It’s a MUCH BIGGER button, duh.
But your comparison of Trump to Homer Simpson is noted.
None of this interests Republicans. Nothing to see here!
By GLENN R. SIMPSON and PETER FRITSCHJAN. 2, 2018
A generation ago, Republicans sought to protect President Richard Nixon by urging the Senate Watergate committee to look at supposed wrongdoing by Democrats in previous elections. The committee chairman, Sam Ervin, a Democrat, said that would be “as foolish as the man who went bear hunting and stopped to chase rabbits.”
Today, amid a growing criminal inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, congressional Republicans are again chasing rabbits. We know because we’re their favorite quarry.
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.
We are happy to correct the record. In fact, we already have.
Three congressional committees have heard over 21 hours of testimony from our firm, Fusion GPS. In those sessions, we toppled the far right’s conspiracy theories and explained how The Washington Free Beacon and the Clinton campaign — the Republican and Democratic funders of our Trump research — separately came to hire us in the first place.
We walked investigators through our yearlong effort to decipher Mr. Trump’s complex business past, of which the Steele dossier is but one chapter. And we handed over our relevant bank records — while drawing the line at a fishing expedition for the records of companies we work for that have nothing to do with the Trump case.
Republicans have refused to release full transcripts of our firm’s testimony, even as they selectively leak details to media outlets on the far right. It’s time to share what our company told investigators.
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.
We suggested investigators look into the bank records of Deutsche Bank and others that were funding Mr. Trump’s businesses. Congress appears uninterested in that tip: Reportedly, ours are the only bank records the House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed.
We told Congress that from Manhattan to Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., and from Toronto to Panama, we found widespread evidence that Mr. Trump and his organization had worked with a wide array of dubious Russians in arrangements that often raised questions about money laundering. Likewise, those deals don’t seem to interest Congress.
We explained how, from our past journalistic work in Europe, we were deeply familiar with the political operative Paul Manafort’s coziness with Moscow and his financial ties to Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin.
Finally, we debunked the biggest canard being pushed by the president’s men — the notion that we somehow knew of the June 9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower between some Russians and the Trump brain trust. We first learned of that meeting from news reports last year — and the committees know it. They also know that these Russians were unaware of the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele’s work for us and were not sources for his reports.
Yes, we hired Mr. Steele, a highly respected Russia expert. But we did so without informing him whom we were working for and gave him no specific marching orders beyond this basic question: Why did Mr. Trump repeatedly seek to do deals in a notoriously corrupt police state that most serious investors shun?
What came back shocked us. Mr. Steele’s sources in Russia (who were not paid) reported on an extensive — and now confirmed — effort by the Kremlin to help elect Mr. Trump president. Mr. Steele saw this as a crime in progress and decided he needed to report it to the F.B.I.
We did not discuss that decision with our clients, or anyone else. Instead, we deferred to Mr. Steele, a trusted friend and intelligence professional with a long history of working with law enforcement. We did not speak to the F.B.I. and haven’t since.
After the election, Mr. Steele decided to share his intelligence with Senator John McCain via an emissary. We helped him do that. The goal was to alert the United States national security community to an attack on our country by a hostile foreign power. We did not, however, share the dossier with BuzzFeed, which to our dismay published it last January.
We’re extremely proud of our work to highlight Mr. Trump’s Russia ties. To have done so is our right under the First Amendment.
It is time to stop chasing rabbits. The public still has much to learn about a man with the most troubling business past of any United States president. 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.
Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch, both former journalists, are the founders of the research firm Fusion GPS.
No comments from our resident Trumpbots that Trump’s foreign policy adviser George Papadopoluos was falling around drunk in London in May 2016 blabbing to Australia’s most senior diplomat to Britain that Russia had Hillary Clinton’s emails?
This sort of damages the fantastical narrative being pushed by @anon7035031.
Trump posted a tweet last night telling everybody to watch the Hannity programme on Fox News. Apparently some big “expose” about somebody or something Trump hates was to be aired.
He later deleted the tweet.
BIGGER numbers of coal miners are dying under Trump! Well done Donald!
Well, well, well. Even Steve Bannon says the Trump campaign was “treasonous”. His words.
I also like how he dismisses the legitimacy of his very own media outlet, Breitbart.
It appears to be a case of the big dog reminding the little dog who the big dog is.
It’s telling that the communists on here have no issue with a communist dictator threatening to start a nuclear holocaust, but have a problem with the leader of the free world telling him that would be a very bad idea.
After several years of acting the big ‘un which started under Obama’s leadership, North Korea are now retreating. Will Trump get any credit for his hardline stance, will he fuck.
You truly are a naive simpleton.
Fusion GPS are under investigation by congress for failing to disclose they acted on behalf of a foreign power (Russia no less) in the Prevezon case. Like all good lobbying firms, they really don’t care where the money comes from, just that it comes. They are now trying to cover their ass.
If Fusion GPS were interested in the truth, they might consider addressing the following:
Why did they hire the wife of senior DOJ official Bruce Orr? Could it be to gain access to the DOJ?
Why did this same DOJ official meet with the spy (Steele) hired by Fusion GPS during the presidential campaign?
Why did this same DOJ official meet with the owner of Fusion GPS after the presidential election?
If Bruce Orr did nothing wrong in meeting with Fusion GPS, an opposition research company representing the DNC during the campaign, why was he demoted?
Strangely, Fusion GPS address none of this in their article. Even stranger, while they mention the Trump tower meeting attended by Trump Jn, they fail to mention that the the owner of Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, met with the Russian agent/attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, before and after this meeting. What on earth could they have to talk about do you think?
The meeting with Russians promising dirt on Hillary was ill advised and naive I agree. Was it worse than hiring a firm with a history of pro Russian lobbying to try and dig up dirt on Trump, and pay almost $200K for a dossier that head of the FBI James Comey under oath described as “salacious and unverified”? The former is trying to influence an election but the latter isn’t? Really? Are you that naive or just a simpleton?
Why do you think the FBI are resisting handing over to congress internal communications on the Trump dossier?
After years of silence North Korea picked up the phone to South Korea this past weekend.
Good cop, bad cop in action.
1 Like
On twitter
Are you so naive as to think there isn’t a back channel going on?
Look, probably 90% of Republicans and most within the administration would prefer if Trump stopped tweeting. He won’t though, for the reasons he has frequently outlined.
unreal leadership from Trump, a firm hand was needed
I dont give a shit if there is or not. Trying to publically humiliate a lunatic dictator with nuclear options is ridiculous
Diplomacy isn’t something Trump cares about.
Trump is correct on this one, Bannon should never have been allowed inside the White House.
Who brought him in?
1 Like
“when he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind”
That is outstanding 
5 Likes
Trump is driving lads on here absolutely demented, off their heads, it really is fascinating to watch