Posted on 01/18/2018 12:52:22 PM PST by janetjanet998
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180118/106796/HMTG-115-IG00-Transcript-20180118.pdf
The gist of my brief review so far is that Mr. Simpson and his attorneys state that since this a voluntary meeting rather that a meeting where a supoena is involved, Mr. Simpson does not have to answer a lot of “specific” questions from the committee.
MR. ROONEY:...Do you feel like, you know, we — with what you found or what Mr. Steele found that ‘we got to the point where we could conclusilvely say as fact that the
Russian Government and the Trump campaign were colluding with each other to beat Hillary Clinton? Can we make that final step there? Or is that a lot of circumstantial evidence that, you know, one could form an opinion to but never gets beyond the -
MR. SIMPSON: I'm — I mean, as far as I'm concerned, where we are now, as opposed to back then — back then we had what appeared to be credible allegations of some sort of a pattern of surreptitious contacts between the Trump
campaign and Russian people either working for the government or acting on behalf of the Russian Government. As Chris wrote, it was, you know, I think a
wide-ranging conspiracy, was the way he put it.
I think that the evidence that has developed over the last year, since President Trump took office, is that there is a well-established pattern of surreptitious contacts that occurred last year that supports the broad allegation of some sort of an undisclosed political or financial relationship between The Trump Organization and people in Russia. I'm certainly not prepared to say and never wanted to be the person who had to determine whether that's a criminal conspiracy.
Simpson admits that at some point he was briefing the Clinton campaign that information from the Steele dossier was going to the FBI. From pp. 61-62:
MR. ROONEY: Were Perkins Coie, Mark Elias, and the DNC or the Hillary team aware that the dossier was being briefed to intelligence officials or the FBI? Do you know that?
MR. SIMPSON; I’m going to - I can’t talk about communications with my client, but I can give you what I think is a useful answer, which is that we did not.
At least I can tell you about generally what I — what my — what I did. So Chris went and reported this to the Bureau. And he came back and said: I reported this to the Bureau. And we did not ask permission from the client to do that. The client didn’t instruct us to do that. It was — he was — you know, it was viewed as reporting a crime in progress, sort of a citizenship obligation. You know, at some point later on, you know, I think that, as the · questions — I’m not sure how to say this — as the hack attack by the Russians on the Democrats became a major issue in late — later in the year, questions of
whether to engage with the FBI, you know, became more of a general issue.
Q Do you know if he, Mr. Steele, informed the FBI about your relationship, that is, the relationship he had with you and Fusion GPS?
A I don't — my recollection is that he disclosed that he was doing this for a private client, and that he would have disclosed something about who the private
client was. I also don't think, though , that Chris at this time knew the identity of the client. And so initially, at least, he would have been only able to say: . I have a political client, a Democratic client or something like that, which is what I would have told him. So I don't think he was in a position to disclose the identity of the client to the FBI originally.
Q I don't mean the client. I mean you and Fusion GPS.
A I don't know. But probably, because he -
Q Do you know if he did?
A No, I don't. So there was a long period where we didn't hear from them. And then later they got back in touch with Chris and asked for a second meeting.
Q Did the FBI ever reach out to you or Fusion GPS in relation to the matters that Mr. Steele informed them upon?
A No.
Q You've never heard from anyone in the U.S. Government in relation to those matters, either the FBI or the Department of Justice?
A After the election. I mean, during the election, no.
Q What did you hear after and from whom and when?
A I was asked to provide some information to the Justice Department.
Q By whom and when?
A It was by a prosecutor named Bruce Ohr, who was following up. You know, l can't remember when. It was sometime after Thanksgiving, I think.
Q Thanksgiving of 2016?
A Yes.
Q Did Mr. Ohr reach out to you, or how did that shake out? Originally,
A I think Chris - it was someone that Chris Steele knows.
think -
Q I'm sorry. Chris Steele knows who?
A Bruce Ohr.
Q Okay.
A And I met Bruce too through organized crime conferences or something like that. And Chris said he had been - Chris told me that he had been talking to Bruce, that he had told Bruce about what happened, and that Bruce wanted more information, and suggested that I speak with Bruce.
Yes, yes he did. And she was in regular contact with both Steele and people in the DOJ, and maybe even the Clinton campaign.
Both sides were dancing around “Perkins Cole” as the client who would have authorized it's release. Levy, Simpson's attorney did most of the answering here on behalf of Simpson. Simpson stated that Comey’s decision in October to reopen the Clinton email investigation was what prompted the release. Very evident that Fusion/Simpson did not like Trump.
Simpson originally never thought Hillary would lose, and never thought the dossier related info would see the light of day. One could conclude that that this was indeed “insurance”, if needed. And indeed it appears to have been released at the point in the election cycle (right before voting) so as to impact the election.
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