Thursday, May 24, 2018

Did Putin's pawns help assemble the Trump-smearing dossier?

The "Steele dossier," a compendium of salacious, unproven claims against President Trump compiled from Russian sources by former UK spy Christopher Steele, sounds to the trained ear a lot like Russian disinformation.

Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS, which was hired by Hillary Clinton to dig up dirt on Trump, suggested in Senate testimony that there may have been some "Overlap" between his work for Hillary and his work for a Russian client lobbying the US on behalf of Vladimir Putin.

Simpson said that, while he farmed out the dossier to his old pal Steele, he also contributed to the dossier along with a mysterious Russian translator who worked directly with his other client, a Putin crony.

Baumgartner had been working alongside Simpson as a Russian translator for a New York law firm defending a Russian holding company, Prevezon, in a money-laundering suit filed by the US Justice Department in Manhattan.

Simpson told the Senate that Baumgartner helped Steele, who was banned from entering Russia, figure out which hotels Trump stayed in while in Russia and if anyone ever offered him anything while there.

Simpson dissembled in similar fashion when asked if he talked to Veselnitskaya about her meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, where she lobbied against Magnistky Act sanctions with a come-on about offering dirt on Clinton that never materialized.

Simpson admitted dining with her before and after the meeting and sitting in the Manhattan courthouse with her the morning of the meeting, but he claims he was in the dark about her Trump Tower meeting.

Let's make the implications of this clear: When put under oath, Simpson can't guarantee that a Russian government disinformation campaign - which is precisely what Moscow's attempt to reverse the Magnitsky Act sanctions was - didn't make it into the anti-Trump dossier.

https://nypost.com/2018/01/18/did-putins-pawns-help-assemble-the-trump-smearing-dossier/

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