The Uranium One deal comes to mind when considering a possible motive for Putin cronies to help Hillary take down her formidable political opponent…
The “Steele dossier,” a compendium of salacious, unproven claims against President Trump compiled from Russian sources by former UK spy Christopher Steele, sounds to the trained ear a lot like Russian disinformation. Now we’re learning why that might be.
Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS, which was hired by Hillary Clinton to dig up dirt on Trump, suggested in Senate testimony that there may have been some “overlap” between his work for Hillary and his work for a Russian client lobbying the US on behalf of Vladimir Putin.
Shortly after being relieved of her duties as Secretary of State, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton reportedly gave a series of speeches in which she described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “very interesting conversationalist” who she had gotten to know, including a visit to his “private inner sanctum” to discuss wildlife conservation.
Clinton, who approved a deal granting Russia control of 20 percent of America’s uranium assets, has criticized rival Donald Trump for allegedly wanting to “support Putin.”In paid remarks to private groups, Clinton boasted of having a personal relationship with Putin, according to excerpts released by the organization Wikileaks this weekend. Democratic operatives, including vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, have neither confirmed nor denied the authenticity of the Wikileaks document.
Then, she said, Putin invited her to what she described as his “private inner sanctum.”
Earlier that year, Clinton reportedly dismissed the possibility of Putin’s military buildup being a threat to the United States. “I last saw [Putin] in Vladivostok where I represented President Obama in September for the Asia Pacific economic community,” she allegedly said in remarks at Sanford Bernstein. “I sat next to him. He’s an engaging and, you know, very interesting conversationalist.”
“We talked about a lot of issues that were not the hot-button issues between us, you know, his view on missile defense, which we think is misplaced because, you know, we don’t believe that there will be a threat from Russia,” she continued.
Clinton reportedly discussed the possibility of a “more positive” relationship with Putin. –Breitbart
Simpson said that, while he farmed out the dossier to his old pal Steele, he also contributed to the dossier along with a mysterious Russian translator who worked directly with his other client, a Putin crony.
In 2016, Simpson hired Edward Baumgartner, an ex-journalist who shares his disdain for Trump, to work on the Hillary contract. Baumgartner says he has a masters degree in Russian and specializes in consulting “in the former Soviet Union,” where he has offices.
Baumgartner had been working alongside Simpson as a Russian translator for a New York law firm defending a Russian holding company, Prevezon, in a money-laundering suit filed by the US Justice Department in Manhattan. Owned by Denis Katsyv, a Putin-tied oligarch, Prevezon was sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act. Also defending Prevezon was Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who Simpson helped lobby Congress to repeal the Magnitsky Act by attacking William Browder, the banker-turned-human-rights-activist who championed it.
“He speaks Russian,” Simpson said of Baumgartner, after Senate Judiciary Committee staff asked about “subcontractors” he’d hired. “So he would work with the lawyers on gathering Russian language documents, gathering Russian language media reports, talking to witnesses who speak Russian, that sort of thing.” He added Baumgartner also has an “ability to interface with the court system in Russia.”
Simpson told the Senate that Baumgartner helped Steele, who was banned from entering Russia, figure out which hotels Trump stayed in while in Russia and if anyone ever offered him anything while there. But he did that mostly by “reading Russian newspaper accounts and that sort of thing.”
“Was there any overlap between the employees from Fusion who were working on the Trump investigation and the Prevezon case?” he was asked. “I think the primary employees did not overlap, but I can’t tell you that there was a Chinese wall of separation,” Simpson responded, while allowing that “other people” may have contributed “ad hoc” to both cases and that he, too, worked on both. So in other words, “yes.”
Next, Simpson dodged when asked what steps he took to ensure the information unearthed for Prevezon wasn’t shared with the anti-Trump oppo team by saying Baumgartner “didn’t deal with the clients” — i.e. the Clinton campaign. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t share dirt with Steele.
