Former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo ripped into the media Sunday, accusing journalists of ignoring facts and ethics.
Many reporters, the longtime political consultant argued, won’t write negative stories about controversial political consulting firm Fusion GPS because they’re still getting tips from founder Glenn Simpson.
“They’re leaving things like facts and ethics behind,” Caputo said during an interview with CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”
“For example, we all know now that Dan Jones, whose company is named the Penn Quarter Group, is raising money, according to his own words, up to $50 million to continue investigating the dossier that was the basis of so many things that have gone on so far,” Caputo continued, citing reporting from the Federalist about the infamous dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
But Caputo, who made headlines this week for being combative during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing and for sharing his experience of being interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, slammed news outlets for not following the Jones story more closely.
[Former Dianne Feinstein staffer hired Fusion GPS after 2016 election: Report]
“And I believe they’re not reporting on it because reporters are still getting information from Fusion GPS and we all know, if you write a negative story about Fusion GPS, you never hear from Glenn Simpson again,” Caputo added. “So I think reporters should consider their sources and also report on their sources.”
Fusion GPS hired Steele in June 2016 to investigate connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, resulting in a widely circulated but unverified memo that alleged Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on bed in a hotel room in Moscow where former President Barack Obama once stayed. The effort was partly funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
[Opinion: Golden shower? Trump dossier authors doubt their most explosive allegation]
Simpson has testified before the House and Senate intelligence panels about the firm’s involvement in writing the dossier.
The report provided some of the basis on which the Justice Department and the FBI applied for warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page for their probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
