The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released an interview members had this fall with Glenn Simpson, honcho of Fusion GPS. Much of the questioning involves how, and for whom, the firm commissioned the controversial Trump “dossier” compiled for Fusion by former British spy Christopher Steele. Many questions focused on how the dossier had been spread to media and the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities. For long stretches of the interview, Simpson is eager to list dozens of Russian mobsters and their alleged web of ties to team Trump. What he is much less eager to detail are questionable ties between Fusion and federal officials.
The crucial moment in the interview comes on pages 78 and 79 of the transcript, when Simpson is asked whether he had ever “heard from anyone in the U.S. Government in relation to those matters [the Steele dossier], either the FBI or the Department of Justice?”
“After the election,” Simpson replies. “I mean, during the election, no.”
“What did you hear after and from whom and when?” asks the House interrogator.
“I was asked to provide some information to the Justice Department.
“By whom and when?”
“It was by a prosecutor named Bruce Ohr, who was following up. You know, I can’t remember when. It was sometime after Thanksgiving, I think.”
After getting confirmation that Simpson was talking about Thanksgiving 2016, the questioner asks “Did Mr. Ohr reach out to you, or how did that shake out? Originally.”
“I think Chris—it was someone that Chris Steele knows,” was Simpson’s answer, though he allowed that he had “met Bruce too through organized crime conferences or something like that.” But it was definitely the dossier-man who “suggested that I speak with Bruce.”
After wondering a bit why the FBI hadn’t been vigorous in responding to the dossier when Steele had presented it to them in the summer, and explaining that Steele was alarmed and frustrated by the FBI’s inaction, Simpson explains that “Chris suggested I give some information to Bruce, give him the background to all this. And we eventually met at a coffee shop, and I told him the story.”
But did Simpson tell the House the whole story?
Note that Simpson’s interview with members of the House Intelligence Committee was November 14. It wasn’t until December 11 that it was reported that Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, had worked for Fusion GPS on its Russia investigations during the election. In a court filing on December 12, Simpson acknowledged that “Fusion contracted with Nellie Ohr, a former government official expert in Russian matters, to help our company with its research and analysis of Mr. Trump …”
Which raises the question: When Simpson was asked, back in November, how he came to meet Bruce Ohr, why didn’t he mention the most obvious reason: that Ohr’s wife had been working for Simpson? And not only that, but had been working for Simpson on the very matter that Simpson was meeting her husband about.
As anyone who reads the Simpson testimony will conclude, Simpson is a practiced, smooth, and savvy witness. But there is a fine line between eliding a question by not offering anything that isn’t explicitly asked (as any good lawyer will coach a client who is about to be deposed), and eluding a question that has a clear answer.
