Posted on 11/21/2017 7:49:12 PM PST by SSS Two
Newly filed court documents confirm that Fusion GPS, the company mostly responsible for the controversial “Trump dossier” on presidential candidate Donald Trump, made payments to three journalists between June 2016 until February 2017.
The revelation could be a breakthrough for House Republicans, who are exploring whether Fusion GPS used the dossier, which was later criticized for having inaccurate information on Trump, to feed anti-Trump stories to the press during and after the presidential campaign. The three journalists who were paid by Fusion GPS are known to have reported on "Russia issues relevant to [the committee's] investigation," the House Intelligence Committee said in a court filing.
But the recipients' names, the amounts, and purposes of those payments were either redacted from the documents that Fusion GPS filed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia or were not disclosed.
Fusion has asked the court to issue a restraining order against the House committee, which is demanding documents from the company that, among other things, explain the payments it made to reporters. Most of the documents sought are banking records.
One of the documents filed by the company this week was an affidavit from one of Fusion GPS’s co-founders, Peter Frisch. That affidavit said, in part, “[The House Intelligence Committee] has also demanded records related to transactions between Fusion GPS and certain journalists — i.e., Request Nos. 66, 68-69, 107-112. Those requested records involve transactions that are not pertinent to work related to Russia or Donald Trump.”
The numbered “requests” correspond to a list of payments made by Fusion GPS being examined by the committee, which was also among the documents filed Tuesday, although the list was heavily redacted.
Fusion GPS didn't deny that some payments went to reporters, but argues that these payments were made to help the company with research.
“Fusion GPS is a research firm set up by former investigative journalists,” Fusion GPS’s lawyer, Josh Levy, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “As such, it sometimes works with contractors that have specialized skills seeking public information. Contractors are not permitted to publish any articles based on that work, and Fusion GPS does not pay journalists to write stories.”
Levy also dismissed the Republican idea that these payments were somehow aimed at or otherwise used to help get anti-Trump stories written by the press.
"This is simply another desperate attempt by the president’s political allies to discredit Fusion GPS's work and divert attention from the question these committees are supposed to be investigating: the Trump campaign's knowledge of Russian interference in the election," Levy said.
But House Republicans still have their doubts. One of the documents filed by lawyers for the House Intelligence Committee said each of the three reporters who received payments had written about the Russia probe, which could indicate that reporters were using Fusion GPS's work to write their stories.
“Additionally, the Committee seeks transactions related to three individual journalists, [names redacted], each of whom have reported on and/or been quoted in articles regarding topics related to the Committee's investigation, some of which were published as recently as October 2017," the committee wrote.
Additionally, a filing by lawyers for the House Intelligence Committee asserts that Fusion GPS “brokered meetings for dossier author Christopher Steele with at least five major media outlets in September 2016, including Yahoo news.”
The meeting by Yahoo resulted in one of the first media reports based on the dossier, which specifically mentioned Trump adviser Carter Page. After seeing the latest court filings, Page heaped praise on the committee.
"While many politicians and bureaucrats in the U.S. Congress remain distracted by irrelevant sideshows such as the minuscule amounts of money spent on Facebook ads that no one paid attention to last year or how various perverted members might have once amused themselves, the determined leaders and hard working staff with the House Intelligence Committee have once again remained on the tip of the spear as they drive toward essential answers regarding the real government interference in the 2016 election," Page said in an email to the Washington Examiner.
Page currently has a defamation suit against the parent company of Yahoo for the article published in September of last year.
At least two people have accused Fusion GPS of running smear campaigns by planting stories in the media with friendly journalists. Bill Browder, who was instrumental in initiating and promoting passage of the Magnitsky Act through Congress, has made that accusation. The Magnitsky Act is essentially a sanctions bill against dozens of Russian oligarchs and limits their access to Western banks.
The dossier has become one of the central components of the investigations being carried out by the House and Senate Intelligence committees, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee. Investigators are trying to determine how the dossier may have influence the intelligence agencies during the 2016 election.
The Washington Examiner reported that “FBI and Justice Department officials have told congressional investigators in recent days that they have not been able to verify or corroborate the substantive allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign outlined in the Trump dossier.”
Between what we have seen with our own eyes, what we learned from Wikileaks during last year’s election, and reports like this, you have to be brain dead to believe anything that comes out in the main stream media.
inaccurate information on Trump? How about blatant lie production for extortion?
Effectively, this means the 2016 Clinton campaign had reporters on the payroll.
Thankfully Sessions will do nothing about it.
And we are never told who they are.
Sessions can't do anything about it. He has recused himself with respect to all things related to the Clintons including the Clinton Foundation. That's why we desperately need a Special Counsel.
That said, as distasteful as it is, I rather doubt paying journalists is a crime.
At least we now know why the MSM doesn't want to report on this matter.
hopefully the names will come to light.
every half-hour on Tuesday, BBC were following their top story - Mugable resignation - with the rubbish about Google de-ranking Kremlin-backed RT & Sputnik, who are accused of interfering in foreign elections.
entire FakeNewsMSM are carrying the Google nonsense and none are carrying Fusion GPS/Uranium One/Clinton Global Initiative etc. could go on with the rest of the stories they haven’t been covering, but why bother.
There will be a special investigator assigned the minute Mueller and team finish destroying the remainder of incriminating evidence against Hillary and the Foundation.
I thought this company dissolved itself. Who’s paying the lawyers?
I know the Podesta Group dissolved itself. I don’t Fusion GPS has.
The entire edifice of liberalism seems to be falling down in one integral piece, to smash on the unforgiving ground into a billion shards, like sparkling, shattered glass.
Yes, you’re right. It was Podesta. All these snakes are starting to look the same.
I have money on David Corn.
“hopefully the names will come to light.”
With ALL the illegal crap that’s going on, we MUST have the names. Not finding out the WHO protects them so that they can do it again. It ALL has to stop NOW! And we need some successful prosecutions as a warning to those who would try any of it again, including all the sexual abuse stuff. We must insist that Congress pass real laws with real penalties for themselves when they abuse the public trust or others, principally women.
Remember Payolla? Pay to play records. This is pay to publish.
“Thankfully Sessions will do nothing about it.”
I thought he had died some time ago.
The MSM is the Country’s greatest threat. And it’s employed largely by Disney and Comcast.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.