Largely overlooked amid the bombshells going off after Glenn Simpson’s testimony before senate investigators was released was this little detail as Simpson described the FBI’s revelation to Steele that they had a source inside the Trump campaign:
Sawyer: Was this individual also a person who had been a source for Mr. Steele, without identifying who that was?
Simpson: No.
Sawyer: So this was someone independent of Mr. Steele’s sources who potentially had information also on the same topics?
Simpson: Yes. I mean, I don’t think this implicates any of the issues to say I think it was a voluntary source, someone who was concerned about the same concerns we had.
Davis: I’m having a hard time hearing you. Please speak up.
Simpson: It was someone like us who decided to pick up the phone and report something.
(Thanks to David Michigan’s earlier post for the quotes)
In other words, did Coffee Boy George Papadopoulos’ drunken tell all ignite the FBI Russia/Trump probe or as Simpson tells it, Steele indicated that a “walk-in” source inside the Trump campaign tipped the FBI?
Enter Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, who now seeks clarity about what Simpson was saying but is also demanding that if his comments were “mischaracterized” that Simpson correct them and further wants to know why he’s made no effort to correct the record.
So looks like Grassley, still smarting from from his public undressing over his “referral” concerning Christopher Steele, has a new plan to throw sand in the gears.