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link to dailycaller.com]
President Trump called on the Department of Justice and FBI to reveal who paid opposition research firm Fusion GPS to produce the infamous anti-Trump dossier of research compiled last year by former British spy Christopher Steele.
“Officials behind the now discredited ‘Dossier’ plead the Fifth,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “Justice Department and/or FBI should immediately release who paid for it.”
President Trump called on the Department of Justice and FBI to reveal who paid opposition research firm Fusion GPS to produce the infamous anti-Trump dossier of research compiled last year by former British spy Christopher Steele.
“Officials behind the now discredited ‘Dossier’ plead the Fifth,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “Justice Department and/or FBI should immediately release who paid for it.”
Fusion was working for a Hillary Clinton ally when it began work on the dossier. There have been few clues about who the client might be, and Fusion has resisted all attempts to find out who it is.
It is unclear whether the FBI and Justice Department know who paid Fusion GPS to produce the dossier, which BuzzFeed published on Jan. 10. But the agencies have reportedly used the document as part of the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
Steele, a former MI6 agent, reportedly met with FBI agents last July to provide briefings on his investigation of Trump. And the bureau reportedly struck an informal agreement with Steele last October to pay him to continue his investigation. It is unclear if the retired spy was paid by the FBI for his sleuthing, though there have been reports that he was reimbursed by the bureau for some expenses.
Republican lawmakers have raised questions about the FBI’s involvement with Steele and the dossier, mostly because it is the product of a politically-motivated opposition research campaign. Republicans on the House Intelligence and Senate Judiciary Committees have pressed the FBI and DOJ about whether those agencies vetted the dossier prior to using it as part of its investigation into the Trump campaign.
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