Remember the Russian lawyer that met with Donald Trump Jr. last year during the election with the offer of dirt on Hillary? Well it turns out that the founder of Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, met with this same Russian lawyer both before and after her meeting with Trump jr:
FOX NEWS – The co-founder of Fusion GPS, the firm behind the unverified Trump dossier, met with a Russian lawyer before and after a key meeting she had last year with Trump’s son, Fox News has learned. The contacts shed new light on how closely tied the firm was to Russian interests, at a time when it was financing research to discredit then-candidate Donald Trump.
The opposition research firm has faced renewed scrutiny after litigation revealed that the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid for that research. Congressional Republicans have since questioned whether that politically financed research contributed to the FBI’s investigation of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – making Fusion’s 2016 contacts with Russian interests all the more relevant.
The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya occurred during a critical period. At that time, Fox News has learned that bank records show Fusion GPS was paid by a law firm for work on behalf of a Kremlin-linked oligarch while paying a former British spy Christopher Steele to dig up dirt on Trump through his Russian contacts.
But hours before the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016, Fusion co-founder and ex-Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson was with Veselnitskaya in a Manhattan federal courtroom, a confidential source told Fox News. Court records reviewed by Fox News, email correspondence and published reports corroborate the pair’s presence together. The source told Fox News they also were together after the Trump Tower meeting.
Simpson’s presence with Veselnitskaya during this critical week in June — together with revelations about Fusion’s simultaneous financial ties to the DNC, Clinton campaign and Russian interests — raise new questions about the company’s role in the 2016 election.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the Trump Tower meeting as part of his probe of Russian interference in last year’s election.
Simpson and Fusion GPS were hired by BakerHostetler, which represented Russian firm Prevezon through Veselnitskaya.
Veselnitskaya has said she sought the Trump Tower meeting in order to lobby the candidate’s team against Russian sanctions, but the initial approach included an offer of compromising information on candidate Clinton.
Lawyers representing Fusion and Veselnitskaya did not respond to requests for comment lodged on Friday.
Obviously more questions need to be answered, but the implication of this article is to suggest that Fusion GPS and the Russian lawyer, perhaps on behalf of Hillary and the DNC, tried to entrap Trump Jr. and members of the Trump campaign.
Given the initial claim by the Russian lawyer of dirt on Hillary to get the meeting, this does look suspicious. If it turns out to be what this article suggests, then Clinton’s gonna have some uncomfortable questions to answer. And of course she’ll never hear the end of it from Trump.