So in 2013, when Elliott Management was creating dossiers on business rivals, including members of their families, Glenn Simpson was employed by Paul Singer.
8\
I’m sure Simpson would say he can’t discuss work he’s done with a client, if he was asked about it.
So we don't know if he was working on this specific case for certain.
But it's certainly no beneath him.
9\
This is nothing out of the ordinary for Singer. If you want to read more about his hardball business practices, here’s an excellent article.
In this clip, the investigative journalist Greg Palast scolds his fellow liberals for giving any credence to the Steele dossier.
Palast reveals that Singer had a dossier created on him.
11\
Singer’s history of authorizing the creation of dossiers on his rivals raises the question how much responsibility does he bear for the Steele dossier
12\
When the Washington Post originally broke the story that the DNC & Clinton campaign paid for the Steele dossier, the paper also revealed that an unknown GOP client funded Fusion’s research during the primaries.
13\
The Free Beacon reported the story as if they had no idea who was Fusion’s original funder.
14\
Goldfarb explained this reporting by claiming that junior editors (“kids”) did not know that The WFB funded Fusion’s original research.
15\
What Goldfarb is describing is a Pyramid of Knowledge: those who know very little are at the bottom and those with the most knowledge are at the top.
16\
Keep in mind that Paul Singer’s preferred candidate in 2016 was Marco Rubio.
17\
During the GOP primaries, Trump bluntly accused Rubio of being subservient to Singer.
18\
So where does Rubio fall on the Pyramid of Knowledge?
Probably not much higher than Goldfarb. I doubt he knows what all Singer knows about the funding, creation and dissemination of the dossier.
19\
And this is problematic for Rubio and the GOPe. I suspect this is the reason Mitch McConnell placed Rubio in his position as acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
20\
McConnell is more concerned with potentially embarrassing one of the top donors to the Republican party than he is getting to the bottom of the Steele dossier.
21\
Here I come to the difficult part of this thread where I have to say some nice things about Adam Schiff. 🤢
22\
As much as I loathe Schiff, I have to admit he proved quite a capable interviewer during Goldfarb’s testimony.
Not only was he prepared, he was also relentless. He understood the Goldfarb’s weak spot and attacked accordingly.
23\
Here Schiff asks Goldfarb if Singer had a separate agreement with Simpson in 2016, separate from The WFB’s agreement.
Of course, he doesn’t know.
Does Rubio know? McConnell?
🤷♂️
24\
Schiff, once again, circles back and asks Goldfarb if Singer and Simpson had a separate agreement.
He is sending a message to the GOPe: how confident are you that Singer is not more involved than is known?
25\
Schiff continues to press Goldfarb by asking him if The Free Beacon shared any information provided by Fusion to a third party.
26\
At this point, Goldfarb’s attorney steps in and objects. Schiff then gets Goldfarb on the record, declining to answer.
27\
Do you think it’s possible the Beacon passed on some of Fusion’s intel to, say NeverTrumpers? Or prominent Republicans?
It’s possible, and Schiff is signaling his willingness to go there
28\
It is often claimed that The WFB stopped paying for Fusion research on Trump in April 2016 and Hillary and the DNC picked up the funding for the research.
29\
Here’s the problem: The Beacon continued to pay Fusion until February 2017.
Goldfarb claims it was for research into Paul Manafort.
30\
31\
Schiff confronted Goldfarb with an invoice for “Russia research” in March 2016.
32\
It’s the stated position of The Beacon that they did not fund Russia research.
But the receipts say otherwise.
33\
As this point, Schiff goes in for the kill.
34\
Schiff presses Goldfarb to name some stories -- any story -- that the Beacon published on the basis of Fusion’s Russia research.
Goldfarb begins flailing and his attorney is forced to step in and call a timeout.
35\
When they return from the break, Goldfarb refuses to answer the question.
36\
Goldfarb can’t name one story that the Beacon wrote based on the information they were paying 5 digit figures for.
Schiff is subtly suggesting is that The Beacon was funding the Steele dossier, whether Goldfarb (middle-man on the Pyramid of Knowledge) realized it or not.
37\
I have to say that “Fusion GPS” is an apt name for Simpson’s research outfit. He appears to take intelligence gained from different investigative streams and fuses them with others as needed.
38\
Now, Simpson denies this in his congressional testimony, specifically when it came up in the case of Natalia Veselnitskaya.
She was part of an investigation from a TOTALLY separate client from DNC/Clinton campaign, he claims. 😏
39\
Schiff’s message is clear: it won’t just be Democrats exposed when we get to the bottom of the Steele dossier.
Does the GOPe want to go there, knowing the Beacon paid Fusion GPS until the dossier was published?
40\
Complicating the matter is Steele’s courtroom testimony that he hoped John McCain would pass his dossier to elite GOP circles, including Marco Rubio.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Russia report gives the most favorably interpretation possible for the GOP.
And it’s not great.
42\
The WFB financed the early stages of the dossier, providing Simpson the material needed to pitch a further investigation funded by the DNC/HRC campaign.
43\
I imagine most people reading this are like me: you want to know the truth, no matter whom it implicates. You spent YEARS waiting for answers or actively trying to find them. Lay it all out there!
44\
But you might need to be prepared that won’t happen. Not if the Senate GOP can prevent it.
END\
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
So Schiff didn't push the issue of the dossier's origin very hard. He allowed Goldfarb to get away with declining to answer a couple of times.
Contrast that with how he handle Eric Prince when Prince refused to answer questions posed to him.
When David Kramer's attorney objected to the request from a Republican congressman to name the sources for the dossier shown to him by Steele, Schiff took a different tone.
Interesting note about Woolsey's publicist: a deleted tweet of his was included in one of my threads. I can no longer find any trace of that tweet on the internet, save my thread. He made an explosive claim, that Woolsey was helping to obtain "recorded" evidence, and a threat.
Christopher Steele admitted in court testimony that it was his hope John McCain would pass the dossier to fellow members of Congress, like, um, Marco Rubio. 🤨
2\
The party line from David Kramer and Glen Simpson has been that the goal was always for McCain to pass the dossier to Comey.
But when confronted by texts in court, Steele admits he didn't want it to go back to the FBI.
3\
Had the dossier made it to Rubio, that would have been am impressive laundering of intel that began as oppo research on his primary opponent.
But we don't know what Steele's motive was for passing it to McCain. It may have been to dirty up as many Republicans as possible.
The most glaring omission from Peter Strzok’s book “Compromised” is any mention of the FARA investigation into George Papadopoulos for his ties to Israel.
Why is this lack of discussion important?
Let’s take a closer look. 🧐
2\
There are 14 mentions of Carter Page compared to 114 mentions of George Papadopoulos in Strzok’s book.
That disparity makes sense when we consider how the Crossfire Hurricane cases were divided up.
3\
We learned from the Strzok/Page texts there were two sides of the house: one side was the PapaD & Flynn investigations supervised by Peter Strzok; the other side, the Carter Page investigation supervised by Jennifer Boone.