On Tuesday, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) released a transcript of the Judiciary Committee’s 2017 interview with Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of the firm behind the infamous dossier tying President Donald Trump’s campaign to the Russian government.
Simpson and his co-founder, Peter Fritsch, called for the committee to release their testimony in a New York Times op-ed on January 2nd, to combat rumors that the dossier prompted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. “Republicans have refused to release full transcripts of our firm’s testimony, even as they selectively leak details to media outlets on the far right. It’s time to share what our company told investigators,” they wrote. In the testimony, Simpson told investigators that a source within the Trump Organization had provided the FBI with information that corroborated parts of the dossier. He also disputed the claim that his firm, Fusion GPS, paid journalists to publish salacious material about Trump.
Committee Republicans declined to release the transcript, even after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) recommended that the FBI investigate Christopher Steele, the dossier’s author, for making false statements to federal investigators. A spokesman for Grassley said that Feinstein had released the transcript without the agreement of the committee’s Republican members.
“The American people deserve the opportunity to see what he said and judge for themselves,” Feinstein said in a statement. “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.”
