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Chuck Ross‏ @TheDailyCaller-

According to AP, Paul Singer was sole funder of Free Beacon as recently as 2014.

According to AP, Paul Singer was sole funder of Free Beacon as recently as 2014. https://t.co/R4euIW7baS— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) October 28, 2017

The Washington Free Beacon on Friday confirmed it originally retained the political research firm Fusion GPS to scour then-candidate Trump's background for negative information, a common practice known as "opposition research" in politics. Leaders from the Free Beacon, which is funded largely by Republican billionaire Paul Singer, insisted none of the early material it collected appeared in the dossier released later in the year detailing explosive allegations, many uncorroborated, about Trump compiled by a former British spy.

"During the 2016 election cycle we retained Fusion GPS to provide research on multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary, just as we retained other firms to assist in our research into Hillary Clinton," wrote the site's editor-in-chief, Matthew Continetti, and chairman Michael Goldfarb. They continued: "The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele."******************************************************************************

The website and its leaders have strong ties throughout the Republican establishment. Goldfarb was deputy communications director on John McCain's presidential campaign. Singer was backing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential bid at the time of the Free Beacon's involvement. And one of Singer's closest associates, Republican operative Dan Senor, served as Speaker Ryan's chief adviser during the 2012 president campaign.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/conservative-site-gop-ties-funded-trump-research-50774271

A representative to Singer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rubio denied any knowledge of the Fusion research or the dossier this week.

“As far as whether it was my campaign, it wasn’t and I’ll tell you why,” he told CNN. “I was running for president. I was trying to win. If I had anything against Donald Trump that was relevant and credible and politically damaging, I would’ve used it. I didn’t have it.”