Pictured: Glenn Simpson – Founder of Fusion GPS. Have you heard about Fusion GPS? Probably not. Just as the news media, lost in its own political ideology, missed the ascendance of Donald Trump in the November election, it is missing, or more likely choosing to ignore, the key behind any and all Russian interference in the last election. The crossroad of all of the players is Fusion GPS. The Senate Judiciary Committee knows it. More importantly, so does Senator Diane Feinstein, the Democratic Senator from California. It is a nasty story involving the highest level of Trump opponents in both parties.
The founder of Fusion GPS is gentlemen named Glenn Simpson. He was subpoenaed to testify by the Senate Judiciary Committee. This past week, his lawyer responded to the subpoena claiming Mr. Simpson’s Fifth Amendment rights. Nobody should be surprised.
Glenn Simpson is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who left the esteemed newspaper to found Fusion GPS…an investigative firm dedicated to what is known as “opposition research.” In other words, it digs up dirt on whatever entity or person one might be after.
In September, 2015, Fusion GPS was hired by a yet to be named “Republican donor” to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. Over a period of time, Fusion put together a dossier relating to Trump’s “misdeeds.” As Trump emerged as the presumptive nominee for the Republican nomination, the Republican money dried up. Somehow the Democrats got wind of the investigation, and miraculously picked the inquiry up and continued to fund it.
All of this was going on about the same time as stories of hacking into DNC emails by a slime bucket named “Gucifer” became public. Fusion decided its investigation needed a shot of steroids and hired a former British spy, Christopher Steele, to up the ante. Mr. Steele came up with a variety of information. Included were stories about hacking into Democratic email accounts, shady business deals, secret meetings in foreign capitals, and encounters with prostitutes practicing what is known in the vernacular as “golden showers.”
The operation took two tracks. The first was an overt effort to snare Trump into some shady business deals with Russian businessmen. That one didn’t work out too well. The second track was more successful. Its goal was to design a narrative whereby Trump operatives would be shown to have established contact with various Russian intelligence agencies and operatives to assist them in discrediting Hillary Clinton’s campaign through email hacking and the subsequent release of damaging information.
Mr. Steele and Fusion developed an entire scenario by which this happened including names and places where Trump associates were supposed to be making contacts with the Russians. Included in this group of events were contacts with the Russian Honeypot lawyer now being associated with Jared Kushner. Also included were accusations directed at newly appointed White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci. Word of the existence of this Dossier spread quickly…including information somehow sent to John McCain who got a copy of the dossier. He, in turn, handed it over to the FBI.
The contents of this dossier, as it became public, was rapidly discredited because times and places of meetings didn’t match up with the facts. The latest dust-ups were continued allegations made by CNN related to a Russian-Scaramucci meeting in Prague. Mr. Scaramucci could prove he had never been to Prague, and forced a very embarrassing retraction by CNN which is still reverberating today.
The Fusion GPS dossier is the crossroads of all the bad actors in the alleged Russian/Trump scandal. Unfortunately, blow the dust off the surface, you find the fingerprints of Never-Trumpers and Hillary Clinton/DNC operatives all over it. I am guessing that the Senate Judiciary Committee already knows who the people are behind this dossier which is still being used by the FBI to justify further investigation into alleged Trump-Russia ties. I am also guessing that the news media will not like what they see. For example: how did John McCain find his way into this mess?
At some point in time the facts of who knew what when will reach critical mass. When that happens, one of two things will happen. The entire Russian investigation will shut down because to finish it would be too traumatic for the nation, or it will blow up in the faces of lots of prominent people. Meanwhile, the media keeps saying look over here…when you should really be looking over there.
Mark G. Mangie