The group that hired British ex-spy Christopher Steele to put together his Trump-Russia dossier received hundreds of thousands of dollars under the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program.
Records show Bean LLC, the shell parent company for Fusion GPS, which was co-founded by former Wall Street Journal reporters Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, received a loan amount between $350,000 and $1 million, according to ProPublica’s database. The Washington, D.C.-based opposition research firm’s loan was approved on April 14, the money was provided through Trustar Bank, and Fusion GPS claimed it would help retain 15 jobs.
The SBA states that any business “that derives over 50 percent of its gross annual revenue from political or lobbying” activity would be “ineligible” from the coronavirus pandemic loan program. But the New York Times reported that a host of Republican and Democratic lobbying firms, ad makers, and opposition shops received PPP loans totaling in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Among the groups that received the loans were left-wing Media Matters for America, which got between $1 million and $2 million, and the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, which got between $150,000 and $350,000.
Steele’s dossier compiled allegations tying Trump and his associates to Russia and the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential election and beyond.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s lengthy report criticized the Justice Department and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page and for the bureau’s reliance on Steele’s unverified dossier. Steele put his research together at the behest of Fusion GPS, funded by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm.
Declassified footnotes showed the Crossfire Hurricane team was briefed on a document, which assessed that an individual dubbed “Person 1” (a “key Steele sub-source”) was someone with “historical contact with persons and entities suspected of being linked to RIS,” or the Russian Intelligence Services. The document reported that Person 1 “was rumored to be a former KGB/SVR officer.” Further, the declassified footnote shows that in late December 2016, DOJ official Bruce Ohr told “SSA 1,” believed to be FBI agent Joseph Pientka, that he had met with Simpson, who assessed that Person 1 was a “RIS officer” central in connecting Trump to Russia.
The notes also show FBI investigators received information in 2017 “indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele’s election reporting,” seemingly related to the biggest salacious and unverified claims in Steele’s dossier.
Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California has argued that the FBI should have investigated Steele and Fusion GPS over the alleged Russian disinformation.
Dr. Fiona Hill, the former Russia expert for the National Security Council and a key Ukraine impeachment witness, testified last fall during the impeachment investigation that Steele’s dossier was a “rabbit hole” that “very likely” contained Russian disinformation. She also said Steele “could have been played” by the Russians.
Simpson sought to cast doubt on Hill’s claims in November, arguing: “She is not a disinformation specialist, and so she is a Russia specialist in general, she is entitled to her opinion. I know she knows Chris and has worked with him for a long time. So, I am not sure that that is very well understood in that one remark.”
Robby Mook, Clinton’s presidential campaign manager, said in 2017 that he authorized Marc Elias, who heads Perkins Coie’s political law group and was the general counsel for Clinton, to hire an outside firm to dig up dirt on Trump’s connections with Russia in 2016.
Mook said Elias was receiving information from Fusion GPS about the research into Trump and Russia in 2016, and Elias periodically briefed the Clinton campaign.
The FBI told Steele in October 2016 that it was looking into Page as well as Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos, future Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Steele passed along at least some of this to Fusion GPS.
Perkins Coie was paid more than $12 million between 2016 and 2017 for representing Clinton and the DNC. According to Simpson, Fusion GPS was paid $50,000 per month from Perkins Coie, and Fusion GPS paid Steele roughly $168,000.
Businessman Bill Browder has also alleged Fusion GPS acted as an agent for Russian interests in 2016, when Russia was trying to combat the Magnitsky Act and its sanctions on Russian officials. Browder pointed out that Fusion GPS and Simpson began working for Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who would later make headlines for her meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower, in 2014 and provided her with anti-Magnitsky research for years. Veselnitskaya, a former Russian prosecutor, maintained Russian government ties, according to special counsel Robert Mueller, including lobbying against 2016’s expanded Magnitsky Act.
Mueller’s 448-page report, released last April, found the Russians had interfered in the 2016 election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” but “did not establish” any conspiracy between Trump and Russia.
