[pepsionice]

If you start with the fact that Fusion doesn’t work for free...then there is some $$$ tied to this whole element of the dossier.

I would suggest though...that Fusion GPS is usually a vehicle that only Democratic-friendly lobbyists/donors hooked up with. This would mean that the Russians had their lobbyists walk in and tie up with Fusion? I just don’t see that as some point of reality. Maybe if Fusion would just publish their donor listing for 2016...we’d come to a successful conclusion and realize that no Russian donors exist.

Then things get interesting.

[Fedora]

They've avoided testifying so far, but at some point their donor list might become subject to discovery, which would certainly be interesting. They are definitely Democrat-oriented, but they originally started investigating Trump for a Republican client, and they've also done work for other foreign clients such as the Israeli government and a Venezuelan energy company, so they seem to be fairly mercenary within certain political boundaries. Likewise Steele, whom they sub-contracted their Trump research to--the FBI offered him $50,000 to continue his Trump research, but he didn't produce anything worthwhile so they didn't actually pay him, reportedly.