On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that the Russian Dossier on Donald Trump was paid for by an unknown GOP donor, then the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
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.
Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the company in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by an unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.
The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS’s research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day. [..]
Fusion GPS’s work researching Trump began during the Republican presidential primaries, when the GOP donor paid for the firm to investigate the real estate magnate’s background.
Fusion GPS did not start off looking at Trump’s Russia ties but quickly realized that those relationships were extensive, according to the people familiar with the matter.
When the Republican donor stopped paying for the research, Elias, acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC, agreed to pay for the work to continue. The Democrats paid for research, including by Fusion GPS, because of concerns that little was known about Trump and his business interests, according to the people familiar with the matter.
Those people said that it is standard practice for political campaigns to use law firms to hire outside researchers to ensure their work is protected by attorney-client and work-product privileges.
Yes, we’ve known all this for a year. This doesn’t change the story. The point is how accurate is the information in the dossier, of which the public has only seen a portion, with regards to Trump’s Russian connections. From Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: The country owes the Democrats a debt of gratitude for keeping Steele’s research going. The FBI had apparently missed a lot of what he found. This put a large crimp in Trump’s “plan was to hit the ground running in January with a series of policy pay offs to Russia.”
Last night, the New York Times posted an article by Ken Vogel, formerly of Politico, complaining that Elias had not been forth coming when he was asked about his involvement with the dossier. At the time, Elias was most likely not at liberty to say since, as was pointed out in the Washington Post article, he was bound by attorney/client privilege.
All of this is irrelevant. The point is whether the Russian dossier on Trump is factual, as conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle this morning.
“The issue here isn’t who paid for opposition research. The question is: Is it true?” [..]
“They fear that at least parts of this dossier contain truth,” Stephens later added.
“Christopher Steele was a well-regarded British spy, they idea that it’s all fake is classic Trump disassembly,”
“Who paid for this is ultimately irrelevant,” the Times columnist opined.
The FBI has already confirmed parts of the dossier as accurate. Complaining about who paid for it in a court of law won’t go very far.
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