The law firm Perkins Coie, representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, contracted Simpson to continue his investigation into Donald Trump in April 2016.
Now...we know that The Free Beacon had no knowledge of Christopher Steele and the Steele dossier.
Wait.
How do we know that?
Because the publication’s editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti and chairman Michael Goldfarb told us in a press release.
freebeacon.com/uncategorized/…
In Byron York’s article that broke the story of The WFB initialing funding the project, he writes that Russia was NOT a subject of the research, per his sources.
washingtonexaminer.com/washington-fre…
However, that claim is curiously missing from The Free Beacon’s press release.
3 days earlier, The WFB published a story about the revelation that the HRC campaign and the DNC funded the research behind the Steele dossier.
Unknown GOP client?
Hello.
THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON FUNDED THE INITIAL RESEARCH!
The article is a significant breach of journalistic ethics.
It also established an early pattern of deflecting from The WFB’s role in the creation of the Steele dossier.
So, who are the people behind The Washington Free Beacon?
The WFB was established in 2012 by the conservative advocacy group, Center for American Freedom (CAF). The center does not reveal the identity of its donors.
On the board of the CAP is the ubiquitous Bill Kristol.
I don’t believe there’s any need to waste time on Kristol’s credibility -- he has none.
It’s truly amazing that a man known as “the Architect of the Iraq War” is still taken seriously by anyone.
But, alas, Bill has friends in high places...so we’re stuck with him.
One of his rich friends is billionaire hedge-fund manager and GOP mega-donor Paul Singer.
Investigative journalist Greg Palast, a dye-in-the-wool leftist, writes that progressive shouldn’t rejoice over the use of the Steele dossier by the FBI because Singer has a dossier on him.
The collection and dissemination of “salacious and unverifiable” information is his MO.
gregpalast.com/steele-dossier…
In 2015 & 16, Singer employed the tactic in the US presidential race.
gregpalast.com/steele-dossier…
In addition to a couple of published books, Continetti’s work has appeared in numerous newspapers.
He’s a regular contributor to establishment conservative publications, including The Weekly Standard and National Review.
Of importance for this discussion is an article that appeared in National Review on October 10, 2015.
The publication date falls within the time frame when The Washington Free Beacon first contracted Fusion GPS.
nationalreview.com/2015/10/vladim…
Continetti was awfully passionate about Putin in October 2015. Are we to believe he was not interested in oppo research about Trump’s ties to Russia?
Goldfarb’s got his start in the world of political skulduggery at Bill Kristol’s the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and The Weekly Standard.
In 2008, Goldfarb was named deputy communications director for the McCain presidential campaign.
He joined forces with swampy Randy Scheunemann to create the lobbying firm, Orion Strategies.
The firm lobbied for Georgia in 2008.
blogs.britannica.com/2008/08/john-m…
The Koch brothers hired Goldfarb to help improve their image.
Apparently the way he went about it was to intimidate and harass journalists who wrote negative stories about them.
(see also Jane Meyer’s “Dark Money”)
Goldfarb was a key player in the Bill Kristol-lead attempt to defeat the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense in 2012.
Good article to learn how the McCain Republicans conduct a smear campaign.
slate.com/news-and-polit…
One conservative journalist called him “the shadiest person on the right.”
That quite a statement, considering some of the grifters and fake-news pushers on the right.
newrepublic.com/article/100970…
Now that we have an idea of the character of the people behind The Washington Free Beacon, in the next part we’ll take a closer look at the timeline.