It was revealed Friday that popular conservative news website The Washington Free Beacon was the original funder for Donald Trump research at Clinton-linked Fusion GPS, the same organization that eventually created the so-called “anti-Trump dossier.”
Woah, what?
Lawyers for the Free Beacon revealed their ties to Fusion GPS during a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, according to the Washington Examiner.
The lawyers said the Free Beacon funded their research project beginning in the fall of 2015, but later withdrew the funding in the spring of 2016. However, the research covered multiple Republican presidential candidates, not just Trump. The research also had nothing to do with Russia.
It’s not clear why the organization stopped funding the research, which was later continued by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
How did the Free Beacon respond?
In a short statement, Free Beacon editor Matthew Continetti confirmed his organization retained Fusion GPS to conduct research on Republican candidates, just as they had retained other research organizations to do the same on Clinton. This is normal for newsrooms without full-time researchers.
Continetti maintained that research produced on Trump had nothing to with Russia, the anti-Trump dossier or Christopher Steele, former British intelligence officer who compiled the dossier:
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.
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/1...o-research-firm-that-made-anti-trump-dossier/
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/w...-anti-trump-opposition-effort/article/2638850
Lawyers for the conservative publication Washington Free Beacon informed the House Intelligence Committee Friday that the organization was the original funder for the anti-Trump opposition research project with Fusion GPS.
The Free Beacon funded the project from the fall of 2015 through the spring of 2016, whereupon it withdrew funding and the project was picked up by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
The original arrangement between the Free Beacon and Fusion GPS involved opposition research into multiple Republican candidates, not just front-runner Donald Trump.
Sources close to the Free Beacon stress that the project, when the Free Beacon funded it, had nothing to do with Russia and did not involve Christopher Steele, the former British spy who gathered anti-Trump dirt in Russia. Steele was retained by Fusion GPS when the project was funded by Democrats, and not in its initial phase, when the Free Beacon was involved.
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