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An infallible sign that a bad case is collapsing under its own weight comes when its proponents show that they have misunderstood the evidence which is supposed to underpin it.
A classic example of this happened yesterday in the Russiagate case when Senator Dianne Feinstein unilaterally published the
transcript of the testimony of Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS given to the Senate Judiciary Committee on 22nd August 2017.
Fusion GPS is the political consultancy firm which acting on behalf of the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign commissioned from the ex British spy Christopher Steele the 'research' which became the Trump Dossier.
As it has become increasingly clear that the Trump Dossier is the primary evidence - indeed so far it is the only evidence - behind the allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and that information from it was used by the Justice Department and the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants on members of the Trump campaign from the FISA court, hard questions have increasingly been asked about it by the Republicans in the Senate and the House.
Recently the FBI has admitted that it has been
unable to verify the collusion claims in the Trump Dossier, whilst Senators Grassley and Lindsey Graham have recently written a
letter to the Justice Department asking for an investigation of Christopher Steele - the Trump Dossier's compiler - because of inconsistencies in his statements.
Comment: Simpson also admitted to essentially
colluding with the MSM:
Question: Does part of Fusion GPS's business involve attempting to have media outlets publish articles that further the interests of your clients?
Fusion GPS: Yeah, you could - I mean, generally speaking, we are - genereally we tend to respond to inquiries more than try to push things, but, you know, we work with the press frequently.
Question: And has Fusion GPS ever provided information to journalists in order to encourage them to publish articles or air stories that further your client's interests?
Fusion GPS: Yes.
An attorney for Simpson also claimed that someone had already been
killed over the public release of the dossier.
Fox News reported:
"He wants to be very careful to protect his sources," Josh Levy, an attorney for Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, said during an Aug. 22 Senate Judiciary Committee interview of his client. "Somebody's already been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier and no harm should come to anybody related to this honest work."
Levy doesn't elaborate on who was killed. The website BuzzFeed first published the dossier online last January, airing its unverified allegations about President Trump's connections with Russia.
According to CNBC some initial highlights include Glenn Simpson talking about how the Trump Organization handles paying taxes.
- Fusion GPS did not secure full access to Trump's tax returns, Simpson said: "They were Trump properties and I believe we may have reviewed some public information about estate taxes and things like that. We didn't have access to his tax returns."
- Simpson said he only become aware of the infamous Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer when it was reported in the New York Times. "I was stunned."
- Fusion GPS concluded that Trump "exaggerated" his properties' worth in legal filings - but they did not indicate or show connections to Russia: "Not that I recall."
- Simpson had no "factual reason to believe" the Trump Tower meeting was a Russian attempt to make contact with the Trump campaign, but: "You know, as a sort of question of counterintelligence and just general investigation of Russian methods and that sort of thing, I think that's a reasonable interpretation."
It is important to note that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson was with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya just hours before the Trump Tower meeting AND saw her again shortly after.
Chuck Ross of The Daily Caller said, "It's been theorized that this is ex-KGB guy Oleg Erovkinin, who was chief of staff to Igor Sechin. But he was killed under suspicious circumstances on Dec. 26, 2016, before the dossier was published."
Trump blasted Feinstein and the whole investigation on Twitter:
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