California Sen. Dianne Feinstein yesterday released the transcript of the Judiciary Committee's interview with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, the company that created the now infamous Steele dossier, to the dismay of her Republican colleagues.
Feinstein, the top-ranking Democrat of the Judiciary Committee, released a statement yesterday saying, “The innuendo and misinformation circulating about the transcript are part of a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice. The only way to set the record straight is to make the transcript public.”
Simpson’s testimony confirms a New York Times report that the FBI began investigating the Trump campaign’s connection to Russia after Trump aide George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that the Russian’s had dirt on Hillary Clinton, and not after the release of the damaging dossier.
In the testimony, Simpson states that Christopher Steele, the investigator behind the dossier, was brought in to be questioned by the FBI and was told the information he obtained was credible “because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing and one of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump organization.”
“The biggest takeaway from the testimony is, of course, the FBI statement that we’ve got other stuff," said national security expert Juliette Kayyem said during an interview with Boston Public Radio Wednesday. "We are already on this, and the Steele dossier just actually compliments some of their investigation work.”
Kayyem found the FBI’s confirmation of Steele’s suspicions to be “scary,” making the parts of his dossier about Russian blackmail more believable and likely.
“Everything is now on Mueller,” she said.
To listen to the interview in its entirety, click on the audio player above.
