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Whoa: Memo Presented by Russian Lawyer at Infamous Trump Tower Meeting Was Written By...Fusion GPS
Townhall.com ^ | Nov 10, 2017 | Guy Benson

Posted on 11/10/2017 12:42:30 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom

Earlier in the week, we learned that the female Russian attorney whose June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner -- which remains the most (only?) concrete evidence of attempted collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government -- met with the founder of Democratic opposition research firm Fusion GPS on that very same day. Twice. Both before and after the truncated and much-discussed Trump Tower confab. As someone who cut Team Trump very little slack on the Don Jr. emails that preceded their huddle with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the revelations about her schedule on that day strike me as rather suspicious.

Some of Fusion GPS' defenders have argued that the meetings between Veselnitskaya and Glenn Simpson could have been entirely innocent and coincidental, considering that the organization was also working at the time on behalf of a Kremlin project to repeal an American law despised by Vladimir Putin. Let's set aside the dubious nature of Fusion GPS' simultaneous work (a) with the Russian government and (b) with Christopher Steele, an ex-British spy gathering unverified dirt on Donald Trump, some of which came from high-level Russian sources (and whose research we recently discovered was partially financed by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, despite previous denials). Is the "unrelated coincidence" explanation still plausible? It's looking less and less so. Check out this new Reuters report:

So Fusion GPS wrote the memo that was taken into the Trump Tower meeting which is the same memo presented to Russia's prosecutor general https://t.co/Zs63G9s9D2 — Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) November 10, 2017

The same political research firm that prepared a dossier on Trump campaign ties to Russia had unrelated information on Clinton Foundation donors that a Russian lawyer obtained and offered to President Donald Trump’s eldest son last year, three sources familiar with the matter said...The sources told Reuters that the negative information that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya wanted to give to Republican Trump’s campaign at a June 2016 meeting in New York had been dug up by Fusion GPS in an unrelated investigation...In an interview with Bloomberg on Monday, Veselnitskaya said she went to the Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr., his brother-in-law Jared Kushner, and top campaign adviser Paul Manafort to show them proof of tax evasion by major Democratic donors...The memo had been prepared by Fusion... If I'm following this correctly, the Democractic firm that was orchestrating the Steele dossier (paid for by Democrats and, for a time, the FBI) about supposed Trump-Russia collusion also dug up some potentially-damaging information against Clinton Foundation donors in the course of conducting a 'totally unrelated' project. And that information just happened to end up in the hands of a Russian envoy who finagled a meeting to hand it over to the Trump campaign -- a transaction that has since been cited as key evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. To quote a certain someone, buying that account as totally coincidental seems to require the willing suspension of disbelief. What does Fusion GPS have to say for itself? C'mon, man:

Glenn Simpson, one of Fusion GPS’ founders, met with Veselnitskaya about that litigation before and after her meeting with Trump Jr., Kushner and Manafort, according to a source familiar with the matter. However, a source familiar with 10 hours of testimony Simpson gave the Senate Judiciary committee in August said he told investigators he did not know of Veselnitskaya’s Trump Tower meeting until reports of it appeared in the media...Two sources said the Fusion GPS work for Baker and Hostetler that produced the information Veselnitskaya offered Trump Jr. and his associates was unrelated to the firm’s work for Perkins Coie, a law firm that represented the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign. Simpson wants people to believe that his company's work on behalf of Russia, and its anti-Trump work on behalf of Democrats, had absolutely nothing to do with each other -- and the fateful crossing of streams at Trump Tower was just a weird accident. Simpson also reportedly told Congress that he didn't know Ms. Veselnitskaya had met with top-level Trump aides in between his two in-person interactions with her on that exact same day. He says he was completely in the dark that she'd peddled his firm's research in an effort to collude with the Trump campaign...while his firm was trying to pin collusion on the Trump campaign. Does that sound pretty ludicrous to you? It sounds pretty ludicrous to me.

None of this excuses Don Jr.'s apparent enthusiastic willingness to collaborate with Kremlin-linked emissaries, exposed in emails after endless misleading from the campaign and the White House. The Russians were up to no good, and Trumpworld's hands aren't clean. But the new context of the Trump Tower meeting, revealed this week, casts the entire episode in a different light. Suffice it to say that I really, really struggle to take Simpson's preposterous-sounding story at face value. I suspect I'm not alone.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: fusiongop; trumpjrmeeting; trumprussia
I excerpted this story because it included something unrelated to the title about Mike Flynn. I'm sure that will pop up as another headline later.
1 posted on 11/10/2017 12:42:31 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Man, I really wish we had an Attorney General. This is the kind of thing an Attorney General should do something about.


2 posted on 11/10/2017 12:46:55 PM PST by caligatrux (Rage, rage against the dying of the light.)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Hannity used to be on this story. Now he is unhinged over the Moore accusations.

He keeps saying, repeating it over and over and over, and then quoting that he has said it over and over, that the reason the girl did not come forward is because she was so traumatized.

He must get excited reading the gory details into his microphone. He does it over and over. He is the only one who does it.

I had to turn him off.


3 posted on 11/10/2017 12:46:58 PM PST by odawg
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
None of this excuses Don Jr.'s apparent enthusiastic willingness to collaborate with Kremlin-linked emissaries, exposed in emails after endless misleading from the campaign and the White House

rock solid unbiased reporting right there.
4 posted on 11/10/2017 12:47:42 PM PST by stylin19a (Best.Election.Ever.)
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To: stylin19a

It is actually worse! Not only was Don Jr. meeting with agents of Vladimir Putin, he was meeting with agents of Hillary Clinton! The question now is: Who was paying for her billable hours during that meeting? Putin or Clinton? Ether way, it looks pretty bad for Don Jr. ;-)


5 posted on 11/10/2017 12:58:11 PM PST by SubMareener (Save us from Quarterly Freepathons! Become a MONTHLY DONOR)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

https://mobile.twitter.com/i/moments/924719263033593856

Here’s a great timeline of the Fusion GPS saga for anyone who’s into the big picture.

Oh...and P.S....the Professor in the midst of the Fusion mess? Professor Mifsud. Google him. He’s suddenly....”disappeared”.


6 posted on 11/10/2017 1:00:13 PM PST by SE Mom (Screaming Eagle mom)
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To: odawg
He does it over and over. He is the only one who does it.

Hannity is a bag of hammers. He gets hold of a red-meat phase and we hear it until it doesn't have any meaning anymore.

7 posted on 11/10/2017 1:27:59 PM PST by Fido969 (In!)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
Interesting conflict if accurate: https://twitter.com/Thomas1774Paine/status/928736496781266944

UPDATE?

via SpartaReport...


8 posted on 11/10/2017 2:08:09 PM PST by wtd
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

This whole Fusion GPS thing is getting more and more sinister.

As to Flynn working for Turkey to kidnap someone....that is tinfoil hat stuff in my book.


9 posted on 11/10/2017 2:29:08 PM PST by Robert357 ( Dan Rather was discharged as "medically unfit" on May 11, 1954.)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

BT


10 posted on 11/10/2017 2:36:55 PM PST by Rumplemeyer (The GOP should stand its ground - and fix Bayonets)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
Guy Benson

Smarmy little prick.

11 posted on 11/10/2017 2:40:39 PM PST by Stentor
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

The initial accusations against Trump were silly. Now we’ve reached evidence of potential criminal behavior by the accusers.


12 posted on 11/10/2017 3:19:20 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

bkmk


13 posted on 11/10/2017 3:29:43 PM PST by AllAmericanGirl44
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

This is why Mueller will not bring a case because the evidence is so tainted he will be destroyed by Trump’s lawyers. What he will do is set up weak perjury cases and try to scare people to admit financial crimes. No Russia charges.


14 posted on 11/10/2017 4:23:14 PM PST by Titus-Maximus (It doesn't matter who votes for whom, it only matters who counts the votes - Joe Stalin)
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To: Stentor

Wasn’t he a never trumper ?


15 posted on 11/10/2017 4:27:25 PM PST by katykelly
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To: caligatrux
I thought the rule of law would be upheld once again when Jeff Sessions was appointed as AG. I guess that was wishful thinking. America is still a place where certain people are above the law.
16 posted on 11/10/2017 4:40:11 PM PST by peeps36 (Obama = the skidmark on America's uunderwear)
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To: katykelly
Wasn’t he a never trumper ?

He was a laughing dingleberry in the early days of the campaign; A nothing with the belief that his droolings have import.

17 posted on 11/10/2017 4:41:05 PM PST by Stentor
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

I think I recall reading that the Russian lawyer was escorted during her visit by former Dem Rep Ron Dellums (communist, CA). Old Ron is getting up in years....wonder how he got involved?


18 posted on 11/10/2017 4:59:58 PM PST by Ben Hecks
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