r/conspiracy: Fusion GPS Simpson Testimony Digging Thread

Fusion GPS Simpson Testimony Digging Thread

120 2018-01-18 by ver0egiusto

Wanted to start up a thread for digging into this testimony. I'll be adding some key elements that have been pulled to the OP as I come across or as they are added in the comments section.

PDF of the testimony: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180118/106796/HMTG-115-IG00-Transcript-20180118.pdf

EDIT - PDF seems to be down now, luckily an archive was made: https://archive.is/bDCb1

Page 57 - Did not say everything is true, does not know if anything is false

MR. ROONEY: Do you - did you find anything to -- that you verified as false in the dossier, since or during?

MR. SIMPSON: I have not seen anything -

MR. ROONEY: So everything in that dossier, as far as you're concerned, is true or could be true?

MR. SIMPSON: I didn't say that. What I said was it was credible at the time it came in. We were able to corroborate various things that supported its credibility.

MR. ROONEY: Well, do you know now if anything's false?

MR. SIMPSON: I did answer that. No, I don't know if anything is false.

Page 19+ on Perkins Coie / working for DNC

MR. GOWDY: Mr. Simpson, were you aware that Perkins Coie was retained by the DNC?

MR. SIMPSON: I'm aware. I was aware of that and have been for years that they have -- they were one of the main lawyers for the Democratic party, yes. I don't have any specific awareness -

MR. GOWDY: That wasn't my precise question. With respect to this fact pattern, with respect to your firm being retained, were you aware that Perkins Coie was working on behalf of the DNC?

MR. SIMPSON: Yes. I mean, I know that they are - the DNC is a client of Perkins Coie. I don't - I didn't see it -- nobody gave me a document or informed me specifically of that.

...

MR. GOWDY: I'm looking at a release from Perkins Coie that is giving me more information than you are. Have you seen the release where they released you from some of your confidentiality obligations?

MR. SIMPSON: I would like to see a copy of that, if you don't mind.

MR. GOWDY: Do your lawyers not have it?

MR. SIMPSON: It's been a busy time. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry if I'm not giving you a clear answer. I knew it was the DNC that we were working for.

Page 27 regarding vetting sources:

MR. GOWDY: Were you able to vet or corroborate or contradict any of the sources or subsources?

MR. SIMPSON: We did get into assessing the credibility of the sources and whether they were in a position to know the things that they were saying. I didn't ask for the specific identities of specific people. Some people, I think I know who they are for other reasons. But that's about as much as I can say. We did a lot of -- when the first reports came In, we did a lot of discussing of whether this was credible information. And obviously, evaluating human Intelligence is not the same thing as looking at documents. And so it's a much trickier process and the thresholds are different. And so what you're really trying to do, which is kind of like interviewing in journalism, is figure out whether there's reason to think that what's being said is credible. And so we did a lot of that.

Page 28+ on the quality of information

MR. GOWDY: Yes, I'm sure we will get into that. My other question is, was there anything not included in your report that you concluded was wrong? In other words, I think my primary question was, is there anything that Steele, his sources or subsources told you that you didn't include because you immediately found it to be incredible? And I think your answer was no.

MR. SIMPSON: That is correct. My answer to that is no...

MR. GOWDY: And how did you assess the reliability of that information, given the fact that you did not talk to the sources or subsources?

MR. SIMPSON: So it's obviously a challenging thing to assess human intelligence, field interviews, and it is different from looking at a lawsuit. But there are similarities to the interview process in journalism, where there are elements of people, what people say that you can check... And in a way, it is like journalism, because they are somewhat rigid in reporting what sources in the field are saying, and, you know, they - they don't do a lot of the -- this is what this guy said, but we don't think it's true or we believe this or we believe that he might have gotten the data wrong. They just - it's a kind of a here's what they said type report.

Page 34+ on Fusion beginning research into Trump's Russia ties during their time working for the Free Beacon

MR. SCHIFF: During the time that you·were doing work for Free Beacon, you had mentioned some work in the first phase. You had discovered business relationships with Felix Sater and Bayrock. By first phase, do you mean while you were doing work for Free Beacon?

MR. SIMPSON: It was one of the first things we found. And I should emphasize, it was, you know -- originally I saw it in the New York Times article, so it. wasn't a great investigative discovery. But then when I read into it and I found depositions in which he was, you know, more than evasive about the relationship, that's when I got really interested.

MR. SCHIFF: So during the period of time you were working for Free Beacon, you came across some of the first information about candidate Trump's business ties in Russia, including those with Felix Sater.

MR. SIMPSON: Yep, that's correct. And lots of other issues came up during the primaries that raised concerns in my mind about whether there might be connections -- Donald Trump might have unexplained connections to Russia or people involved in that part of the world.

Page 56 on source credibility

MR. ROONEY: Did you generally consider them credible, if you knew them?

MR. SIMPSON: Well, you can't -- I mean, I can't evaluate the credibility of someone on the other side of the --

MR. ROONEY: So you just trusted Mr. Steele's vouch?

MR. SIMPSON: I have great trust in Mr. Steele's professional ability to find sources with credible information.

MR. ROONEY: Did you know how he paid these sources?

MR. SIMPSON : Yeah. You know, essentially, my -- what I was doing was corroborating the information they were providing -- or trying to -- or determining whether it was credible. So that was a lot of the work that we did there.

Page 144 on deaths after release

MS. SPEIER: And it appears that one of the sources was mysteriously killed?

MR. SIMPSON: That's not my information. I mean there was a series of episodes where people were arrested or died mysteriously that came shortly after the disclosure of the existence of this information. And I do believe there was a bit of an old fashioned purge.

93 comments

11 hurtsdonut_ 2018-01-18

Page 117:

The Turkey-Russia connection I think is deeper than is generally understood. I think that the Turkey-Russia -- I think that the influence campaign that General Flynn got caught up In is reflective of that. And I think it's not been excavated. And I think that Roger Stone may have connections to that matter that are unexplored.

MR. SCHIFF: Why do you say that?

MR. SIMPSON: Things I heard from sources. I think Ted Malloch is an important person in this whole picture. And he may have had some role in all that. He is an interesting person who crosses over from Brexit, UKIP, Trump, and the Turkey-Russia issue. And then the last thing I would add is, you know, we haven't talked about Deutsche Bank at all. You know, I think they obviously know a fair bit. But they are obviously within your subpoena power, and I am assuming you probably already asked them to provide information.

(redacted) You are out of time, sir.

I assume redacted is Devin Nunes. Why redact his name? And that's the first I've heard of this Ted Malloch.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Malloch

10 JoeyBulgaria 2018-01-18

Relevant to today’s news about the FBI looking into the NRA and Torshin, see my earlier post today about Trump answering Butina’s question about Russian policy at a 2015 rally in Vegas by indicating that he’d drop sanctions if given the chance

MS. SPEIER: Okay. What is the interest of Russia with the National Rifle Association?

MR. SIMPSON: I think that most of what we have found is pretty much out there now. You know, it's been said by others, but, you know, what eventually - it appears the Russians, you know, infiltrated the NRA And there is more than one explanation for why. 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 so there is a Russian banker-slash-Duma member-slash-Mafia leader named Alexander Torshin who is a life member of the NRA. And we spent a lot of time investigating Mr. Torshin.And he is well known to Spanish law enforcement for money laundering activity, and you have probably seen the press articles. And I think the Spanish files on him should be available to you.And he, as you know, was supposed to have a meeting with President Trump after the inauguration. And somebody noticed that there had been some stories about him that weren't pretty good .

So he is one of the more important figures, but, you know, another woman with whom he was working, Maria Butina, also was a big Trump fan in Russia, and then suddenly showed up here and started hanging around the Trump transition after the election and rented an apartment and enrolled herself at AU,which I assume gets you a visa.

pg 142- 143

1 BallP 2018-01-18

You can be a life member of the NRA for $600. Why is it that earth shattering that a Russian joined?

1 JoeyBulgaria 2018-01-18

Because signs are pointing to his using the NRA to funnel money to help the Trump Campaign

1 BernieBroOrBust 2018-01-18

Directly from the solid source link you provided:

"The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy."

* mcclatchydc.com* "The realest of real news"