Tonight’s Rachel Maddow show led off with a just-released NYT op-ed written by the two gents who operate FusionGPS, the research firm that produced the Trump-Russia “dossier.”
They have testified for hours before Congress. Sen. Grassley told an audience in Iowa that, yes, the transcript of their testimony will be released. FusionGPS attorneys have cleared the transcripts and given permission for release, yet, the transcript has not been released.
Now, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch have laid down a marker with a daming NYT op-ed in which they summarize what they told the Senate Intelligence Committee. It’s ugly.
Here’s a link to the NYT op-ed — it may be behind a paywall.
Here are excerpts.
In the year since the publication of the so-called Steele dossier — the collection of intelligence reports we commissioned about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia — the president has repeatedly attacked us on Twitter. His allies in Congress have dug through our bank records and sought to tarnish our firm to punish us for highlighting his links to Russia. Conservative news outlets and even our former employer, The Wall Street Journal, have spun a succession of mendacious conspiracy theories about our motives and backers.
And here’s the nuclear explosion buried in the op-ed:
We don’t believe the Steele dossier was the trigger for the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian meddling. As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp.
The intelligence committees have known for months that credible allegations of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia were pouring in from independent sources during the campaign. Yet lawmakers in the thrall of the president continue to wage a cynical campaign to portray us as the unwitting victims of Kremlin disinformation.
Got that? According to FusionGPS, long before the Trump-Russia “dossier” was handed over to the FBI, the Bureau already had received information about Trump-Russia collusion “from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp.”
And — “credible allegations of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia were pouring in from independent sources during the campaign.”
FusionGPS appeals for their transcript to be released because —
Congress should release transcripts of our firm’s testimony, so that the American people can learn the truth about our work and most important, what happened to our democracy.