A former staffer for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., hired the same firm that assembled the infamous “Trump dossier” to push a narrative that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in order to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
The Federalist on Friday drew attention to a declassified House Intelligence Committee report showing that Daniel Jones, a former intelligence committee staffer for Feinstein, hired Fusion GPS and ex-British spy Christopher Steele, the author of a widely circulated, unverified report that said Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on bed in a hotel room in Russia where former President Barack Obama once stayed.
Jones, who now works for an investigative organization called the Penn Quarter Group, told the FBI last year that he hired Fusion GPS and Steele to “continue exposing Russian interference” in the 2016 election. It also said he told the FBI he raised $50 million from “7 to 10 wealthy donors located primarily in New York and California.”
The congressional report, released Friday with redactions, stated that Jones “planned to share the information he obtained with policymakers on Capitol Hill and with the press, and also offered to provide PQG’s entire holdings to the FBI.”
The Federalist report says the biographical details in the report make it clear that it is about Jones, even though his name is redacted.
Feinstein is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is investigating Fusion GPS. She released a transcript from Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, without disclosing the relationship of her former staffer during the investigation.
