Clinton Campaign, DNC Funded the Trump-Russia Dossier

Oops.

BAILEY, THE LIBTARDTARIAN 🃏

Oct 25, 2017·6 min read

BAILEY T. STEEN | FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2017

Earlier this year, the hilariously named “BuzzFeed News” published some oh-so-shocking rumours on President Donald J. Trump: According to a secret 35-page dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, the president-elect once hired hookers to come to his Moscow hotel room, previously used by the Obama family, and had them urinate on the sheets they once slept in. Among other allegations of this affair being video taped, the Russian government blackmailing Trump with this, among misspelled names and dates that seemed too fake to be news (which, of course, it was).

Now, thanks to a bombshell report from The Washington Post, the wonderfully coined “fake news” dossier was actually funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee through the research firm known as Fusion GPS.

Journalists Adam Entous, Devlin Barrett and Rosalind S. Helderman write:

“The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.

After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”

The Washington Post go on to report that Elias, along with his law firm, Perkins Coie, owned part of Fusion GPS from as early as April 2016, doing so on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. This relationship, described by anonymous sources, continued until October 2016, just days before the election that saw Donald Trump win the presidency.

Their sources state the Clinton campaign and DNC did not direct Steele’s research, nor are they entirely clear how much Fusion was paid for the research, however, the Federal Election Commission detail that it may have been in the millions. Their records show that the DNC gave Perkins Coie a total of $3.6 million in donations since Nov. 2015, where as the Clinton campaign paid upwards of $5.6 million to the firm between June 2015 and Dec. 2016. All for “legal and compliance consulting”, they swear.

This is all rather curious when you consider the shady, anonymous clients behind Fusion GPS’ dossier, one of which, according to The Daily Caller, being an anonymous Republican client during the GOP primary. And, of course, all parties who are known are denying the media accusations to high heaven.

Journalist for The New York Times, Maggie Haberman, states that Elias, the Clinton campaign lawyer, lied “with sanctimony” about his funding connections for well over a year.

This is backed up by her fellow contributor, Kenneth P. Vogel‏, who reached out for Elias’ comment back in January, who was met with this: “You (or your sources) are wrong.”

Brian Fallon, a former spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said he wasn’t aware of any sort of deal being made during his time on the campaign.

“The first I learned of Christopher Steele or saw any dossier was after the election,” Fallon told The Washington Post. “But if I had gotten handed it last fall, I would have had no problem passing it along and urging reporters to look into it. Opposition research happens on every campaign, and here you had probably the most shadowy guy ever running for president, and the FBI certainly has seen fit to look into it.”

Last Saturday, executives for Fusion GPS, including the firm’s founder Glenn Simpson, pleaded the fifth amendment when they conducted a 10-hour hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee. On multiple occasions, Fusion has refused to reveal the identities of their Democratic and Republican clients to Congress and other lawsuits involving the dossier.

President Trump tweeted that he was watching the hearing and that the Justice Department and FBI should “immediately release who paid for it.”

He even went as far to say, in a now deleted tweet, that FBI themselves may have ‘paid for’ the dossier. “Workers of firm involved with the discredited and Fake Dossier take the 5th. Who paid for it, Russia, the FBI or the Dems (or all)?”

This is unsubstantiated, but has caught the attention of Republicans, such Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (Iowa), who are concerned about the FBI’s relationship with Steele. The Washington Post state that the FBI did offer to pay Christopher Steele for further information regarding the dossier and Russia, however, this is not the same thing as paying for someone to make up information.

CNN reports that it was this exact dossier that lead to the FBI’s obtaining of a FISA warrant against Trump’s adviser on national security Carter Page:

“The dossier alleges that Page met senior Russian officials as an emissary of the Trump campaign, and discussed quid-pro-quo deals relating to sanctions, business opportunities and Russia’s interference in the election. Page has denied meeting the officials named in the dossier and says he never cut any political deals with the Kremlin.

During the campaign, he traveled to Russia in July, where he gave a lecture critical of US policy toward Russia. That trip drew the attention of the FBI and raised concerns about Page’s contacts with suspected Russian operatives, according to US officials briefed on the matter. Page has said he made the trip independent of the Trump campaign and his speech reflected his own views.”

Regarding the issue of sanctions, The Nation reports that Trump has actually placed more sanctions of Russia’s economy than Obama has. Whether these are a good move or not, it’s fair to say with the continuation of the Russia sanctions for annexing Crimea, and signing additional sanctions into law, any deal has been slammed down by the president.

After the president’s tweeting storm, a DNC spokeswoman released a statement saying “Tom Perez and the new leadership of the DNC were not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organisation. But let’s be clear, there is a serious federal investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, and the American public deserves to know what happened.”

An obvious straw man distraction, trying to save face for the DNC, since their chairman Tom Perez was not even working at the DNC when this was being conducted. The whole affair was conducted under the leadership of former chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her replacement Donna Brazile. Schultz and Brazile were both exposed by Wikileaks for their efforts to tamper in the Democratic primary, such as leaking debate questions and drafting debate schedules secretly, all in favour of the Hillary Clinton campaign. If any sort of financial deal was to be done, with donor money, it would at least have gone through them.

Page and Trump have both denied charges of Russian collusion and hookers peeing on sheets, of course.