Paul Singer
The Washington Free Beacon was the original funder of the anti-Trump opposition research paper with Fusion GPS.
The Washington Free Beacon informed House Intelligence officials on Friday that it was the original funder for the anti-Trump Fusion GPS opposition research.
The news site is funded by neoconservative leader Paul Singer, who was an anti-Trumper and Marco Rubio supporter.
Neocon chief, and Iraq WMD architect, Bill Kristol is also rumored to be behind the publication. Kristol was a very public Trump hater during the primaries, and is a vocal anti-Trumper advocate to this day.
Singer reportedly donated $2.5 million to the Marco Rubio campaign. Paul Singer is also a top Paul Ryan donor.
Singer has donated millions to Paul Ryan over the years.
Byron York broke the story, and appeared on Fox News' Hannity to provide some more insight into what The Washington Free Beacon was aiming to accomplish with its opposition research on Trump, and what changed when the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign took over the research and proceeded to work with Fusion GPS, and British agent Steele.
The Washington Free Beacon issued the below statement regarding its involvement in the original drafting of dossier, and its collaboration with Fusion GPS.
Fusion GPS and the Washington Free Beacon
A note to our readers
Since its launch in February of 2012, the Washington Free Beacon has retained third party firms to conduct research on many individuals and institutions of interest to us and our readers. In that capacity, during the 2016 election cycle we retained Fusion GPS to provide research on multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary, just as we retained other firms to assist in our research into Hillary Clinton. All of the work that Fusion GPS provided to the Free Beacon was based on public sources, and none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier. The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele. Nor did we have any knowledge of the relationship between Fusion GPS and the Democratic National Committee, Perkins Coie, and the Clinton campaign.
Representatives of the Free Beacon approached the House Intelligence Committee today and offered to answer what questions we can in their ongoing probe of Fusion GPS and the Steele dossier. But to be clear: We stand by our reporting, and we do not apologize for our methods. We consider it our duty to report verifiable information, not falsehoods or slander, and we believe that commitment has been well demonstrated by the quality of the journalism that we produce. The First Amendment guarantees our right to engage in news-gathering as we see fit, and we intend to continue doing just that as we have since the day we launched this project.
Matthew Continetti
Editor in Chief
Michael Goldfarb
Chairman
Comment: Oh what a tangled web they weave, when they want to produce a dodgy dossier!