commissioned about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia — the president has repeatedly attacked us on Twitter. His allies in Congress have dug through our bank records and sought to tarnish our firm to punish us for highlighting his links to Russia. Conservative news outlets and even our former employer, The Wall Street Journal, have spun a succession of mendacious conspiracy theories about our motives and backers.

We are happy to correct the record.

[...]

Three congressional committees have heard over 21 hours of testimony from our firm, Fusion GPS. In those sessions, we toppled the far right’s conspiracy theories and explained how The Washington Free Beacon and the Clinton campaign — the Republican and Democratic funders of our Trump research — separately came to hire us in the first place.

We walked investigators through our yearlong effort to decipher Mr. Trump’s complex business past, of which the Steele dossier is but one chapter. And we handed over our relevant bank records — while drawing the line at a fishing expedition for the records of companies we work for that have nothing to do with the Trump case.

Republicans have refused to release full transcripts of our firm’s testimony, even as they selectively leak details to media outlets on the far right. It’s time to share what our company told investigators.

[...]

As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp.

  NYT

Who are we talking about here? Papadopoulos? Someone else?

The intelligence committees have known for months that credible allegations of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia were pouring in from independent sources during the campaign. Yet lawmakers in the thrall of the president continue to wage a cynical campaign to portray us as the unwitting victims of Kremlin disinformation.

This is a favorite from the Karl Rove playbook. Accuse the other party of doing what you're doing (or what you are, or how you've been duped) before they can accuse you of it. We see it time and time and time again.

We suggested investigators look into the bank records of Deutsche Bank and others that were funding Mr. Trump’s businesses. Congress appears uninterested in that tip: Reportedly, ours are the only bank records the House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed.

We told Congress that from Manhattan to Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., and from Toronto to Panama, we found widespread evidence that Mr. Trump and his organization had worked with a wide array of dubious Russians in arrangements that often raised questions about money laundering. Likewise, those deals don’t seem to interest Congress.

Those Congressional investigations are utterly worthless. Not to worry, though. Mueller's team has subpoenaed all those pertinent records.

Finally, we debunked the biggest canard being pushed by the president’s men — the notion that we somehow knew of the June 9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower between some Russians and the Trump brain trust. We first learned of that meeting from news reports last year — and the committees know it. They also know that these Russians were unaware of the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele’s work for us and were not sources for his reports.

Yes, we hired Mr. Steele, a highly respected Russia expert. But we did so without informing him whom we were working for and gave him no specific marching orders beyond this basic question: Why did Mr. Trump repeatedly seek to do deals in a notoriously corrupt police state that most serious investors shun?

[...]

What came back shocked us. Mr. Steele’s sources in Russia (who were not paid) reported on an extensive — and now confirmed — effort by the Kremlin to help elect Mr. Trump president. Mr. Steele saw this as a crime in progress and decided he needed to report it to the F.B.I.

We did not discuss that decision with our clients, or anyone else. Instead, we deferred to Mr. Steele.

[...]

After the election, Mr. Steele decided to share his intelligence with Senator John McCain via an emissary. We helped him do that. The goal was to alert the United States national security community to an attack on our country by a hostile foreign power. We did not, however, share the dossier with BuzzFeed, which to our dismay published it last January.

[...]

Congress should release transcripts of our firm’s testimony, so that the American people can learn the truth about our work and most important, what happened to our democracy.

I wonder why Mr. Steele waited until after the election and then informed McCain (and why he chose McCain).  Steele is not an American citizen and had no obligation to alert the FBI, but I'm wondering why he decided to hold the information back until after the election.  Did he think it wouldn't matter if Trump lost the election and figured he would?  Or was there another reason?  And who gave the document to Buzzfeed, and why in January?  McCain - because that's when he got it?  Just curious.

Hmmmmm....

That's pretty bold. Refusing to attend a Judiciary Committee meeting. I assume they could subpoena and perhaps jail him. Out of the country where? And for how long?

Fusion GPS is the company that was hired to compile the dossier on Trump.

Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS is on vacation through July 31 and will be travelling abroad through Aug. 3, his attorneys said in the letter, adding that they were "profoundly disturbed" that the hearing had been expanded due to "partisan agendas" to include allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

[...]

His attorneys asked that Simpson be excused from appearing, adding that allegations he had failed to register as a foreign agent were "nothing more than an effort to smear him."

  Reuters

The letter from Glenn Simpson's lawyer, obtained by POLITICO, says he is on vacation and then traveling overseas through early August — but makes clear his objections to the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing Wednesday go well beyond his vacation schedule.

[...]

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is still in negotiations with representatives of Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort about his request that they testify publicly before his panel next week, according to a spokesman — and is reiterating his threat to subpoena them if necessary.

“Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member [Dianne] Feinstein have made clear that they intend to hear from all witnesses for next Wednesday’s hearing,” said Grassley spokesman Taylor Foy in a statement Friday. “Of course the preference would be voluntary cooperation, however Chairman Grassley has been authorized to compel testimony, if necessary, from the witnesses.”

  Politico

I don't claim to understand what's going on here, but it doesn't look good for Simpson.  Just what all is the Judiciary Committee looking for?  Please, somebody just tell me.  I am too tired of this shit to do any research.  And there's no time to do it and still eat and sleep!

A little more info.

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

A Bit of Information on Fusion GPS

The story began in September 2015, when a wealthy Republican donor who strongly opposed Mr. Trump put up the money to hire a Washington research firm run by former journalists, Fusion GPS, to compile a dossier about the real estate magnate’s past scandals and weaknesses, according to a person familiar with the effort. The person described the opposition research work on condition of anonymity, citing the volatile nature of the story and the likelihood of future legal disputes. The identity of the donor is unclear.

Fusion GPS, headed by a former Wall Street Journal journalist known for his dogged reporting, Glenn Simpson, most often works for business clients. But in presidential elections, the firm is sometimes hired by candidates, party organizations or donors to do political “oppo” work — shorthand for opposition research — on the side.

[...]

After Mr. Trump emerged as the presumptive nominee in the spring, the Republican interest in financing the effort ended. But Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton were very interested, and Fusion GPS kept doing the same deep dives, but on behalf of new clients.

  NYT

Continue reading.

I have to wonder if some day we might yet see the disputed "peepee tapes."

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

Make It Stop!

The following excerpted article looks to be saying that a private firm, Fusion GPS, was hired by various people to  1) get dope on what kompromat the Kremlin might have on Trump; and 2) get dope on a man named Bill Browder in an effort to help Russia neuter the Magnitsky Act which sanctions Russians accused of human rights abuses.  Or, as another article says:   Opposition Research Firm Behind Trump Dossier Worked On Pro-Kremlin Lobbying Effort

Fusion’s work on the two projects — one favorable to the Kremlin (Magnitsky) and the other unfavorable (the dossier) — has drawn attention from Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

  Daily Caller

I can see how it might.  It can also be argued that one project is favorable to Donald Trump and one unfavorable.  Apparently they are apolitical and will work for whoever pays them.  But it's interesting that their clients - with competing interests - are using the same company.  Is Fusion GPS the only game in town?*

The Republican has questioned why the FBI reportedly used an uncorroborated document financed by a Clinton ally as part of the basis for its investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

Grassley has also asked the FBI about reports that the bureau informally agreed to pay Steele $50,000 to continue his research on Trump. That payment was reportedly never made, though it is unclear why. Both the FBI and Fusion GPS have avoided answering Grassley’s questions about the dossier.

I can see why they might.

In his letters to the FBI, Grassley has cited a complaint that [Bill] Browder [a  London-based businessman] filed with the Justice Department last July. In that document, Browder said that Fusion GPS was waging an opposition research campaign against him on behalf of a Russian businessman who was under investigation in the U.S. for money laundering [as part of an influence campaign aimed at neutering the Magnitsky Act].

[...]

Browder was the leading force behind the campaign to pass the Magnitsky Act, a move which angered Russian president Vladimir Putin.

[...]

Fusion GPS had been hired by the international law firm, BakerHostetler. The law firm was in turn was working for Denis Katsyv, the head of a Cyprus-based company called Prevezon Holdings.

Prevezon, Denis Katsyv’s company, was implicated in the money laundering scheme. Prevezon reached a $6 million settlement with the U.S. government in the case in May.

Browder tells TheDC that he will testify about Fusion GPS, Simpson, BakerHostetler lawyer Mark Cymrot, and Akhmetshin, the former Soviet agent who is now a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist and consultant.

Akhmetshin was the lobbyist of record for a group formed last year called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation (HRAGIF).

The organization’s official mission was to end the Russian adoption ban implemented by Putin. But in reality, HRAGIF used adoption as a dangle to compel U.S. lawmakers to revise the Magnitsky Act.

[...]

The anti-Magnitsky campaign took a new twist over the weekend after it was revealed that a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya met on June 9, 2016 with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

[...]

After The New York Times reported the existence of the meeting on Saturday, Trump’s legal team pointed to Veselnitskaya’s work on Magnitsky and that lobbying campaign’s links to Fusion GPS. A spokesman for Trump’s legal team suggested that the Russian lawyer could have sought to compromise the campaign.

It has since emerged that Trump Jr. was approached for the meeting by Rob Goldstone, a music publicist who works for Emin Agalarov, a Kazakh musician whose billionaire father is close to the Russian government.

Stop! Stop! Stop! I need pictures!

There's more. I'm not even going to attempt to put it together. My brain hurts.

Read it yourself.

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

*UPDATE: More on Fusion GPS