Earlier this week, Speaker Paul Ryan offhandedly revealed that the FBI had agreed to hand over documents related to the infamous Trump dossier to the House Intelligence Committee, marking a victory for Chairman Devin Nunes, who had been pushing the DOJ to release the documents for month. And last night, Fox News reported another victory for Nunes in his push to determine how the dossier – which was funded by the DNC and Clinton campaign and contains allegations that have been widely debunked – factored into the bureau’s decision to open an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson
After the owners of Fusion GPS – the opposition research firm hired by a lawyer for the Clinton campaign to scrutinize Trump’s foreign business dealings – refused to answer questions two weeks ago during a Congressional hearing, the company has reportedly agreed to turn over its bank records to Nunes after initially trying to block it.
The House Intelligence Committee said Saturday it has struck a deal to gain access to bank records from Fusion GPS, the firm behind the salacious anti-Trump dossier. The company had recently attempted to block the committee’s subpoena for its banking records.
“The parties have reached an agreement related to the House Intelligence Committee's subpoena for Fusion GPS's bank records that will secure the Committee's access to the records necessary for its investigation,” the intelligence committee said in a statement released Saturday.
As Fox pointed out, Nunes has been trying for months to investigate the dossier, which claimed the Russian government had compromising material with which it could blackmail Trump. The dossier was turned over to the FBI during the summer of 2016 and was also widely circulated among Washington journalists before it was published by CNN and Buzzfeed early this year.
Last week, it emerged that Fusion GPS had been retained last year by Marc E. Elias, an attorney representing the DNC and the Clinton campaign, to conduct opposition research on Trump. The firm contracted British spy Christopher Steele, who assembled the dossier.
On Friday evening, it was revealed that the opposition research project was initially backed by the conservative Washington Free Beacon website.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., had issued a subpoena on Oct. 4 for Fusion GPS’ TD Bank records. Fusion’s lawyers responded by issuing a "temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction" to block the release of those records, arguing the release would them “their rights to free speech and expressive association as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution."
While it’s now public knowledge that the Democrats funded the dossier, details like how much they paid for the document and how much they knew about Steele’s work or the quality of his claims remain a mystery. However, the firm’s banking records could shed some light on these matters.
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