Fusion GPS - Opposition To Government's Motion To Compel - April 26, 2022

Case 1:21-cr-00582-CRC Document 103 Filed 04/26/22 Page 1 of 25
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v. Criminal Case No. 21-582 (CRC)

MICHAEL A. SUSSMANN,
Defendant.
NON-PARTY FUSION GPS’S OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT’S MOTION TO

COMPEL THE PRODUCTION OF PURPORTED PRIVILEGED COMMUNICATIONS
FOR IN CAMERA INSPECTION BY THE COURT
Non-party Fusion GPS (“Fusion”) began responding to the Government’s Grand Jury
subpoena almost one year ago, withholding certain documents protected by the attorney-client
privilege and work product protections because they are related to its work at the direction of the
law firm Perkins Coie. Now, mere weeks before trial, the Government for the first time “raise[s]
questions concerning the validity, scope, and extent of [those] privilege assertions” before this
Court. Mot. at 1. The Government, however, fails to set forth a valid basis for its request to
compel in camera inspection of these documents by this Court.
The Court should dismiss this Motion as procedurally improper for the reasons set forth in
the Defendant’s opposition. The Court should also dismiss the Government’s eleventh-hour
attempt to pierce the privilege of non-parties over documents that the Government has not even
attempted to show are relevant to the Indictment.
Finally, the Court should deny the motion for in camera inspection of the documents
because it is evident based on the facts and the privilege log that the documents have properly been
withheld on grounds of privilege and attorney work product, so there is an insufficient showing to
1
justify the use of judicial resources to review the individual documents. N.L.R.B. v. Jackson Hosp.
Corp., 257 F.R.D. 302, 307 (D.D.C. 2009).
The Government has long been aware that Fusion’s work for the law firm Perkins Coie is
privileged. In April 2016, Fusion was retained by then-partner Marc Elias at Perkins Coie LLP to
assist in providing legal advice to its clients, the Hillary for America Campaign Committee, Inc.
(“HFA”) and the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”), during the 2016 presidential
campaign. Elias retained Fusion expressly to support his legal advice related to “defamation, libel,
and similar laws in which accuracy is an essential element,” and the retention specifically
contemplated the need for such advice for potential and ongoing litigation that could emerge
against Perkins’ clients based on their public statements about then-candidate Trump. Elias Decl.
¶ 11.1 Elias had a subjectively (and objectively) reasonable concern about Mr. Trump’s
litigiousness given his numerous threats of and actual litigation against his critics. Levy Decl. ¶
19; Elias Decl. 5–7. Indeed, that concern was prescient, with Mr. Trump having recently launched
litigation seeking tens of millions of dollars against every interested party here (including Fusion,
Perkins, DNC, HFA, Mr. Sussmann, Mr. Elias, Mr. Joffe and scores of others), and Alfa Bank
embarking on scorched-earth tactics against these parties and others (before it voluntarily
withdrew its claims following the significant sanctions against it related to Russia’s conduct in the
Ukraine). See, e.g., Trump v. Clinton, No. 2:22-cv-14102 (S.D. Fla. 2022); AO Alfa-Bank v. John
Doe, Case No. 2021 CA 000683 2 (D.C. Super. Ct. 2021); AO Alfa-Bank v. John Doe, Case No.
50-2020-CA-006304-XXXX-MB (Fla. Circuit Ct. 2020); AO Alfa-Bank v. John Doe, Case No.
CI-20-04003 (Pa. Ct. Comm. Pl. 2020).
1
HFA and DNC have concurrently moved to file the declarations of Marc Elias, John Podesta,
and Robby Mook with the Court. These declarations will be referred to as “Elias Decl.,”
“Podesta Decl.,” and “Mook Decl.,” respectively.
2
The Government attempts to characterize Fusion’s work as opposition research and media
outreach, rather than privileged investigative work and analysis. But it is not a binary choice
between opposition research or privileged investigative work protected by the attorney work
product doctrine. In navigating highly sensitive and complex facts related to an opposition
candidate who was famously litigious, Elias retained Fusion on behalf of Perkins to assist as an
expert investigative consultant, following a well-established path repeatedly endorsed and
accepted by numerous courts, by which expert consultants can assist counsel. In these situations,
the consultant’s work is treated as an extension of counsel’s work—and thus subject to privilege
and work product protections. See United States v. Nobles, 422 U.S. 225, 238–39 (1975) (work-
product protection extends to attorney’s “investigators”); United States v. Kovel, 296 F.2d 918,
922 (2d Cir. 1961) (extending attorney-client privilege to include accounting firm retained by
attorney). The Government’s attempt to argue for broad subject-matter waiver of this privilege,
without pointing either to any specific disclosure of privileged communications by the privilege
holders, or to a rationale for imposing broad waiver on the basis of any purported limited
disclosures, should not be countenanced. Fusion has continuously asserted and maintained
privilege claims at the direction of the privilege holders over documents and testimony regarding
the work that Fusion performed for Perkins in 2016.
The Government also misses the mark with respect to communications between Rodney
Joffe, Fusion employee Laura Seago, and the Defendant Michael Sussmann, who was Joffe’s
attorney. Communications between Seago and Joffe were part of Fusion’s protected investigative
work and thus are protected work product. Moreover, the clients—HFA, DNC, and Joffe—had a
shared interest in determining the legal risks and implications associated with potentially explosive
3
information related to Mr. Trump. All parties have consistently treated their communications as
privileged and confidential, and so no privilege has been waived.
The Government has failed to show that Fusion’s claims of privilege are deficient or that
the documents properly listed in Fusion’s privilege log warrant in camera review. Accordingly,
and for the reasons explained more fully below, the Court should deny the Government’s Motion.
BACKGROUND
I. Fusion’s Role in Assisting Perkins Coie’s Provision of Legal Advice During the 2016
Campaign
In April 2015, the law firm Perkins Coie was retained by HFA, the principal campaign
committee of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, to serve as its General
Counsel. Elias Decl. ¶ 3; Mook Decl. ¶ 3. Marc Elias, then a partner at Perkins Coie, served as
the client lead for HFA and held the campaign title General Counsel. Id. The terms of this
engagement included, among other things, “legal counseling and representation of [HFA] in
connection to its legal affairs, including Federal Election Commission and other regulatory
requirements and general organizational and compliance matters.” Id. Elias also served as outside
General Counsel for the DNC from 2009 until September 2021. Elias Decl. ¶ 4. This engagement
included legal counseling and representation of DNC in connection with Federal Election
Commission and other regulatory requirements and general organizational and compliance
matters. Id. Perkins Coie—like many firms who serve as counsel for political committees—
routinely advised HFA and DNC on client advertisements and public statements both before and
after publication to ensure compliance with applicable campaign finance, defamation, copyright,
and political broadcasting laws, rules, and regulations. Elias Decl. ¶ 5.
By April 2016, it was clear that Donald Trump would be the Republican Presidential
nominee. Mr. Trump had a complex business and litigation history that was and would continue
4
to be subject to intense media scrutiny.2 Mr. Trump also had a history of being litigious, of which
Mr. Elias was well aware.3 Mr. Trump, in fact, had already threatened to sue numerous, diverse
parties for statements and advertisements made during the 2016 election cycle.4 Moreover, as the
presidential campaign heated up, it was publicly reported that DNC had been hacked by Russia,
and that stolen materials were being publicly disseminated in a manner that appeared to assist then-
candidate Trump. Elias Decl. ¶ 13. Then-candidate Trump was also calling for Russia to take
action to release Clinton’s emails.5 Elias understood the litigation risk from statements made by
HFA and DNC about Mr. Trump was real and that he would need to be prepared to advise them
on such issues as they emerged in the campaign. See Elias Decl. ¶¶ 11–12, 16; see also Mook
Decl. ¶ 6.
While both DNC and HFA had their own internal research and communications staff, Elias
Decl. ¶ 8, Elias needed an expert consultant with expertise in obtaining and evaluating public
record documents to assist him in providing legal advice. Elias Decl. ¶ 10–12; Levy Decl. Ex. 1
2
See, e.g., Levy Decl. Ex. 1 at 18 (Elias HPSCI Interview Transcript) (Elias stating Trump “had
a history of being quite litigious”); Elias Decl. ¶ 6–7.
3
See, e.g., Levy Decl. Ex. 2 (Donald Trump Settled a Real Estate Lawsuit, and a Criminal Case
Was Closed, N. Y. TIMES) (Apr. 5, 2016); Levy Decl. Ex. 3 (Trump Suit Claiming Defamation
Is Dismissed, N.Y. TIMES) (July 15, 2009) (detailing Mr. Trump’s defamation suit against
author reporting his wealth was only “$150 million to $250 million,” not billions).
4
See, e.g., Levy Decl. Ex. 4 (Donald Trump Threatens to Sue Club for Growth Over Ad
Campaign, N.Y. TIMES) (Sep. 22, 2015) (discussing letter send by Mr. Trump’s lawyer over
ads asserting Trump would raise taxes); Levy Decl. Ex. 5 (Trump lawsuit aims to set record
straight on where he slept in Las Vegas, LAS VEGAS SUN) (Oct. 29, 2015) (describing Mr.
Trump’s lawsuit over a flyer about where Trump slept during a campaign stop); Levy Decl.
Ex. 6 (Trump threatens top Bush donor with defamation suit over ‘hater’ ads, POLITICO) (Dec.
7, 2015) (outlining letter sent by Mr. Trump's lawyer over ads which called Mr. Trump a
"hater" and "narcissistic [bully]"); Levy Decl. Ex. 7 (Exclusive: Trump’s 3,500 lawsuits
unprecedented for a presidential nominee, USA TODAY) (June 1, 2016) (reporting that Mr.
Trump or one of his organizations had filed 1,900 lawsuits as of mid-2016).
5
See, e.g., Levy Decl. Ex. 8 (Donald Trump Calls on Russia to Find Hillary Clinton’s Missing
Emails, N.Y. TIMES (July 27, 2016)).
5
at 21–22. In April 2016, Elias retained Fusion on behalf of Perkins for the express purpose of
obtaining expert consultant services to aid in the “provision of legal advice” related to “defamation,
libel, and similar laws in which accuracy is an essential legal element.” Mot. Ex. C at 1; Elias Decl.
¶ 11. The engagement specifically contemplated Fusion’s role of providing “public record
information and strategy” to Perkins Coie such that it could advise its clients on potential and
actual litigation, which in the course of the 2016 campaign involved advertisements and statements
regarding then-candidate Donald Trump. Mot. Ex. C; see also Elias Decl. ¶ 11.
Law firms regularly hire investigative firms such as Fusion in anticipation of litigation and
in furtherance of providing legal advice.6 Elias served as the primary point of contact for Fusion,
and he provided direction on the research and information he needed to provide legal advice to
HFA and DNC. Elias Decl. ¶ 12. He oversaw Fusion’s work and was in regular contact with
Fusion throughout the engagement. See Levy Decl. Ex. 1 at 46–52 (Elias “would tell Fusion GPS
what to explore in their investigation” and engaged Fusion “to help [him] be smarter so that there
was information [he] could pass along to the client, some of which would be distilled and
incorporated into other judgments [he] had about legal issues.” Id. (Elias communicated with
Fusion “weekly,” on average).
II. Fusion’s Response to the Government’s Grand Jury Subpoenas
On September 16, 2021, the Government indicted Defendant Michael Sussmann on a
single count of making a materially false statement to the Government. In particular, the
Government alleges that Sussmann “stated to the General Counsel of the FBI that he was not acting
6
As Fusion’s co-founder, Glenn Simpson, stated under oath, Fusion’s clients were mostly
“corporate clients and banks and large law firms,” including work regarding “high-dollar
litigation”—and its typical engagements were not for election-related purposes. Levy Decl.
Ex. 9 at 6–7.
6
on behalf of any client in conveying particular allegations concerning a Presidential candidate,
when in truth, and in fact, . . . he was acting on behalf of specific clients.” Indictment ¶ 46.
In March and July 2021, the Government served grand jury subpoenas on Fusion,
requesting materials related to the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations, use of certain Russian phones by
Mr. Trump or affiliated individuals, and documents related to Fusion’s retention by DNC and
HFA. Mot. at 3. As the Government concedes, Fusion complied with the subpoenas and produced
documents on a rolling basis.7 On April 22, 2021, August 26, 2021, January 10, 2022, and March
11, 2022, Fusion also produced privilege logs of withheld, responsive documents that were
protected by the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product protection. Levy Decl. ¶¶ 17–
18. The majority of the documents at issue in the Government’s Motion were identified in
privilege logs by August 2021; the Government has also been in possession of the Perkins Coie-
Fusion engagement letter since June 18, 2021.
Almost a year after Fusion’s initial production, the Government moves to compel review
of the Perkins-Fusion engagement letter and 38 emails and attachments listed on Fusion’s privilege
log—produced in response to a grand jury subpoena—in an explicit attempt to use these materials
for trial evidence. The Court should deny the Government’s eleventh-hour Motion to further
burden Fusion and other non-party privilege holders on whose behalf Fusion asserted privilege
claims.
7
In addition to Fusion, Perkins Coie, HFA, DNC and others also received grand jury subpoenas,
with which they complied by producing responsive non-privileged documents and privilege
logs. See, e.g., Non-Party Perkins Coie’s Response to Government’s Motion to Compel.
7
LEGAL STANDARD
“[W]hen a grand jury issues a valid subpoena for documents, they must be produced unless
protected by a recognized privilege.” In re Sealed Case, 676 F.2d 793, 807 (D.C. Cir. 1982).8 If
the documents are privileged, “they need not be produced unless the privileged relation from which
they derive was entered into or used for corrupt purposes or unless an ‘objective consideration’ of
fairness requires disclosure to prevent undue manipulation of the privilege.” Id. at 807–08. Where
in camera inspection is requested, the Court need not use scarce judicial resources to review
individual documents if from the facts and the privilege log there is a sufficient basis for finding
that the documents were properly withheld on grounds of privilege. Jackson Hosp. Corp., 257
F.R.D. at 307. And “[c]aution and the need to eliminate even the potential for prejudice to the
holder of the privilege, require that in camera inspection never be any greater than absolutely
necessary.” Id.
ARGUMENT
The documents the Government seeks to compel were created as part of the work Fusion
performed in support of Perkins’s legal representation of HFA and DNC, which is protected by
both work-product protection and the attorney-client privilege. The government has made no
showing that in camera review of these privileged documents is “absolutely necessary.” Jackson
Hosp. Corp., 257 F.R.D. at 307.
I. Fusion’s Work for Perkins is Protected by the Attorney Work Product Doctrine
The work-product doctrine protects material prepared by an attorney’s “investigators and
other agents,” if prepared in anticipation of litigation. U.S. v. Nobles, 422 U.S. 225, 238–39 (1975).
8
Fusion joins in the arguments in Mr. Sussmann’s brief that the Government’s motion is
procedurally improper.
8
Work product encompasses both the “opinions, judgments, and thought processes” of attorneys
and their agents—such as documents containing analysis of law or fact—as well as facts and other
materials obtained or prepared by counsel or their agents. In re Sealed Case, 676 F.2d 793, 809–
10 (D.C. Cir. 1982); see also Alexander v. F.B.I., 198 F.R.D. 306, 313 (D.D.C. 2000) (notes made
from witness interviews are protected work product). The work-product doctrine applies if, in
light of the “factual situation in the particular case,” the information “can fairly be said to have
been prepared or obtained because of the prospect of litigation.” United States v. Deloitte LLP,
610 F.3d 129, 137 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (quotation omitted). The party asserting protection over
information “must have ‘had a subjective belief that litigation was a real possibility,’ and that belief
must have been ‘objectively reasonable.’” Nat’l Ass’n of Crim. Def. Lawyers v. Dep’t of Justice
Exec. Office for U.S. Att’ys, 844 F.3d 246, 251 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (quoting In re Sealed Case, 146
F.3d 881, 884 (D.C. Cir. 1998)). The Government challenges the privilege claims made over all
38 documents in Exhibit A. Because Fusion’s work for Perkins in 2016, reflected in the documents
at issue, was undertaken because of an objectively reasonable belief that litigation was a real
possibility, and such work would not have occurred if not for that anticipated litigation, the
privilege claims over the logged documents are valid.
A. Fusion’s Work is Protected by the Work-Product Doctrine Because Perkins

Reasonably Anticipated Litigation.
The Government does not argue (nor could it) that Elias did not reasonably anticipate that
statements by HFA and DNC during the 2016 election campaign regarding then-candidate Trump
might result in defamation-like claims or other litigation. See Elias Decl. ¶¶ 6, 12, 17–18. It is
well-established that counsel need not have a specific case in mind, so long as there is a reasonable
anticipation of future litigation. See, e.g., In re Sealed Case, 676 F.2d 793, 809 (D.C. Cir. 1982)
(work product protection attaches “provided that the work was done with an eye toward litigation”
9
(quotation omitted)). Indeed, as the D.C. Circuit has recognized, “[i]t is often prior to the
emergence of specific claims that lawyers are best equipped either to help clients avoid litigation
or to strengthen available defenses should litigation occur.” In re Sealed Case, 146 F.3d at 886
(emphasis added). Much like in In re Sealed Case, where the D.C. Circuit upheld a work-product
claim by an attorney advising the Republican National Committee with respect to a politically
charged financial transaction, in 2016 there was “intense focus” and “public criticism,” id.,
regarding Mr. Trump’s various prior litigations and known litigiousness, as well as regarding a
potential relationship with Russia and other financial entanglements. It was therefore “objectively
reasonable” for Perkins, on behalf of HFA and DNC, to anticipate the legal need to understand the
factual accuracy of these issues, in anticipation of potential litigation arising from their statements
regarding Mr. Trump, generally, as well as specifically with regard to information regarding
alleged links to Russia.
B. Fusion’s Work Was Performed in the Anticipation of Litigation.
Elias retained Fusion because of these well-founded concerns. Elias Decl. ¶¶ 6–7,11. The
“primary object,” In re Sealed Case, 146 F.3d at 884, of Fusion’s engagement and work at the
direction of Elias, was assisting Perkins in protecting its clients in anticipated litigation. E.g., Mot.
Ex. C at 1; Elias Decl. ¶ 12; Levy Decl. Ex. 1 at 46 (Elias provided legal advice, including whether
allegations made in a campaign ad “may run afoul or run the risk of civil litigation” and he engaged
Fusion to provide information that would be “incorporated into [his] judgments . . . about legal
issues”).
Fusion’s relationship with Perkins in 2016 confirms that Fusion’s work was not to generate
opposition research materials for public dissemination, Mot. at 6, but rather to provide
investigative services in support of Perkins’s representation of HFA and DNC. Elias Decl. ¶ 12.
Importantly, both HFA and DNC maintained their own separate, large research staffs whose
10
responsibility was to research then-candidate Trump. Elias Decl. ¶ 8. In contrast, Elias engaged
Fusion and he was Fusion’s point of contact for its work; Elias directed Fusion’s work to research
and investigate highly sensitive issues about which the campaigns might make public statements,
anticipating litigation could ensue. See Elias Decl. ¶¶ 11–12. The withheld documents and
internal communications at issue are squarely within the “zone of privacy” afforded to Fusion,
Perkins’s investigative agent, and its analysis related to then-candidate Trump. Nat’l Ass’n of
Crim. Def. Lawyers, 844 F.3d at 251 (work product protection provides attorneys and agents “with
a ‘zone of privacy’ within which to think, plan, weigh facts and evidence, candidly evaluate a
client’s case, and prepare legal theories”); Nobles, 422 U.S. at 238 (work-product doctrine protects
internal communications and “material prepared by agents for the attorney”).
That Fusion or its subcontractor communicated with reporters generally regarding the
allegations that Mr. Trump was secretly communicating with a Russian bank, Mot. at 13, does not
render the investigative analysis it conducted non-work product, just as the public filing of a legal
brief (or an interview on the courthouse steps) does not mean a lawyer’s confidential advice to a
client or internal files suddenly lose their protection. Cf. Alexander v. F.B.I., 198 F.R.D. 306, 315
(D.D.C. 2000) (“It cannot be the law that a subsequent [communication], inspired by confidential
communications but not revealing any confidential information, would waive privilege.”). The
Government’s reliance on public, non-privileged actions by Fusion, such as communicating with
reporters about facts surfaced in its investigation, to argue that none of its work is privileged, Mot.
11–13, is misplaced. As the D.C. Circuit has instructed, “material generated in anticipation of
litigation may also be used for ordinary business purposes without losing its protected status,” and
work product can “serve[] multiple purposes, so long as the protected material was prepared
because of the prospect of litigation.” Deloitte LLP, 610 F.3d at 138.
11
Fusion was operating as an investigative researcher to help Elias provide legal advice, not
as HFA or DNC’s opposition researcher, and the evidence demonstrates the unique role it played.
See, e.g., Elias Decl. ¶¶ 11–12. That Fusion’s investigative work may have involved research
regarding an opposition candidate does not mean that it was not done to assist Perkins in providing
legal services and advice to its clients. To deny work-product protection in this case would
discourage lawyers from engaging experts needed to provide effective legal advice in complex
matters, all of which is “critical to effective legal thinking”––particularly in representing political
candidates who, unfortunately, must operate in an atmosphere of legal peril. In re Sealed Case,
146 F.3d at 886 (citing Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 511 (1947)).
C. The Government Has Not Made the Necessary Showing to Overcome Work
Product Protection.
Where a party seeks to overcome work product protection, it must show either that “it has
a substantial need for the materials to prepare its case and cannot, without undue hardship obtain
their substantial equivalent by other means” for fact work product, or make an “extraordinary
showing of necessity” to obtain opinion work product. F.T.C. v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharms.,
Inc., 778 F.3d 142, 153 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (quotations omitted). The Government has attempted to
do neither. In support of its need for the documents, the Government simply states that it
“otherwise might seek to admit [the withheld documents] at trial,” Mot. at 2, and that it hopes to
“establish[] the appropriate bounds of trial testimony,” id. at 21. This is plainly insufficient under
even the less-stringent test for fact work product.
A “moving party’s burden is generally met if it demonstrates that the materials are relevant
to the case, the materials have a unique value apart from those already in the movant’s possession,
and ‘special circumstances’ excuse the movant’s failure to obtain the requested materials itself.”
Boehringer Ingelheim Pharms., 778 F.3d at 155. The Government has not even attempted to show
12
that the documents at issue are relevant to its indictment of Mr. Sussmann for lying to the
Government about whether he was representing a client when he met with the FBI General Counsel
on September 19, 2016. Indeed, 19 of the documents post-date the meeting at issue. See Mot. Ex.
A rows 12–30. Nor has the Government attempted to show that these privileged documents “have
a unique value apart from” documents already in its possession. The Government fails to argue
why it believes that (1) the privileged, withheld documents will provide it with information
supporting its charge—that Sussmann lied about who he was representing in a meeting with the
FBI—or that (2) it does not already have sufficient evidence to establish what such privileged
documents purportedly would show. Accordingly, the Government has shown neither a
substantial need nor undue hardship for the withheld materials, and its bid to overcome work-
product protection should be denied.
II. Fusion’s Work for Perkins is Also Protected by the Attorney-Client Privilege
The documents the Government seeks to compel fall well within the bounds of attorney
work-product protection. However, the Government’s arguments against applying the Kovel
doctrine to Fusion’s work also fail, because the purpose of Perkins’s engagement with Fusion was
to facilitate the provision of legal advice to its clients. The attorney-client privilege protects
“confidential communication between attorney and client, including by and to non-attorneys
serving as agents of attorneys,” if made “for the purpose of obtaining or providing legal advice to
the client.” In re Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc. (“KBR”), 756 F.3d 754, 757 (D.C. Cir. 2014). Under
Kovel and its progeny, the attorney-client privilege extends to communications by third parties that
an attorney hires to facilitate “the effective consultation between the client and the lawyer.” Kovel,
296 F.2d at 922.
Attorney-client privilege can also attach to “reports of third parties made at the request of
the attorney or the client where the purpose of the report was to put in usable form information
13
obtained from the client.” F.T.C. TRW, Inc., 628 F.2d 207, 212 (D.C. Cir. 1980). As the D.C.
Circuit recognized in adopting the Kovel doctrine, the doctrine helps “to preserve the effectiveness
of counsel in our legal system,” by allowing counsel to address increasingly complicated factual
issues that arise in the course of legal practice. Id. Courts have applied the Kovel doctrine to a
wide range of non-lawyers who assist counsel in providing legal services, “such as investigators,
interviewers, technical experts, accountants, physicians, patent agents, and other specialists in a
variety of social and physical sciences.” Gucci Am., Inc. v. Guess?, Inc., 271 F.R.D. 58, 71
(S.D.N.Y. 2010) (quotation omitted). Importantly, legal advice need not be the only purpose for
communications to nonetheless be protected by the attorney-client privilege: so long as “obtaining
or providing legal advice was one of the significant purposes” of the communications, the attorney-
client privilege applies. See KBR, 756 F.3d at 760.
Here, the information that Fusion was hired to investigate was complicated, particularly as
it related to Russian connections to Mr. Trump, including but not limited to the DNS allegations
involving the Trump Organization and Alfa. This work was being done against the backdrop that
the DNC and at least one other democratic organization had been hacked by Russia—that is Russia
or entities working at its direction had infiltrated their servers and/or computers and stolen
voluminous materials. Elias Decl. ¶ 13. Elias could not, without the assistance of expert
investigative analysis, understand the complex information that Fusion was hired to investigate.
See, e.g., Levy Decl. Ex. 1 at 22 (Elias hired Fusion “to be able to adequately understand th[e]
scope” of Trump’s entanglements “and be able to digest that and help make legal judgments that
would be relevant” to his clients). And without understanding the factual accuracy of such
material, Elias could not effectively provide legal advice to HFA and DNC regarding the legal
implications, including with regard to “the legal risks of speaking publicly,” involving highly
14
complex and sensitive information that was developing in the course of the 2016 Presidential
campaign. In re Grand Jury Subpoenas Dated March 24, 2003, 265 F. Supp. 2d 321, 330
(S.D.N.Y. 2003) (protecting PR firm communications under Kovel and explaining that advising
clients in legal jeopardy regarding their public statements was one of “the[] most fundamental
client functions” performed by lawyers).
The cases relied on by the Government (at 14) are inapposite. In Calvin Klein Trademark
Trust v. Wachner, 198 F.R.D. 53 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), and Blumenthal v. Drudge, 186 F.R.D. 236
(D.D.C. 1999), the court found that Kovel was inapplicable because the consultants whose
documents were at issue were hired for the benefit of their own services “as opposed to enabling
counsel to understand aspects of the client’s own communications that could not otherwise be
appreciated in the rendering of legal advice.” Calvin Klein, 198 F.R.D. at 55. Here, by contrast,
Fusion has shown that its work was crucial to assisting Elias in understanding the facts and
assessing the legal implications of HFA and DNC’s possible statements regarding Mr. Trump and
others. See Elias Decl. ¶ 12, 16–17. Fusion’s engagement was explicitly for the purpose of
supporting the legal advice Perkins was providing to HFA and DNC “related to defamation, libel
and similar laws in which accuracy is an essential legal element.” Elias Decl. ¶ 11. Far from
“simply providing ordinary public relations advice,” Fusion’s investigative work enabled Elias to
understand the legal implications of communications from HFA and DNC and advise them
accordingly. See Elias Decl. ¶ 12. Moreover, courts have held that the privilege protects
consultants advising lawyers on matters other than information received directly from the client
such as “the state of public opinion in a community” or the impact of juror backgrounds. In re
Grand Jury Subpoenas, 265 F. Supp. 2d at 326.
15
The Government’s argument (at 10) that providing such advice was outside the scope of
Perkins’s engagements with HFA and DNC shows a misunderstanding of the role of legal advisers
to political campaigns; providing this sort of legal advice to political clients is routine. Elias Decl.
¶ 5. Moreover, the argument that Fusion was conducting opposition research is beside the point.
It is no different from saying that the accounting firm in Kovel was doing accounting work, not
legal work. The question is not what work Fusion was doing, but whether Perkins, the attorney,
was using it in furtherance of legal advice to its clients. Fusion has established that its work—
whatever label is given to it—was to assist Perkins’s provision of legal advice to its clients. See
Elias Decl. ¶ 11–12; 17–18. Fusion has therefore properly withheld the documents at issue
pursuant to attorney-client privilege.
III. There Has Been No Waiver
The Government also argues in conclusory fashion that “even if a valid privilege did exist,”
“any such privilege might since have been waived” by (1) Fusion employees publishing a book
about the 2016 election, (2) Christopher Steele’s testimony in a foreign legal proceeding, (3)
meetings between Fusion and Steele and reporters, and (4) a meeting between Steele and the FBI.
Mot. at 15; see also id. at 11–13. But courts have repeatedly held that public disclosure does not
“warrant[] a broad court-imposed subject matter waiver” over all internal communications on the
same subject matter, and that any waiver should not be “broaden[ed] . . . beyond those matters
actually revealed.” In re von Bulow, 828 F.2d 94, 103 (2d Cir. 1987); see also In re Sealed Case,
676 F.2d at 809 n.54 (“Courts . . . retain discretion not to impose full waiver as to all
communications made on the same subject matter where the client has merely disclosed a
communication to a third party as opposed to making some use of it.”); Long v. Motion Picture
Ass’n of Am., 2021 WL 5446278, at *6 (D.D.C. Nov. 22, 2021) (the court has the discretion to
define subject-matter waiver narrowly); see also Fed. R. Evid. 502(a) (“waiver extends to an
16
undisclosed communication or information . . . only if (1) the waiver is intentional; (2) the
disclosed and undisclosed communications or information concern the same subject matter; and
(3) they ought in fairness to be considered together”). The Government also fails to identify a
single instance in which the client authorized a disclosure of the information, which is necessary
to find waiver. See Nat’l Sec. Counselors v. CIA, 969 F.3d 406, 411–12 (D.C. Cir. 2020). The
Government’s attempt to argue for wholesale waiver of all privilege claims is extreme and
unsupported, and the Court should reject it.
Moreover, even with regard to the supposed non-client disclosures the Government raises,
it has not shown that these alleged disclosures in fact disclosed privileged materials or
communications, a threshold requirement for waiver. In re Sealed Case, 676 F.2d at 818 (waiver
occurs “[w]hen a party reveals part of a privileged communication in order to gain an advantage
in litigation” (emphasis added)). First, the Government points to Crime in Progress, a book
published by two Fusion principals, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch. Mot. at 15. The
Government contends that the book “describes in considerable detail [Fusion’s] internal
discussions and deliberations, including conversations with Campaign Lawyer-1.” Id. However,
the Government cites only two passages, neither of which discloses privileged information: The
first passage details a meeting with Elias before he engaged Fusion—i.e., prior to the privileged
relationship. Id. The second passage relied on by the Government to argue for broad subject-
matter waiver provides further detail on Steele’s meetings with reporters and other third parties,
but does not disclose any privileged information or communications.9 The Government does not
9
Moreover, the “notes on sources” section of Crime in Progress states: “The nature of our
engagement with the law firm Perkins Coie prevents us from recounting our communications
after we were retained. We described one meeting with Marc Elias that occurred before we
were hired. Perkins has not released us from our obligations to keep our communications
(Cont’d on next page)
17
point to a specific disclosure of privileged information in Crime in Progress; relying
indiscriminately on a 368-page book does not suffice to show a disclosure of privileged
information or support a broad waiver. See In re von Bulow, 828 F.2d at 102 (holding that
“extrajudicial disclosure [in a book] of an attorney-client communication—one not subsequently
used by the client in a judicial proceeding to his adversary’s prejudice—does not waive the
privilege as to the undisclosed portions of the communication”).
Second, the Government details meetings and communications between Christopher Steele
and Fusion and reporters. Mot. at 11–13. The Government argues vaguely that Steele and Fusion
“communicated” about their “ongoing work” and “share[d] information” from their work but does
not allege or show that any specific privileged information or communications—as opposed to
non-privileged facts—were shared with these reporters. Indeed, in the “[m]ost relevant”
communication the Government points to, a Fusion employee tells a reporter to report on the Alfa
Bank story. Id. at 12–13 (“do the [expletive] [Russian Bank-1] secret comms story”). The
Government does not explain how this email, or any of Fusion or Steele’s communications with
reporters, discloses any privileged information whatsoever.
Third, the Government points to a meeting between Christopher Steele and the FBI in
which Steele “shared purported intelligence that he had collected” one month after being retained
by Fusion. Mot. at 11. Other than temporal proximity, the Government does not contend that
Steele was working solely with Fusion, or that he shared privileged information or
communications at all, let alone that he shared privileged information or communications obtained
in the course of his work with Fusion. Because the Government failed to show that these purported
confidential, nor have other clients.” Glenn Simpson & Peter Fritsch, Crime in Progress 284
(2019); see Levy Decl. ¶ 14.
18
disclosures actually disclosed privileged information, they cannot provide the basis for subject-
matter waiver.10
Even if the Government has shown the disclosure of privileged information or
communications, its subject-matter waiver claim still fails because only clients can waive attorney-
client privilege, and the Government has not pointed to any waiver of any type—let alone broad
subject-matter waiver—by the clients. None of the alleged disclosures—communications by
Fusion and Steele with the media, Fritsch and Simpson’s book, Steele’s meetings with the FBI,
and Steele’s U.K. testimony—involve any communication or waiver by any client.11 It is
“axiomatic that the attorney-client privilege is held by the client,” and therefore an attorney or
agent’s disclosure “is not treated as a waiver of the privilege.” Nat’l Sec. Counselors, 969 F.3d at
411–12 (quotations omitted). Similarly, while the ability to protect work product extends to both
clients and attorneys, and the client and attorney can waive it, each can do so “only as to himself.”
In re Doe, 662 F.3d 1074, 1079 (4th Cir. 1983). Neither HFA nor DNC ever authorized Fusion,
its employees, or Steele to waive privilege. See, e.g., Podesta Decl. ¶ 4. The Government cites no
10
It is not clear whether the Government contends that Sussmann providing a non-privileged
white paper to the FBI waived privilege over all internal drafts and communications related to
that white paper, nor is it clear whether the white paper discussed by the Government is related
to the documents in Exhibit A. See Mot. at 9–10. Regardless, it is black letter law that public
disclosure of a final product, like a filing, does not waive privilege over the privileged
communications and work product that led to the creation of the final product. See, e.g., Cause
of Action Institute v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 330 F. Supp. 3d 336, 350 (D.D.C. 2018) (“Drafts
of documents that are prepared with the assistance of counsel for release to a third party are
protected under attorney-client privilege . . . even if the final draft is ultimately disclosed to a
third party.” (internal quotation omitted)); W. Trails, Inc. v. Camp Coast to Coast, Inc., 139
F.R.D. 4, 14 (D.D.C. 1991) (where communications “relating to preliminary drafts” of
documents were intended to be kept confidential, those drafts are “protected under the
attorney-client privilege”).
11
In any event, Steele met with the FBI in July 2016 on his own to discuss what he had learned,
without the knowledge or authorization of the privilege holders to disclose privileged
information or otherwise waive the privilege.
19
evidence to show any voluntary disclosure of—or authorization of the disclosure of—privileged
communications or documents by the clients, and so no waiver could have occurred either as to
protected work product or communications protected by the attorney-client privilege.
Finally, the Government makes no showing that anyone (client or otherwise) made
selective disclosures of privileged information “to gain an advantage” in the underlying litigation,
as needed to make a finding that subject matter waiver occurred. In re Sealed Case, 676 F.2d at
818. The Government relies on purported disclosures made by Fusion and Steele that were not
made as part of this or any other litigation where the privilege holders sought “to use the disclosed
material for advantage in the litigation but to invoke the privilege to deny [their] adversary access
to additional materials that could provide an important context for proper understanding of the
privileged materials.” US Airline Pilots Ass’n v. Pension Ben. Guar. Corp., 274 F.R.D. 28, 32
(D.D.C. 2011) (quotation omitted). The Government has not shown that these purported
disclosures are at all related to the documents in Exhibit A, let alone that this is one of the “unusual
situations in which fairness requires a further disclosure of related, protected information.”
Hughes v. Abell, 2012 WL 13054819, at *3 (D.D.C. Mar. 7, 2012) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 502
explanatory note) (emphasis added).
The Government’s reliance on United States v. All Assets Held at Bank Julius Baer & Co.,
315 F.R.D. 103 (D.D.C. 2016), is thus unavailing. In that case, the claimant argued that his request
for a private letter ruling (“PLR Request”) from the IRS should not be disclosed to the government
in an in rem asset forfeiture action. Id. at 105–106. The claimant contended that the PLR Request
(an inquiry regarding a taxpayer’s status) constituted opinion work product, and that disclosure to
the IRS did not waive work-product protection because the IRS was not his “adversary.” Id. at
106. The Court found that the claimant had waived protection over the PLR Request because he
20
disclosed the document to the IRS, “the very entity with whom he anticipated litigation.” Id. at
114. The Government does not argue here that any disclosures by the clients were made of
protected material to potential adversaries in litigation. “And because [work product protection]
looks to the vitality of the adversary system rather than simply seeking to preserve confidentiality,
the work product privilege is not automatically waived by any disclosure to a third party.” In re
Sealed Case, 676 F.2d at 809.
The Government argues for broad subject matter waiver but fails to address all of the case
law holding that “the disclosure of privileged work-product information does not extend to other
privileged information merely because they pertain to the [same] subject matter.” Trs. of Elec.
Workers Local 26, 266 F.R.D. 1, 15 (D.D.C. 2010) (citing In re United Mine Workers of Am. Empl.
Benefit Plans Litig., 159 F.R.D. 307, 311 (D.D.C. 1994)); see also Williams & Connolly v. S.E.C.,
662 F.3d 1240, 1244 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (Disclosure “of some [work product] does not necessarily
destroy” protection for all work product “of the same character” (quotation omitted)). There is no
reason for this Court to entertain broad subject-matter waiver of privilege claims by non-parties at
this stage.
IV. Ms. Seago’s Communications with Mr. Joffe are Privileged
The Government’s arguments regarding communications between Ms. Laura Seago, a
Fusion employee, and Mr. Rodney Joffe are also erroneous. The Government moves to compel
review of four emails and four attachments to those emails. The four emails between Ms. Seago,
Mr. Joffe, and Mr. Sussmann are all expressly marked as “Privileged Client/Attorney
Communication” in their subject lines. Ex. A. at 3. The Government argues that, based on entries
in Fusion’s privilege log, “it does not appear that the[] emails solely between Tech Executive-1
and the Investigative Firm Witness reflect confidential communications” and that “[a]ny
confidentiality that Tech Executive-1 might have otherwise maintained” over communications
21
with Sussmann “was waived when he and the defendant chose to disclose such information to a
third party that did not have any formal or informal contract or retention agreement with Tech
Executive-1.” Mot. at 19–20.
As explained above, however, Ms. Seago’s communications with Mr. Joffe were part of
Fusion’s investigative work in anticipation of litigation and in support of Perkins’s provision of
legal advice to HFA and DNC. See supra pp. 8–13; Nobles, 422 U.S. at 238–39. Thus,
communications between Ms. Seago and Mr. Joffe are no different from other investigative work
by Fusion protected from disclosure under the work-product doctrine, and the Government does
not address why, even if the attorney-client privilege does not apply, the work-product doctrine
would not protect these communications.
Furthermore, communications between Ms. Seago and Mr. Joffe are protected under the
common interest rule. Under that rule, individuals may share information with persons who share
a common interest (as was the case here) without waiving the attorney-client privilege if “(1) the
disclosure is made due to actual or anticipated litigation; (2) for the purpose of furthering a
common interest; and (3) the disclosure is made in a manner not inconsistent with maintaining
confidentiality against adverse parties.” Holland v. Island Creek Corp., 885 F. Supp. 4, 6 (D.D.C.
1995). Common-interest protection does not, as the Government insinuates, depend on the
existence of a joint-defense agreement. Mot. at 6–7. It has long been held that “‘common interests’
should not be construed as narrowly limited to co-parties.” United States v. Am. Tel. & Telegraph
Co., 642 F.2d 1285, 1299 (D.C. Cir. 1980); cf. Deloitte LLP, 610 F.3d at 141 (“reasonable
expectation of confidentiality may derive from common litigation interests” or may be “rooted in
a confidentiality agreement or similar arrangement”). The litigation risk associated with the
Trump-Alfa Bank allegations was obvious, and Mr. Joffe, HFA, and DNC all had common legal
22
interests in understanding the factual accuracy of that information and legal implications of
speaking about it. See Elias Decl. ¶¶ 14–18. Courts in this circuit have generally interpreted
common interest protection broadly, holding that “[s]o long as transferor and transferee anticipate
litigation against a common adversary on the same issue or issues, they have strong common
interests in sharing” privileged information. Am. Tel. & Telegraph Co., 642 F.2d at 1299.
Moreover, any disclosure of privileged information between Fusion and Mr. Joffe was consistent
with maintaining confidentiality with Mr. Joffe—all parties have consistently maintained their
privilege claims over the communications between the parties and have not disclosed them to any
possible adversaries, including the Government.12 Where, as here, all parties to communications
treat those communications as privileged and confidential and have a reasonable basis to believe
that the recipients of disclosed information will keep it confidential, it is not dispositive of the
privileged nature of those communications that the parties understood them to be privileged on
different bases. HFA, DNC, and Fusion had shared interests in preparing for possible litigation
based on the explosive information regarding Mr. Trump, even if the parties understood Fusion’s
role differently. Accordingly, Fusion properly asserted privilege regarding Ms. Seago’s
communications involving Mr. Joffe and/or Mr. Sussmann.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Fusion respectfully requests that the Court deny the
Government’s Motion to Compel.
12
The Government’s allegation that Fusion employees “shared information gained through”
communications with Mr. Joffe “with others, including various members of the media,” Mot.
at 21, is unsupported, and in any event untethered to the documents at issue in the
Government’s motion.
23
Respectfully submitted,
Dated: April 18, 2022
/s/ Joshua A. Levy

Joshua A. Levy (D.C. Bar No. 475108)
Rachel M. Clattenburg (D.C. Bar No. 1018164)
Kevin P. Crenny (D.C. Bar No. 1765044)
LEVY FIRESTONE MUSE LLP
1701 K St. NW, Suite 350
Washington, DC 20006
Tel: (202) 845-3215
Fax: (202) 595-8253
jal@levyfirestone.com
rmc@levyfirestone.com
eas@levyfirestone.com
Counsel for Non-Party Fusion GPS
24
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I HEREBY CERTIFY that on April 26, 2022, I electronically filed the foregoing
Opposition and accompanying Declaration and Exhibits using the CM/ECF System, which serves
a copy on all counsel of record.
/s/ Joshua A. Levy

Joshua A. Levy
Case 1:21-cr-00582-CRC Document 103-1 Filed 04/26/22 Page 1 of 8
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v. Criminal Case No. 21-582 (CRC)

MICHAEL A. SUSSMANN,
Defendant.
DECLARATION OF JOSHUA A. LEVY
I, Joshua A. Levy, declare under penalty of perjury as follows:
1. I am a partner with the law firm of Levy Firestone Muse LLP, 900 17th Street NW,
Suite 1200, Washington, DC, 20006, attorney for Bean LLC d/b/a Fusion GPS and a member in
good standing of the bar of the District of Columbia.
2. I submit this declaration in support of Fusion GPS’s Response in Opposition to the
Government’s Motion to Compel (Dkt. No. 64). I am familiar with all of the facts and
circumstances set forth herein.
3. Attached as Exhibit 1 is a true and correct copy of Marc Elias’s testimony before
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on December 13, 2017.
4. Attached as Exhibit 2 is a true and correct copy of the news article Mike McIntire,
Donald Trump Settled a Real Estate Lawsuit, and a Criminal Case Was Closed, N. Y. TIMES (Apr.
5, 2016), available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/politics/donald-trump-soho-
settlement.html.
5. Attached as Exhibit 3 is a true and correct copy of the news article Peter Goodman,
Trump Suit Claiming Defamation Is Dismissed, N.Y. TIMES (July 15, 2009), available at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/business/media/16trump.html.
6. Attached as Exhibit 4 is a true and correct copy of the news article Alan Rappeport,
Donald Trump Threatens to Sue Club for Growth Over Ad Campaign, N.Y. Times (Sep. 22, 2015),
available at: https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/09/22/donald-trump-threatens-to-
sue-club-for-growth-over-ad-campaign/.
7. Attached as Exhibit 5 is a true and correct copy of the news article Kimberly
Pierceall, Trump lawsuit aims to set record straight on where he slept in Las Vegas, Las Vegas
Sun (Oct. 29, 2015), available at: https://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/oct/29/trump-lawsuit-aims-
to-set-record-straight-on-where/.
8. Attached as Exhibit 6 is a true and correct copy of the news article Marc Caputo,
Trump threatens top Bush donor with defamation suit over ‘hater’ ads, Politico (Dec. 7, 2015),
available at: https://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/trump-threatens-mike-fernandez-
defamation-216496.
9. Attached as Exhibit 7 is a true and correct copy of the news article Nick
Penzenstadler and Susan Page, Exclusive: Trump’s 3,500 lawsuits unprecedented for a
presidential nominee, USA Today (Jun. 1, 2016), available at:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/01/donald-trump-lawsuits-
legal-battles/84995854/.
10. Attached as Exhibit 8 is a true and correct copy of the news article Ashley Parker
and David E. Sanger, Donald Trump Calls on Russia to Find Hillary Clinton’s Missing Emails,
N.Y. Times (July 27, 2016), available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald
-trump-russia-clinton-emails.html.
11. Attached as Exhibit 9 is a true and correct copy of Glenn Simpson’s testimony
before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Nov. 14, 2017.
2
12. Attached as Exhibit 10 is a true and correct copy of an excerpt from Glenn Simpson
and Peter Fritsch’s book Crime in Progress explaining that the book does not address their work
or communication with Perkins Coie, because those communications remain confidential.
13. On March 15, 2021, Andrew DeFilippis of the Special Counsel’s Office (“SCO”)
sent an email to me stating that he understands I represent Fusion GPS and asked for a phone call.
This communication was the first that Fusion GPS or its counsel had received from the Special
Counsel’s office. On March 16, 2021, co-counsel for Fusion GPS and I participated in a phone call
with Mr. DeFilippis and other SCO attorneys and investigators, including Special Counsel John
Durham. On that call, Mr. DeFilippis indicated an interest in seeking documents and testimony
from Fusion GPS related to the Alfa server communications. I explained that Fusion GPS would
like to cooperate with the investigation, while protecting any implicated privileges that privilege
holders had been claiming over Fusion GPS’ work in parallel proceedings dating back to the spring
of 2017. The SCO attorneys, including Mr. Durham, raised a number of questions about the
legitimacy of the privileges claimed, and counsel for Fusion GPS suggested that a conversation
about these privileges in the abstract was impractical and reiterated the company’s intention to
cooperate with the investigation.
14. On March 22, 2021, the SCO served a grand jury subpoena on Fusion GPS for
documents related to the Alfa server communications, and I accepted service of the subpoena on
behalf of Fusion GPS.
15. On April 22, 2021, Fusion GPS produced documents in response to the subpoena.
On April 22, 2021, August 26, 2021 and January 10, 2022, Fusion GPS, at the direction of counsel
for the privilege holders, produced privilege logs in response to the same subpoena.
3
16. On July 9, 2021, the SCO served a second grand jury subpoena for documents on
Fusion GPS. This subpoena sought a broad spectrum of documents related to Fusion GPS’s
research conducted during the 2016 US election and its communications in 2016 and 2017 related
to that research. On August 26, 2021, October 1, 2021, November 3, 2021, December 14, 2021
and March 11, 2022, Fusion GPS produced documents in response to this subpoena. Also on
March 11, 2022, Fusion GPS produced a privilege log in response to this subpoena.
17. The privilege claims asserted in the privilege logs were made at the direction of the
privilege holders on whose behalf Perkins engaged and tasked Fusion GPS.
18. Perkins represented the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”) and the Hillary
for America Campaign Committee, Inc. (“HFACC”) in connection with the 2016 presidential
election.
19. For attorneys representing political entities, like Perkins, research firms such as
Fusion can assist lawyers in assessing both their own clients’ vulnerabilities and those of their
clients’ political opponents. Lawyers often require these services to properly serve their clients —
including in the context of current or anticipated legal proceedings. For example, attorneys in this
space often rely on research findings from sub-vendors when performing legal review of public
communications to confirm that there is an adequate factual basis for any claims or allegations, so
their client does not run the risk of civil litigation.
20. That is why Perkins retained Fusion GPS in 2016. To assist Perkins in its legal
representation of its clients––and explicitly anticipating potential litigation against HFACC and
DNC, including related to defamation, libel and similar laws in which accuracy is an essential legal
element, based on public statements they might make regarding then-candidate Trump. Perkins
formally engaged Fusion GPS through a written engagement letter on April 11, 2016 to provide
4
investigative expertise. Fusion GPS’s services in support of Perkins’ provision of legal advice to
its clients, including for potential and ongoing litigation, included review and analysis of publicly
available records and compiling and assessing information gathered by its subcontractors.
21. On June 18, 2021, at the direction of the privilege holders, Fusion GPS produced a
redacted version of its engagement letter with Perkins. It is attached as Exhibit C to the
Government’s Motion to Compel. The letter clearly states that Fusion GPS was contracted by
Perkins to: “a) Provide public record information and strategy to aid PC in the provision of legal
services, including potential and actual litigation, to Specific Clients; [and] b) Perform such other
services that PC may, from time to time, request in support of legal services provided to Specific
Clients.”
22. Fusion GPS’s expertise included extensive knowledge regarding, among other
things, Russia, the Kremlin, foreign interference in United States elections, Russian organized
crime, Russian oligarchs and their relationships with Putin and the Kremlin, Russian lobbying and
public relations activities in the United States. These issues, as related to then-candidate Trump,
were central to Fusion’s work.
23. As envisioned in the Perkins-Fusion GPS engagement letter, Fusion GPS utilized
its knowledge and expertise with respect to both Russia and then-candidate Trump, as well its open
source research and experience analyzing research material, including technically complex data,
to assist Perkins in providing legal advice, in anticipation of litigation, to the DNC and HFACC
during the 2016 election cycle.
24. Perkins’s anticipation of election-related litigation was subjectively held and
objectively reasonable. By the time that Perkins had retained Fusion GPS, it was clear that (1)
Donald Trump would be the Republican Presidential nominee; (2) his complex business and
5
litigation history was and would be the subject of intense media scrutiny; (3) Perkins’ clients,
HFACC and the DNC, would need to be prepared to respond to such issues as they emerged in the
campaign; and (4) litigation risk from such statements was real, particularly given Donald Trump’s
history of defamation lawsuits against critics. See, e.g., Ex. 7, Nick Penzenstadler and Susan Page,
Exclusive: Trump’s 3,500 lawsuits unprecedented for a presidential nominee, USA Today (Jun. 1,
2016), available at: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/01/
donald-trump-lawsuits-legal-battles/84995854/ (reporting at least 3,430 lawsuits involving Trump
were publicly filed prior to 2015; at least 70 had been filed after Trump announced his candidacy
for President).
25. When the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the U.S. House of
Representatives asked lead Perkins attorney Marc Elias to explain the services Fusion GPS
provided to Perkins in 2016, Elias testified under oath that:
I was providing legal services for the [Hillary for America] campaign. For me to provide those
services I needed expertise and access to information, public record. … I believe Donald
Trump has been involved in 7,000 lawsuits. … I don’t think I’ve ever been involved with a
client of any kind in the political arena where you’re talking about that volume of litigation. .
. . So in order for me to be able to adequately understand that scope and be able to digest that
and help make legal judgments that would be relevant to my client, I thought it would be
helpful to have a consultant. . . .[Fusion GPS] seemed to have a general understanding of the
breadth of his business holdings, his financial holdings, and the kinds of litigation he had been
involved in. … And that was valuable when I was evaluating hiring them or hiring someone
else, because Mr. Trump was not a typical candidate. If Mr. Trump had been in Congress for
20 years and had been on the Appropriations Committee, maybe I would have hired a former
Appropriations Committee person who could explain to me how the appropriations process
used to work when there were earmarks, something I wouldn’t otherwise be familiar with, but
which might be useful. . . . Each client presents and needs a different set of legal skills and a
different set of consultants to help me provide those legal skills.
Ex. 1, Executive Session, House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
115th Congress (2017) (Testimony of Marc Elias at 21-22).
6
26. Throughout the course of Fusion GPS’s work for Perkins, Perkins was in regular
contact with Fusion, including standing calls for updates on Fusion’s investigative work on behalf
of Perkins, in furtherance of Perkins’s representation of HFACC and DNC.
27. HFACC and DNC, through Perkins, have continued to assert protection over
privileged materials even after the engagement of Fusion ended prior to the November 8, 2016
Presidential election.
28. Accordingly, the documents withheld by Fusion GPS would reveal privileged and
confidential research and analysis that Fusion performed at the overall direction and on behalf of
Perkins related to, among other things, purported DNS communications between Alfa Bank and
the Trump Organization, and confidential communications regarding the same. Fusion conducted
that analysis and communication for the purpose and in furtherance of Perkins’s provision of legal
advice to its clients concerning, among other things, litigation risks facing those clients and/or
other individuals and entities during the 2016 election cycle.
29. In 2019, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, two of Fusion GPS’s owners, published
a book called Crime in Progress. Prior to publishing the book, the privilege holders did not
authorize Mr. Simpson, Mr. Fritsch, or Fusion GPS to waive privilege or disclose privileged
material in that book or anywhere else. Mr. Simpson and Mr. Fritsch were careful not to disclose
privileged material and stated, in the book: “The nature of our engagement with the law firm
Perkins Coie prevents us from recounting our communications after we were retained. We
described one meeting with Marc Elias that occurred before we were hired. Perkins has not
released us from our obligations to keep our communications confidential, nor have other clients.”
Ex. 10, GLENN SIMPSON AND PETER FRITSCH, CRIME IN PROGRESS, 284 (2019).
7
30. During the course of 2021, the SCO e-mailed counsel for Fusion GPS with
questions about the privileges asserted and held several phone calls with counsel for Fusion GPS
regarding the same. In the summer of 2021, counsel for Fusion GPS ultimately referred the SCO
to counsel for the privilege holders, who did not authorize Fusion GPS to waive privilege.
31. At no time has any privilege holder authorized Fusion GPS or anyone at Fusion
GPS to waive privilege. Fusion GPS and its officers and employees have asserted and maintained
these privilege claims since 2016 in parallel proceedings, and no court has overturned those
privileges.
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my
knowledge and abilities.
Executed on: April 18, 2022 /s/ Joshua A. Levy

Joshua A. Levy
8
Exhibit 1
1
UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSITIVE
EXECUTIVE SESSlON
PERIVIANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WASHINGTON, D.C.
INTERVIEW OF: MARC ELIAS
Wednesday, December 13, 2A17
Washington, D.C.
The interview in the above matter was held in Room HVC-304, the Capitol,
commencing at 2:07 p.m.
Present: Representatives Ros-Lehtinen, Wenstrup, Gowdy, Schiff, Himes,
UNCLASSIFTED, COMMITTEE SENSfTIVE
PROPERTY OF THE LINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

2
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
Carson, Speier, Quigley, Swalwell, Castro, and Heck
UNCLASSfFIED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE
PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

3
Appearances:
For the PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON TNTELLTGENCE:
For MARC ELIAS:
KATHRYN H. RUEMMLER, ESQ.
555 ELEVENTH STREET, N.W., SUITE lOOO
WASHINGTON, DC 2OOO4-1 304
NICHOLAS MCQUAID, ESQ.
885 TH|RD AVENUE (AT 53RD STREET)
NEW YORK, NY 10022-4834
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE

4
Good afternoon all. Thanks very much. Sorry for the
delay. This is a transcribed interview of Marc Elias.

Thanks for being with us todaY.
Forthe record, t"rII counselforthe House Permanent
Select Committee on lntelligence, for the majority here. Also present are other
members and staff present who witl identify themselves during the course of the
proceedings.
Before we begin, ljust wanted to state a few things for the record.
The questioning will be conducted by members and staff. During the
course of this interview members and staff may ask questions during their allotted
time period. Some questions may seem basic, but that is because we need to
clearly establish facts and underStand the situation.

please do not assume we know any facts you have previously disclosed as
part of any other investigation or review.
This interview will be conducted at the unclassified level.
During the course of this interview, we will take any breaks that you desire.
But we do ask that you give complete and fulsome replies to all questions based
on your best recollections.
lf a question is unclear or you're uncertain in your response, please let us
know. And if you do not know the answer to a question or can't remember, simply
say so.
You are entitled to have counsel present for you during this interview, and I
see that you've brought them with you today.
At this time, if counsel could please state their names for the record.
UNCLASS]FTED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE
PROPERTY OF THE TINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

5
For being with us today.
MS. RUEMMLER: Kathryn Ruemuller, from Lathan and Watkins, on behalf
of the witness.
MR. MCQUAID: And Nick McQuaid. I'm from Lathan and watkins, arso
on behalf of the witness.
Thank you
The interview will be transcribed. There is a reporter making a record of
these proceedings so we can easily consult a written compilation of your answers.
Because the reporter cannot record gestures, we ask that you answer all
questions verbally. lf you forget to do this, you might be reminded to do so. you
may also be asked to spell certain terms or unusual phrases.
Consistent with the committee's rules of procedure, you and your counsel,
upon request, will have an opportunity to inspect the transcript of this interview in
order to determine whether your answers were correctly transcribed
The transcript will remain in the committee's custody. And the committee
also reserves also the right to request your return for additional questions should
the need arise.
The process for the interview will be as follows. The majority will be given
45 minutes to ask questions, then minority will be given 45 minutes to ask

questions, after which time the majority will be given 15 minutes to ask questions
and the minority will be given 15 minutes to ask questions. These 1s-minute
rounds will continue until both sides have completed their questioning.
These time limits will be adhered to by all sides. Time will be kept for each
portion of the interview with warnings given at the 5- and 1-minute mark,
respectively.
UNCLASS]FIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE

6
UNCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
To ensure confidentiality, we ask that you do not discuss the interview with
anyone other than your attorneYs.

you're reminded that it is unlawfulto deliberately provide false information
to Members of Congress or staff.
And lastly, the record will reflect that you are voluntarily participating in this
interview, which will be under oath.
Mr. Elias, could raise your right hand to be sworn?
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
MR. ELIAS: ldo.
Thank you very much. Just a reminder, make sure the
microphone is on at alltimes.
MR. ELIAS: I have it on
Thanks very much
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gowdy, over to you for any opening remarks'
MR. GOWDY: I have none.
Over to you for any oPening remarks
MR. SCHIFF: lwelcome you to the committee and appreciate you being
here
MR. ELIAS: I'm happy to be here.
MS. RUEMMLER: And I do have a few if you don't mind,I

Please
MS. RUEMMLER: There are a couple of things that I wanted to state for
the record before we Start, given that Mr. Elias is an attorney and as we
understand it is here in his capacity as an attorney in connection with work that he
PROPERTY OF THE T]NITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

7
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE
did on behalf of clients.
As we explained in our letter to Mr. conaway on November 2gth, the
committee majority's request seeks confidential information about Mr. Elias'work
on behalf of his clients. We expect that the questions today will request similar
information and we wanted to address this issue before we begin.
while Mr. Elias is committed to cooperating with the committee and

providing information pertinent to the committee's investigation, his ability to do so
is limited by his ethical obligation to protect client confidences under the D.C. Bar
Rules of Professional Conduct.
It has long been recognized that the attorney-client privilege is an ancient
cornerstone of our legal system and seryes an important public interest in
protecting communications between attorneys and their clients.
D.c. Rules of Professional conduct, Rule 1.6, by which Mr. Erias is bound,
makes clear that a client has a reasonable expectation that information relating to
the client will not be disclosed by their tawyer, and that any such disclosure can
only be compelled in accordance with recognized exceptions to the attorney-client
privilege and work product doctrine.
Furthermore, under Rule 1.6, when a lawyer is cailed as a witness to give
testimony concerning a client, a lawyer must invoke the privilege when it is
applicable, absent waiver by the client.
we have conferred with Mr. Elias's clients, Hillary for America and the
Democratic National committee, and they have not waived the privilege with
respect to Mr. Elias' testimony today.
As a result, and consistent with these ethical obligations, Mr. Erias is
obligated not to answer any questions from the committee that intrude upon client
UNCLASSIFfED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE

8
confidences and this sacrosanct relationship been the attorney and the client'
ln light of these important considerations, we had asked the committee
majority to consider a process where we could have discussed the committee's
questions in detail beforehand sb we could have determined whether there was
areas of inquiry that could be answered without intruding into the attorney-client
and work product privileges. The committee majority refused to engage in that
process, and thus we'll be forced to determine on a question-by-question basis
whether or not Mr. Elias is permitted to answer.
Thank you
Mr. Elias, do you have any opening comments?
MR. ELIAS: No, other than I obviously want the committee to get to the
bottom of any Russian interference in the U.S. elections, as I know all of you do.
But as counsel said, there are restraints placed on me as an attorney, which I'm
sure those of you in the room who are attorneys are sensitive to and aware of,
so --
MR. PATEL: Thank You very much.
Mr. GowdY.
MR. GOWDY: I willstart and I will let Dr. Wenstrup.
Welcome.
Who do you consider your client to be? Who did you consider your client
to be?
MR. ELIAS: I'm sorry, I have a lot of clients.
MR. GOWDY: Well, with respect to this specific fact pattern, DNC and
Hillary for America, are those the only two?
MR. ELIAS: I guess I'm not -- I'm not trying to be dense. I represent the
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UNCLASSIFTED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
DNC and I represent Hillary for America. So they are clients.
MR. GowDY: well, I'm not trying to be dense either. your client made
reference to the privilege belongs to the client and not to you. And I was
wondering who we would go ask for a waiver.
MR. ELIAS: oh, sorry. Now I understand, yes. The Democratic National
Committee and Hillary for America.
MR. GowDY: okay. where do you currenily work? How about we start
there?
MR. ELIAS: I'm a partner at the law firm perkins coie in washington.
MR. GOWDY: How long have you been there?
MR. ELIAS: I started there as a summer associate in the summer of 1g92
and then I joined as an associate after graduation in 1993.
MR. GOWDY: And what's your practice area?
MR. ELIAS: Broadly speaking, political law. I represent candidates,
parties, outside organizations, corporations that want to be involved in the political
process.
MR. GOWDY: Who at the DNC did you deatwith?
MR. ELIAS: During which time period?
MR. GOWDY: Any time period.
MR. ELIAS: Since the beginning of my practice --
MR. GOWDY: How about we start with 2015?
MR. ELIAS: Okay. In 2015, I had a number of contacts at the DNC. you
know, it would number in the dozens.
MR. GOWDY: Well, why don't we start with whoever would be able to
provide you the waiver so you can answer all of our questions. Who would we go

10
to there?
MR. ELIAS: So I think it would be the current DNC, right, because the
privilege belongs to - belongs to the organization.
MR. GOWDY: So that would be Tom Perez.
MR. ELIAS: That would be the chairman of the DNC, the executive
director, and presumably the other officers of the DNC.
MR. GOWDY: And can you attach a name with those different positions
for me?
MR. ELIAS: Well, Tom Perez is the chair. Jessica o'connell is the
executive director.
l'm embarrassed to say I don't know all the officers. lt's public information,
the vice chairs of the committee and the officers. I'm happy to get that for you'
It's, I think, on their website, all the officers.
MR. GOWDY: Who is Tom Perez's predecessor?
MR. ELIAS: His immediate predecessor was Donna Brazille, and his
predecessor before that was Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz'
MR. GOWDY: How did you come to hire Fusion GPS?
MR. ELIAS: I came to hire them - they approached me and indicated that
they might be a good fit for doing work to support the legal efforts of my clients.
MR. GOWDY: When you say they approached me, who is "they"?
MR. ELIAS: They were Peter Fritsch and Glenn Simpson.
MR. GOWDY: To the best of your recollection, what precisely did they tell
you?
MR. ELIAS: TheY told me that -

MS. RUEMMLER: Just to clarify, this is prior to his engagement with them
PROPERTY OF THE LTNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

77
MR. GOWDY: I didn't think you considered them to be one of your clients.
I didn't hear that in the list. So if they're not a client, is there a privilege that would
be associated with what they told you?
MS. RUEMMLER: Yes.
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: What privilege would that be?
MS. RUEMMLER: lt would be a combination of the attorney-client and
work product. Fusion GPS was hired by Perkins Coie as a consultant to assist
Mr. Elias in providing legal advice to the campaign. So like any other -
MR. GOWDY: Well, then Perkins Coie would be the client, not the lawyer.
MS. RUEMMLER: Perkins Coie retained Fusion to --
lVlR. GOWDY: Right.
MS. RUEMMLER: -- assist it through -

MR. GOWDY: So is your position you cannot tell me what Fusion GPS
said to you when they came to seek your services, that there is an attorney-client
privilege that prevents that conversation from being part of the record?
MS. RUEMMLER: No. That's why I asked what timeframe you were
asking. Prior to the engagement of Fusion GPS the witness can go ahead and
answer any questions about his interaction with Fusion.
MR. GOWDY: Okay. We'll starl there.

MR. ELIAS: So they told me that they had been retained by
a -- previously -- by a wealthy Republican - they didn't identify who : to do
research on then candidate Trump -- and they had done a lot of research on
Trump -- and thought that if I was going to be looking to hire a consultant to help
me advise the campaign on issues relating to Trump, that they would be a good fit
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UNCLASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE
because they already had a strong background in many of the areas that were
likely going to come up.
MR. GOWDY: You used the word research. What do you mean by
research?
MR. ELIAS: I didn't know what they had - they were describing what they
had done for this Republican wealthy individual. So I didn't -- I wasn't privy to it.
They were telling me that they had done a research project for this wealthy
Republican.
MR. GOWDY: You've been practicing law for how long?
MR. ELIAS: I've been practicing law since 1993.
MR. GOWDY: Right. And you're a smart guy.

MR. ELIAS: Thank You.
MR. GOWDY: So you're not going to hire somebody without asking, okay,
what did you find? I don't think you are going to take their word that we had some
really good research on Donald Trump, hire us, and we will be sure to share it with
you.
MR. ELIAS: I wasn't looking - I wasn't going to hire them or anyone else
based on what research they had done and were going share with me.
As you know, Congressman, aS Someone who has run campaigns and has
been involved in campaigns, campaigns have lots of researchers. There is no
shortage of researchers.
What I was looking for was a consultant who was going to help me in
providing services to the campaign. And the fact that they had relevant
background in Trump and his businesses and his -- the complex nature of his
holdings and that he was familiar with his past lawsuits, were all things that were
PROPERTY OF THE I.TNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

13
attractive to me.
so it was not that they had done this research and it was going to be
delivered to me, but rather it was that they had background in this.
You know, I've done, I've litigated a number of redistricting cases.
Oftentimes when I retain an expert in those congressional redistricting cases I'm
interested to know, is this someone who has been an expert in this State before?
Do they know the relevant geography? Do they know the voting patterns? lt
doesn't mean l'm asking -- it doesn't mean just don't * you know, you're just going
to take what you did before.
MR. GOWDY: No. But I'm sure you would be interested in how many
times that expert had been reversed.
MR. ELIAS: How many times the expert's been reversed?
MR. GOWDY: Sure.
MR. ELIAS: Experts don't get reversed.
MR. GOWDY: Sure they do. Their maps get reversed allthe time.
Expert-drawn maps get reversed. We're not going to talk about reapportionment
or redistricting.
You actually answered my question, wittingty or unwittingly. Business
dealings, public records, that's what I'm getting at. You used the word research,
and then in your answer you said business dealings. I think you used the word
elaborate business dealings. What else?
Had you ever hired Fusion GPS before?
MS. RUEMMLER: You can answer that.
MR. ELIAS: I had not.
MR. GOWDY: Okay. So this is you have for a client one of the two major

14
political parties in this country. And you could hire anyone you wanted to do oppo
research on a candidate.
MR. ELIAS: Uh-huh.
MR. GOWDY: And you wound up hiring a Company you'd never hired
before. And my question is, whY?

MR. ELIAS: So I think there were a couple of things that went into it. The
first, like I said, was they had familiarity with then candidate Trump.
MR. GOWDY: Well, let me stop you there. How did you know that?
MR. ELIAS: Because they told me that they had familiarity with then
candidate Trump because they had been working on a research project up until
that point for an unnamed wealthy Republican.
MR. GOWDY: Right. And your follow-up question would be, research
project into what?
MR. ELIAS: I think I understood that their research included research
in - that invotved his business holdings and lawsuits, which were the principal
topics that I would have been interested in, knowing what they -- what their - how
familiar they were with him.
MR. GOWDY: Okay. You met Peter Fritsch and Glenn simpson. They
told you they'd been doing research for a wealthy Republican.
h/R. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: And we've defined research a little bit. And you did what
after that?
MR. ELIAS: I thought about it. They had Gome : I had never worked with
them. They had a reputation in the general community, So I was familiar with
them in the same way that I would be familiar with an expert who I'd never worked
UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE

15
UNCLASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE
with before. And so I thought about, you know, what -- and I don't know how
much mental impression you want me to get into about this.
MS. RUEMMLER: lf you can avoid doing that.
MR. ELIAS: Yeah.
I was evaluating the best way to provide services to my clients and came to
the conclusion that they were -- that they would help me do that.
MR. GowDY: And who did you come to that conclusion with? who did
you consult before you reached that conclusion?
MR. ELIAS: Myself.
MR. GOWDY: You didn't talk to anyone else?
MR. ELIAS: About whether to retain them or who they were?
MR. GOWDY: Yes, whether to retain them,
MR. ELIAS: I mean, I made the decision whether to retain them.
MR. GOWDY: I guess what I'm getting at is what was your stream of
money with which to retain them? Where did that come from?
MR. ELIAS: The money with which to retain them came from the Clinton
campaign, Hillary for America, called the Ctinton campaign, and the Democratic
National Committee.
MR. GowDY: were you on retainer? Did you have X amount of money
per month to spend?
MR. ELIAS: lt was a little more complicated than that. There were some
matters that we were doing on a fixed monthly fee. There were some matters we
were doing that we were billing hourly rates, some with caps. lt would really - it
was a mixture of arrangements.
MR. GowDY: what was the dollar amount you were approved to decide

15
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITfVE
on your own without consultation with them?
MR. MCQUAID: lf you could just clarify what the statement was about,
what you said about your relationship, how you were being paid or how the -
MR. ELIAS: Oh, I thought -- I'm sorry. I was talking about how Perkins
was being Paid.
MR. GOWDY: Both.
MR. ELIAS: Okay. so with respect to how Perkins was being paid, not
necessarily related to this project, just -

MR. GOWDY: Here, let my try to demystify it. I think you answered my
question that you consulted with no one other than yourself to decide to retain
Fusion GPS.
MR. ELIAS: I made that decision'
MR. GOWDY: Which is great if you're paying the bill, you can do what you
want. I presume you weren't spending your own money.

MR. ELIAS: Correct.
MR. GOWDY: All right. Whose money were you spending?

MR. ELIAS: Right. so I was spending the campaign's and the DNC's.
MR. GOWDY: Right. And my question to you was, were you authorized
up to a certain dollar amount to consult no one other than yourself?
MR. ELIAS. I now understand.
So with respect to this particular project, I consulted with Robby Mook, who
was the campaign manager, to get budget approval to be able to spend money in
order for me to retain consultants. This was the consultants that I retained, but I
didn't need to consult on the identity of the consultants.
MR. GOWDY: All right. And how much money did Robby Mook approve
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE.

t7
you to spend?
MR. ELIAS: I'm going to do the best I can by memory here. lt is all on
FEC reports.
But my recollection is that initially it was a total of $60,000 split between the
campaign and -- $60,000 split 30 and 30 between the campaign and the DNC.
And then there additionalexpenses associated with that, that changed month to
month, were relatively modest initially and grew larger as the campaign drew on.
MR. GowDY: Now, were you paying, was that 30-30 split for work that
had already been done by Fusion GPS? was that a retainer for them to do
additionalwork? What was the 60,000?
MR. ELIAS: lt was to provide the information that I requested or needed in
order to do what I needed to do. So it was not -

MR. GOWDY: Was it the research they'd already done?
MR. ELIAS: so it was not in - it was not a dump of research they had
done. I was not aware of the full scope of what they had done. There were a
couple of things as part of that initial conversation you were asking about that they,
you know, I was led to believe they had done, but they were obviously working for
someone else and had confidentiality with those clients.
So I never - it was not like here is going to be a dump of that research for
you. lt was that I would have questions or documents or would need judgment
around issues that would arise and they would be in a position to provide those
things.
Whether they already had them or not, I didn't know and didn't much matter
to me. lt was just that if I wanted to know, for example, you know, what is the
bankruptcy file from the, you know, Trump casino bankruptcy, r was going to have

18
UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
a mechanism to have information, have visibility into that. Whether they had
collected that or not collected that for someone else, I wouldn't -- I wouldn't know.
MR. GOWDY: That initial meeting with Fusion GPS, Fritsch and Simpson,'
in particular, did they discuss Russia, contacts within Russia, Trump's dealings
with Russia, business or otherwise?
MR. ELIAS: I don't believe so. But I don't recall a thousand percent. But
I don't believe so.
MR. GOWDY: All right. so if I have the right picture in my mind, Fusion
GpS is trying to interest you in work they've already done without violating that
client's confidentiality, but at the same time entice you enough that you are
interested in retaining them yourself. ls that fair?
MR. ELIAS: I think that's more or less fair, yeah.
MR. GOWDY: Okay. And that enticement included business dealings,
bankruptcies. What else?

MR. ELIAS: Law - interactions in the litigation arena generally. Not just
bankruptcies. Bankruptcies is a subset of litigation, as you know. Then

candidate Trump was - had a history of being quite litigious, both as a plaintiff and
as a defendant.
MR. GOWDY: You've been doing this type of work for how long?
MR. ELIAS: I graduated law school in 1993. I started doing political law
work -- there really wasn't a field as such, but, you know, in the mid-'9Os when
there was more -- campaign finance became a much bigger deal in elections.
The House was -- you know, the House flipped control in 1994. There was
just more money in politics generally, after 1994, both in the House and Senate
races. The Presidential races got much bigger. So mid-'9Os'
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TiNCI]ASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSITTVE
MR. GOWDY: Had you ever had a client that wanted opposition research
done before?
MR. ELIAS: I would venture to say that most campaigns want opposition
-
MR. GOWDY: Probably all of them, right?
MR. ELIAS: Right.
MR. GOWDY: And bankruptcies, and being sued, and suing others is not
really a novel area of looking into. That's pretty garden variety for oppo research,
lsn't it?
MR. ELIAS: lt might be garden variety for opposition research. It's not -- I
would not say it is something that many researchers who are not lawyers are
going to -- are going to be able to penetrate.
MR. GOWDY: Had you retained any firms that had done it in the past,
looked for suits filed or filed against, or bankruptcies?
MS. RUEMMLER: Just at any point in time in his career?
MR. GOWDY: Sure.
MS, RUEMMLER: I think you can answer that in general.
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: All right. That's not high math. You don't even have to be
that good of a lawyer to say, hey, we should probably check and see whether or
not this person is litigious, whether or not they keep really bad rental properties
and get sued a lot. That's not high math.
But yet you'd never hired Fusion GPS in the past. So there are plenty of
other people who do this exact same kind of work.
MR. ELIAS: Uh-huh.
MR. GOWDY: So why Fusion GpS this time?

20
MR. ELIAS: They were -- they had approached me. They had a
background in it. They were recommended, you know. They were thought
highly of in the community.
MR. GOWDY: The oppo research firm that you had hired the election right
before Fusion GPS, were they also those Same things, highly respected, had a
good reputation in the community, did solid work?
MR. ELIAS: So I think I just want to -- I just want to be clear. I hire
consultants - you can callthem opposition research firms -- I hire consultants to
perform legal services for clients not infrequently. And I usually am trying to solve
a problem or trying to understand something that they bring expertise to. And I do
the best I can to find the right fit.
I can't tell you that in each of those instances I do an RFP where I interview
50 firms and narrow it down. Sometimes it is reputational, sometimes it's based

on word of mouth recommendation, sometimes it's based on past prior experience.
MR. GOWDY: How many employees does Fusion GPS have?
MR. ELIAS: I don't know.
MR. GOWDY: How many of them are attorneys?
tvlR. ELIAS: I don't know.

MR. GOWDY: Well, you used the phrase legalservices, which has a
pretty specific meaning to me and you, which means if you're not a lawyer you
probably ought not be doing it.
MR. ELIAS: Well, they weren't providing legal services.
MR. GOWDY: But that's the phrase you used, that you were looking for
someone to provide legalservices.
MR. ELIAS: lf I said, then I misspoke. I don't think I said that.

2t
UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENS]TTVE
What I intended to say, either way, so the transcript says, is that I was
providing legal services for the campaign. For me to provide those services I
needed expertise and access to information, public record.
MR. GOWDY: And you needed it in every other election that you'd ever
been part of, and yet you managed to muddle your way through all of those
elections without ever hiring Fusion GPS.
MR. ELIAS: True.
MR. GOWDY: So why now?
MR. ELIAS: I could say the same thing. They had - they approached me
and seemed to have a background in a very complex --
MR. GOWDY: Let me tell you what I hear when you say that, and perhaps
there's just a disconnect.
They approached you. They can't divulge what their other client had told
them or paid for them to do. And l've heard bankruptcies and suits filed either as
the plaintiff or suits where you were the defendant. That is hardly a --
MR. ELIAS: Where Trump was the defendant.
MR. GOWDY: Right. That's hardly an area of expertise. That are 100
different people that can search court records for you.
MR. ELIAS: Let me try it this way, maybe this will help. I did not know it
at the time, but it's since been a matter of public record. I believe Donald Trump
has been involved in 7,000 lawsuits.
MR. GOWDY: Okay.
MR. ELIAS: Okay? That is not a typical circumstance. Okay? I don't
think I've ever been involved with a client of any kind in the political arena where
you're talking about that volume of litigation. And that litigation spanned from
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE

22
slips and falls to complex bankruptcies and restructuring'
So in order for me to be able to adequately understand that scope and be
able to digest that and help make legaljudgments that would be relevant to my
client, I thought it would be helpful to have a consultant.
This was a consultant that was saying, we already have familiarity. I
assumed not with all 7,000. I assumed not with every kind of lawsuit. But they
seemed to have a general understanding of the breadth of his business holdings,
his financial holdings, and the kinds of litigation he had been involved in.
And that was valuable when I was evaluating hiring them or hiring someone
else, because Mr. Trump was not a typical candidate. lf Mr. Trump had been
in Congress for 20 years and had been on the Appropriations Committee, maybe I
would have hired a former Appropriations Committee person who could explain to
me how the appropriations process used to work when there were earmarks,
something I wouldn't othenrise be familiar with, but which might be useful'
So it's not you'd never hired them before. Each client presents and needs
a different set of legal skills and a different set of consultants to help me provide
those legal skills.
MR. GOWDY: I'm with you, I hear you. But a cynic might hear that you
hired a small consulting firm, we'll use that, that you'd never hired before. They
couldn't tell you specifically what they had because of confidentiality concerns for
the previous client.
MR. ELIAS: Right.

MR. GOWDY: And yet in what may well be the biggest election you ever
took part in -- it's Presidential, you may have been involved in other Presidentials.
MR. ELIAS: lwas.
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23
MR. GOWDY: But it doesn't get much bigger than Presidential. And you
hired a firm you'd never hired before, based on a meeting where they said they
have quote, "research." And we've defined research as bankruptcies and court
filings that you could have hired a law clerk to go find.
MR. ELIAS: So as I said, it was based on their reputation in the
community, recommendations, and -

MR. GOWDY: Recommendations from whom?
MR. ELIAS: One of my partners had recommended them to me as a firm
that had done good work in his experience and that they had a good reputation.
MR. GOWDY: All right. So I think we're up to $60,000. What is the total
amount of money that Perkins Coie paid Fusion GPS?
MR. ELIAS: I know it's in the letter we -- I don't remember the --
MR. GOWDY: lwon't hold you to it. Just give me a ballpark. More than
$60,000?
MR. ELIAS: I think it was -- well, it was -- l'm sorry, $60,000 a month.
MR. GOWDY: $60,000 a month.
MR. ELIAS: I'm sorry, yes. lt was 30 and 30 per month.
MR. GOWDY: So $60,000 a month, What was the duration of -

MR. ELIAS: And then plus expenses.
MR. GOWDY: What was the duration of that agreement or could either
party -
MR. ELIAS: lt was -- it was - it was from -- and you said you're not going
to hold it to me : hold me to it.
MR. GOWDY: I'm not looking for any more investigations to start than we
already have.
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MR. ELIAS: lt was some time in the spring.
MR. GOWDY: OkaY.
MR. ELIAS: I want to say maybe April, but that could be off a month one
way or the other. And it ended in - at the end of October.
MR. GOWDY: So May, June, July, August, September, October'
MR. ELIAS: I think April, I think April. I don't know, maybe.

MR. GOWDY: All right. so 7 months times $60,000. l'll let you help me
with the math there.
MR. ELIAS: I went to law school.
MR. GOWDY: $400,000 and something, Himes, is that close?
MR. HIMES: lt's close.
MR. GOWDY: Alt right. So we're not quite close to the million.
MR. ELIAS: Right.
MR. GOWDY: Where is the other half of it, those expenses?
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: And did you get a detailed summary? Do they fill out
billing sheets like lawyers do where they say 0.7 hours spent opening a letter?
MR. ELIAS: Fortunately for the rest of the world, nobody fills out time
sheets like lawyers do.
MR. GOWDY: What were those expenses they incurred?
MR. ELIAS: So the expenses were -- and, again, by category -- if I had to

guess, but it's an educated guess, I would bet that the largest expenses Were
probably copying and court expenses, you know, getting copies of transcripts,
getting copies of files. Getting, like - getting a complete case file for a major
piece of complex litigation, the copying cost to the courthouse could be $10,000,
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$20,000.
MR. GOWDY: Did they provide monthly updates to you on what they were
finding?
MR. ELIAS: Yes. More than monthly.

MR. GOWDY: ln writing or orally or both.
MR. ELIAS: Typically orally. Typically it was orally, more often than
monthly, though.
MR. GOWDY: When did you first hear the name Christopher Steele?
MR. ELIAS: When did I first hear the name Christopher Steele? To the
best of my recollection, I first heard the name Christopher Steele in July.
MR. GOWDY: From whom?
MR. ELIAS: lt would have either been Peter or Glenn. I would guess
Peter.
MR. GOWDY: What was the nature of what you were told?
MS. RUEMMLER: As stated, that question calls for information that's
protected by applicable privileges and I would instruct the witness not to answer.
MR. GOWDY: And this is where I'm trying to figure it out. You're a law
firm that hired nonlawyers to do work for you. These nonlawyers are reporting
back to you. You're the client, you're not the lawyer.
So will you waive attorney-client privilege and tell me what your client said
to you?
MR. ELIAS: I'm happy to explain it or you can -- from my vantage point it's
really simple. Again, let's just take redistricting, for an example, because I know it
is something that everyone in this room is familiar with.
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26
lf I as a law firm hire an expert who is going to help me understand whether
Hispanic -- whether there's cohesive voting in a part of Texas among Hispanics,
okay, that is a consulting expert who is hired by me so that I can provide legal
advice to my client in that case, say the plaintiff in a redistricting case, there is a
privilege that attaches in my conversations with that consultant, consulting expert,
because that consulting expert is helping me provide legal services.
MR. GOWDY: So you consider this a work product privilege and not an
attorney-client privilege.
MS. RUEMMLER: ln certain circumstances it's work product, in certain
circumstances it's attorney-client. lt depends, I think the question that you just
asked called for work product in that particular instance.
MR. GOWDY: And I thought what you read at the very beginning was
attorney-client as opposed to work product, but perhaps I missed part of what you
read.
MS. RUEMMLER: lt is both.
MR. GOWDY: So it is your position that you either cannot or will not
answer even though you are the client and could waive.
MR. ELIAS: I'm happy to consult with counsel, but I don't believe I can
waive.
MR. GOWDY: Why? Who would be aggrieved if you waived?
MS. RUEMMLER: Because under the D.C. Rules of Professional
Conduct, Rule 1.6, which is the rule I referenced earlier, it is not just the
attorney-client privilege that's covered by that rule, but it's also the work product
privilege.
And the reason is, is that the work is being done on behalf of Mr. Elias'

27
UNCi,ASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
client. And therefore, absent consent of his client, he is not at liberty and in fact is
required to maintain confidentiality around not only attorney-client
communications, but also work product.
MR. GOWDY: And that's true even if the client -- and we'll consider for this
hypothetical the DNC or Hillary for America to be the client -- even if they weren't
part of the decisionmaking, even if it's just your client talking to Fusion GPS, they
still availthemselves of this privilege?
MS. RUEMMLER: Well, I think that assumes facts that are not present
on --
MR. GOWDY: I haven't asked him about any of his conversation the other
way. l've asked him about conversations with Fusion GPS.
MS. RUEMMLER: Understood, but I think:
MR, GOWDY: And l'm sure he is not going tell me whether or not he
relayed any of that information back to who really is his client. Nor am I going to
ask.
MS. RUEMMLER: Okay.
MR. GOWDY: I'm just trying to find out what you talked about with a
vendor that you hired.
MS. RUEMMLER: And again, our position is that he is constrained by the
rules of ethical conduct, absent expressed consent or instruction from his ultimate
clients, in this case Hillary for America and the DNC, not to disclose any kind of
confidences, including information that's protected by the work product doctrine.
So he doesn't have the unilateral authority under his ethicalobligations to
make - to disclose that information.

MR. GOWDY: Did you know who Chris Steele's sources were?
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UNCLASSTFIED, COMMITTBE SENSTTIVE
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. GOWDY: When did you first hear the nature of his investigative
work?
MR. ELIAS: When did I first - I'm sorry, can you - I got distracted by
asking her,
MR. GOWDY: When did you hear first of the nature of his investigative
work?
MR. ELIAS: For?
MR. GOWDY: He wasn't in Madagascar looking into Donald Trump, that
he was in Russia.
MR. ELIAS: Right, right. I think in early Julyish, late June, early July,
mid-July.
MR. GOWDY: Do you remember what you were told and by whom?
MS. RUEMMLER: That question calls for information protected by the
attorney-client work product privileges, and therefore I instruct the witness not to
answer.
MR. GOWDY: Do you know whether any of Christopher Steele'sf
MR. ELIAS: I assume so.
MR. GOWDY: And you assume so whY?
MR. ELIAS: Can I consult with her to ask her -.

MR. GOWDY: I would never stop you from talking to your attorney.
[Discussion off the record.!

MR. GOWDY: I think we were to the point where I was asking your - you
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29
UNCi,ASSIFIED, COI'IMITTEE SENSITIVE
correct me if I'm wrong -. whether or not you knew any of Chris Steele's
And I think your answer was you assumed so. And I may have
asked you why you assumed that.
MR. ELIAS: Thats where we left off.
MR. GOWDY: All right.
MS. RUEMMLER: And that question, as stated, calls for information that's
protected by the attorney-client work product privileges and therefore I instruct the
witness not to answer.
MR. GOWDY: How does what he assumed imply aflorney-client work
product?
MS. RUEMMLER: The question, as stated, calls for the disclosure -

MR. GOWDY: Right. And l'm trying to figure out how to rephrase the
question, which is why I asked how does me asking him what he assumed. v/hat
word would you like me to substitute?
MS. RUEMMLER: lt's generally not the lawyer's job to rephrase the
questions.
MR. GOWDYI And generally privileges aren't recognized in commitlees of
Congress, so we're both in unchartered territory right here.
MS. RUEMMLER: lndeed.
MR. GOWDY: Well, let me ask you this -

MS. RUEMMLER: ! think you can ask him what he knows. Why don't we
starl there?
MR. GOWDY: I thought I did. I thought I asked you if you knew whether
or not any of Christopher Steele And you're the one

you used the word assumed.
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MR. ELIAS: Yeah, I assumed so. l'm trying to be very precise. I'm
not - look, I don't want to try to slice this into saying no -

MR. GOWDY: Why did you assume that?
MR. ELIAS: lassurned so.
MR. GOWDY: Why did you assume that?
MS. RUEMMLER: And again, that question, as stated, calls for information
that's protected by the attorney-client privilege.
MR. GOWDY: What was the basis for your assumption?
MS. RUEMMLER: You can answer that without getting into content.
MR. ELIAS: Okay, now I don't understand. Could we just step out so that
I know what -
MS. RUEMMLER: Yes.
MR. ELIAS: I apologize. I'm just trying to walk the line here. I'm sure as
an attorney you appreciate this.
[Discussion off the record.]

MR. ELIAS: The basis of my assumption, which I think is what you asked,
was it was based on my communications with Fusion, with Peter and with Glenn
Simpson.
MR. GOWDY: Did you know then, when you were having these
conversations,
MR. ELIAS: Did I know then?

MR. GOWDY: Yeah. I don't have time for a philosophical discussion
about how do you ever really know anything. So -
MR. ELIAS: l'm not trying to do that.

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UNCTASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE
MR. GOWDY: Nor am I by asking it.
MR. ELIAS: I understand, Did I know then whether
o, not really
MR. GOWDY: Well, see, those are two different answers. That's how
some lawyers hear, no and not really. Was it no or not really?
MR. ELIAS: l'm trying to -- !'m trying to recall, to be precise. The
information you're asking would not have been important information to me, so I
think the answer is no.
MR. GOWDY: Well, let me ask you this. You're paying a good bit of
money to a firm that you've never retained before and they're doing research,
And you know that some of that research involves other countries.
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: And they're relaying that information back to you. And I'm
sure at some point you're asking, how do you know that? What's the proof?
What's the evidence? What's the basis of what you just told me?
I'm sure you would do what we've asked whether or not the FBI has done,
which is corroborate, contradict, vet, othenrise investigate information you're being
told.
MR. ELIAS: So you'llcut me off if I'm going the place I can't go.
I am not the FBI and did not have either the expertise or the tools or the
experience that you ascribe that the FBI should have and could have. So if you
are asking me did I have a method to independently corroborate or vet, to use
your words, what information I was receiving, other than relying upon the
professional .. the professionalism and expertise of the consultants that I retain,
no, I don't.

32
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSIT]VE
I also don't rerun regression analysis when I get a regression analysis from
a statistical expert. l'm assuming that they are doing a proper statistical analysis
and that they're providing the output to me.
So I - in that respect, with alldue respect, Congressman, the parallel
between me and the FBI really doesn't hold up.
MR. GOWDY: Well, let me ask you this way. Were you interested in
information that was accurate or inaccurate?
MR. ELIAS; Accurate.
MR. GOWDY: All right. Does it benefit your client to -- well, let's just use
what happens sometimes around here. lnformation gets leaked. That
information is false. lt's embarrassing for whatever network may have run it. So
it's not in their best interest to go with inaccurate information. So you would be
interested in the accuracy of what was being relayed to you.
MR. ELIAS: Absolutely.
MR. GOWDY: Right. And how would you test the accuracy of it given the
fact you'd never hired the firm before, didn't have a past with the firm. And they're
a pretty small boutique firm compared to some of the ones you could have hired.
They're in another country doing research in a Presidential race. Something tells

me you're not just going to say, oh, that's neat, we'll run with that. Aren't you
going to want to know how they knew that?
MR. ELIAS: So to be clear, the firm that I hired was a domestic firm. You
characterize it as small and I don't challenge that. I don't actually know how many
employees they have. They retained a firm in London, which I also don't know
how big or small or, you know, they are.

33
[3:00 p.m.]
MR. GOWDY: Well, I don't want to interrupt you, but let me ask you this:
Would you have to sign off on that decision? Did you have to sign off on
decisions to hire subcontractors or vendors?
MR. ELIAS: I had the authority to under the contract. I didn't in all
instances. I did in this instance.

MR. GOWDY: Why do you think they brought this instance to your
attention?
MR. ELIAS: lt wasn't that. lt was there were times where if they were
getting court filings from, say, a district court in Kansas - I made that up; I don't
think there was a district court in Kansas - I would not have expected them to
come to me and say: We're going to hire this copy service or that copy service.
So I'm just trying to be precise. I had the authority to, and in this instance, I
did. There were times where it just - it wouldn't have mattered who the
subcontractor was.
Five minutes
MR. GOWDY: But it is a little different when you are hiring a subcontractor
that is in another country.
MR. ELIAS: Yes. That's why I said, in this instance, I did.
MR. GOWDY: Whether that country is Russia, Madagascar, or what used
to be Somalia, it doesn't matter, right? That would be something you would be
interested in.
MR. ELIAS: Again, depending on the nature of the work. I mean, if I

wanted copies of -. of public court filings in Canada and they were -- and the
question was, do we hire this runner copying firm or that runner copying firm, I
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34
wouldn't have signed off, I wouldn't have cared and signed off on that either,
So the fact that it was not in the same country would not have been
the - would not necessarily have been the dividing line.
MR. GOWDY: All right. This is probably where we're going to have to
end it for this session, but I don't want to trick you. These aren't trick questions.
So I'lltellyou what we're going to come back to.
I'm trying to understand your interest - I think you testified you have no
interest in inaccurate information. lt doesn't do you any good; it doesn't do your
client any good.
MR. ELIAS: True.
MR. GOWDY: So, when you're told something, whether it's aS salacious
as a golden shower in a hotel room in Moscow or whether you're told about some
seemingly innocuous business transaction, at this level, you cannot afford to make
mistakes.
So I'm going to ask you again, what was your process of vetting or
investigating what you were being told on the other end of the phone?
MR. ELIAS: lt very much depended on the nature of the information and
what utility I saw in the information. So you could imagine there was information
that I would receive from a consultant as a general matter that is highly relevant
and easily confirmed, and then there is information that is not relevant that is
easily confirmed, then there's information that's not relevant that's hard to confirm,
and information that's very relevant that's hard to confirm. So you've got
different -- you've got different criteria.
Typically, the stuff that is most relevant to me is stuff that is more easily
confirmed. Some of what --

35
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MR. GOWDY: Or difficult to disprove, depending on what environment
we're in.
MR. ELIAS: Sure.
MR. GOWDY: I'm assuming that you are not a campaign consultant and,
therefore, would not make decisions on what information to run with or not run with
on your own.
MR. ELIAS: Generally true.
MR. GOWDY: All right. So who would you communicate the information
you gleaned from Fusion GPS back to?
MR. ELIAS: lf I was to transmit it to anyone --
MR. GOWDY: Well, let me stop you right there. Why would you not?
MR. ELIAS: Because they were consulting on things I needed done to
help represent the campaign.
l\4R. GOWDY: Right. But you're not running for President.

MR. ELIAS: That's true.
MR. GOWDY: Not yet. So -

MR. ELIAS: I promise you never.
MR. GOWDY: So chances are great --
MR. ELIAS: I may be the only one in the room who can say that.
MR. GOWDY: No, there would be a few others of us. Chances are great
you're not going to utilize the information yourself in your own personal capacity.
MR. ELIAS: True.
MR. GOWDY: So the information would be utilized, if at all, on behalf of
your client upstream. So what would be the use in accumulating information and
not sharing it with the client that retained you in the first place?

36
MR. ELIAS: Sometimes you get information, and it's just not that useful.
MR. GOWDY: Well, let's do it this way: Did you ever relay any of the
information you received from Fusion GPS to the DNC?
MS. RUEMMLER: You can answer.
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: Beginning when?
MR. ELIAS: Beginning when? Around the convention time.
MR. GOWDY: I should have been watching, but lwasn't. I don't
remember when the convention was. Yours or ours?

MR. ELIAS: That's why I said convention time.
MR. GOWDY: I didn't watch either one of them.
MR. ELIAS: Mid-July.
MR. GOWDY: Who at the DNC would you communicate with on the most
regular of bases?
MR. ELIAS: About this topic or others?
MR. GOWDY: Yes.
MR. ELIAS: There were -- there were researchers who were --
MR. PATEL: One minute.
MR. ELIAS: -- who were doing - they were researchers doing research or
rapid response on Trump, And oftentimes -- or not often, on a number of
occasions, there would be interest on their part in information about his business
dealings or financial holdings or lawsuits that I would be a resource to them on.
And that started around the time of the convention.
MR. GOWDY: l'm out of time. When we come back after Mr. Himes and
Mr. Schiff, Mr. Quigley, we'll get into the dossier. And then I'm going to ask you
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UNCLASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE
about the server and what role, if any, you may have played when the server was
compromised, just so -
MR. ELIAS: Which server?
MR. GOWDY: DNC server.
MR. ELIAS: Oh, l'm sorry.
MR. GOWDY: Just so we'll play straight-up poker, and you'll know where
we're going.
MR. ELIAS: As I said at the beginning, I think the work of this committee to
get to the efforts of Russia to compromise our elections is vitally important. So I
want to be as helpful as I can, consistent with my ethical obligations.
MR. SCHIFF: Thank you, Mr. Elias. I just have a few questions. Then
l'm going to pass it off to Mr. Himes.
It sounds like when you -- and you may or may not be able to answer these
questions, lt sounds like when you retained Fusion GPS, you were predominantly
interested in their expertise in litigation and whatever experience they might have,
not only in investigating litigation but also what background they had in Trump and
his businesses and his business litigation, ls that accurate?
MR. ELIAS: That is accurate.
MR. SCHIFF: And were you also interested in their background in financial
crimes investigations?
MR. ELIAS: Yes, and I put that in the category of business, of the
business, the expertise around his businesses.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, Glenn Simpson also had an eXpertise in Russia.
Was that part of your interest, or was it predominantly focused on the business
litigation? Was that something, if you can answer, whether you were looking for
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38
in expertise or was this something that he offered as part of his pitch?
MR. ELIAS: To the best of my recollection, that did not come up in the
pitch, and I don't believe I knew that prior to the retention.
MR. SCHIFF: So he wasn't retained to do Russia research, from your
perspective?
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. SCHIFF: Did You have the --
MR. ELIAS: I mean, not as part of the initial retention'
MR. SCHIFF: Was it the nature of the relationship with this particular
consultant that he was given some running room in what he was allowed to look
at, and if he found things that he thought would be of interest or concern to your
client, that he would bring it to your attention, that you could then say, "yes, pursue
that," or "no, that's not a particular interest"?
MR. ELIAS: Yes. Like I - you know, as I said in a redistricting case, I can
hire a statistician or a mathematician expecting that they are going to look at a
variety -- they're going to look at the composition, the racial composition of a
district from a variety of perspectives, using their expertise, and then they're going
to come to me and say: Okay. Here are some fruitful things we might need to
pursue with additional data, with additional analysis. Do you want us to go collect
this data? Do you want us to do this or not?
And it was similar. So yes.
MR. SCHIFF: I was thinking, for Dr. Wenstrup, of a medical -- if you were
a malpractice lawyer and you're retained to determine whether a physician
botched a surgery, not that that would ever happen, and you retain an expert and
they go out and'do research, then presumably what they communicate to you is
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UNCLASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSIT]VE
covered by work product, et cetera.
But if you are looking at one particular form of potential malpractice and
your expert doesn't find evidence of it, but while they're looking examining the
medical records, they find actually the physician misdiagnosed the problem, then
you would have -- they would have the authorization to bring that to your attention.
You could authorize whether you wanted them to pursue that or not. ls that -
MR. ELIAS: Correct.
MR. SCHIFF: And at some point - again, if you can answer, at some point
after they were retained predominantly to look into financial issues or litigation
issues, did Fusion GPS bring to your attention information that they had uncovered
of concern vis-d-vis the candidate and Russia?
MS. RUEMMLER: You can answer that yes or no.
MR. ELIAS: Can you repeat it?
MR. SCHIFF: At some point, did Fusion GPS bring to your attention,
whether that was what you had retained them for or not, that there were concerns
they wanted you to know about vis-i-vis the candidate and Russia?
MR. ELIAS: Can I consult with counsel?
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: I think I still remember the question. Let me ask you one
other question, and then I'm going to hand off to Mr. Himes.
Were you aware that Fusion GPS had done some Russia investigative work
for their prior conservative client?
MR. ELIAS: lwas unaware.
MR. SCHIFF: lyield to Mr. Himes.
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MR. ELIAS: I was unaware either waY.
MR. HIMES: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Elias.

I want to start with some big picture questions and then, assuming time,
we'll get back to some of the more detailed questions that Mr. Gowdy started with.
And let me give you the rubric here. Maybe this will help in answering the
questions. One of the sort of usefulframes in this investigation has been a
distinction between the unconventional and the conventional. Garden variety
stuff, normal course of business. We're in worlds here where the general public
may not know the ins and outs of opposition research, or the general public may
not know that it's not unconventionalfor a Presidential candidate to shake the
hand of an ambassador at a hotel. There could potentially be things that follow

from that that would be unconventional, just as there could be in the opposition
research realm.
So I'm going to ask you a whole bunch of questions, and I guess I'd ask for
your help in helping us understand and, more importantly, the public understand
where things get unconventional, because in this realm, the production of the
Steele dossier and some of the allegations, it certainly got beyond rny experience
of what would be conventional in opposition research. So let's just start sort of at
a general level.
Tell us briefly about your experience working with campaigns and, in
particular, undertaking opposition or assisting with opposition research.
MR. ELIAS: So, you know, it's hard to -- every campaign is - every client
and certainly every campaign is kind of unique, I think. We alljust saw that in the
specialelection in Alabama, which was unique. And, you know, we saw that in
the Virginia race, Virginia Governor's race. That was unique. I mean, in some
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4t
ways, it's hard to generalize between campaigns, because there are -- there are
things that make them similar and then there are things that make them quite
different.
I think that as the - this is maybe more of a philosophical answer than

you're looking for.
MR. HIMES: Let me ask a more specific question then.
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. HIMES: How prevalent is the use of opposition research in Federal
campaigns, by which I mean Senate, House, President?
MR. ELIAS: I think every campaign that I am aware of on either side of the
aisle conducts some measure of opposition research.
MR. HIMES: Okay. And at the Presidential level, both Republican and
Democratic Presidential campaigns conduct opposition research?
MR. HIMES: And would that typically involve both internal researchers and
the hiring of law firms and other external consultants?
MR. ELIAS: lt would definitely involve internal researchers and the hiring
of external consultants, yes.
MR. HIMES: You may not know the answer to this question, but the
Trump campaign, to your knowledge, were they conducting opposition research on
Secretary Clinton and her campaign?
MR. ELIAS: l'm not privy to the Trump campaign, but I assume so.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So let's sort of talk a little bit about the specifics of
this opposition research. And, again, l'm going to ask for your help in identifying
what is conventionaland what is unconventional.
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42
ls a Presidential campaign retaining a law firm like your own, would you
characterize that as conventional?
MR. ELIAS: I -- every Presidentialcampaign retains -- every major
Presidential campaign has retained counsel, virtually every Senate campaign has,
and increasingly, House campaigns do.
MR. HIMES: So there's nothing unusual about the retention of counsel?
MR. ELIAS. No.
MR. HIMES: Would it be conventional or unconventional for that counsel
in a Presidentiat campaign to hire subcontractors, aS you have -- aS you did with
Fusion GPS?
MR. ELIAS: No. lt would be quite common.

MR. HIMES: Okay. Mr. Gowdy asked you a lot of questions about the
retainer fees and other revenues you received for this. Was there anything in the
fee arrangements you had with either the DNC or the Clinton campaign that you
would regard as unconventional against your own experience, in terms of fees,
retainers, that sort of thing?
MR. ELIAS: No. lt's very -- it's typical of what we and I know the
Republican lawyers on the other side charge and basically similarly structured on
both sides of the aisle.
MR. HIMES: Mr. Gowdy asked you a lot about - I think I heard three
times -- about the decision to hire Fusion GPS. I'm not going to indulge in a
tautology. Obviously, anybody you hire you hire for the first time once.
MR. ELIAS: Right.
MR. HIMES: At the time that you engaged Fusion GPS, you t think
testified that, at that time, you were not aware of research that they had done with

43
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSTT]VE
respect to Russian connections. ls that correct?
MR. ELIAS: Correct.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So, at the time you made that hire, apart from what
you said, that they were attractive because they came to you, because they were
recommended, if memory serves, and because they had experience in
researching a candidate with an unusual number of litigation events, was there
anything unconventionalthat struck you when you were considering that, anything
particularly unconventional about them or your decision to hire them?
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. HIMES: At the time that you made the hire -- and maybe I'm asking
the same question, but at the time that you made that hire, did you have any
suspicions that Fusion GPS may have engaged in any sort of unethical, improper,
or illegal behavior?
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. HI.MES: lf after engaging them, you had such suspicions, because
let's face it, they had * they hired a foreign entity in London, which involved
Mr. Steele, which uncovered allegations which I at least would label
unconventional -- if at any point in that process you had suspected any sort of
unethical, improper, or illegal behavior, would you have been under any obligation
as an attorney to disclose or in any way raise that issue, your concerns?
MR. ELIAS: lt would depend on the nature of the illegal or unethical,
depending whether it was illegal or unethical and what the nature of it was. lf I
had had -- if I had had that concern, though, I would have -- at a minimum, lwould
have terminated them.
MR. HIMES: Okay. And I can, therefore, assume that, since you did not
UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

44
terminate them, you never had that concern.
MR. ELIAS: ldid not.
MR. HIMES: Okay. You made reference in the hiring decision that Mr.
Gowdy was asking you about that they came recommended. Can you tell us who
recommended their hiring?
MR. ELIAS: Can I consult with you?
MS. RUEMMLER: Yes, absolutely.
[Discussion of the record.]
MS. RUEMMLER: Just for the record, we should probably just have the
question re-asked. lt doesn't have to be precise.
MR. HIMES: You made reference to the fact that you received a
recommendation to hire Fusion GPS. Who made that recommendation?
MR. ELIAS: One of my law partners.
MR. HIMES: One of your law partners. Okay. Did anybody associated
with the DNC or with the Clinton campaign in any way recommend at that point in
time that you make this hire?
MR. ELIAS: No, other than a partner of mine, by definition, is associated
with the clients. But no.
MR. HIMES: Okay. But that individual was associated with the clients
solely in virtue --
MR. ELIAS: Of being a lawyer, of being at Perkins Coie. Back to your
tautology.
MR. HIMES: Yeah, okay. And, again, just to go back to something
Mr. Gowdy was exploring, let me ask this generally, and then l'm going to ask it
specifically. Generally, when you receive work product from any subcontractor,

45
you testified that you don't go back and rerun regression analyses. But your and
your firm's reputation is presumably important, and, therefore, generally, you
would apply criticalfaculties in evaluating the information you got and make a
judgment yourself as to whether it had a degree of credibility that would warrant
passing it on to your client. ls that fair?
MR. ELIAS: Yes. But, again, remember, sometimes I am hiring that
expert to do that regression analysis, not to pass on to my client. I'm doing it so
that I can be a smarter and better lawyer for my client. Does that distinction make
sense?
MR. HIMES: I think it does. I think it does. I guess what l'm trying to get
at -- and I understand that at some point we're going to stumble into privilege here,
but l'm trying to establish the extent to which the information that made.its way
from Christopher Steele's sources to Christopher Steele to the non-U.S. operation
to Fusion GPS to you, l'm trying to establish the extent to which it was conveyed to
the Clinton campaign or the DNC and the process that you would have undertaken
to determine whether it was accurate or inaccurate and the extent to which you
would have participated in a strategic discussion about whether that information
would be used.
MS. RUEMMLER: I think you can provide a general description of how
you would, in general, engage with your client with respect to information
that -- that Fusion was sharing with you.
MR. ELIAS: I would -- depending on what information it was, it might be
information that would be directly useful to the client. lt might be information that
was not directly useful to the client, but was useful to the client that I had, that I
had -- that I was educated about.
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTT]VE

46
So that would be the first threshold: ls this something that is primarily to
allow me to be able to form legaljudgments? So, for example, if there was -- and
this is something that I regularly do for campaigns at all levels. lf there is a
television ad that a campaign wishes to run that is going to make an allegation
against an opponent, a Republican in my practice, a Republican opponent, among
the things that I am hired to do is to provide counsel as to whether or not that
allegation that is going to be aired by a Democratic campaign may run afoul or run
the risk of civil litigation over -- for defamation or invasion of privacy or some other
civil or copyright violation.
ln the main, the client, my client doesn't really care what the information is
that I got to convey to them. They just want to make sure that I am on top of the
information so that I can help say to the people making the ads, "yes, you can say
this," "no, you can't say that."
So I just want to frame that, because I said that Fusion came to me in the
way that they did and that I hired them as a consultant, The fact that they did
opposition research for that prior client * like I said, the campaign had lots of
opposition researchers. I was engaging them to help me be smarter so that there
was information I could pass along to the client, some of which would be distilled
and incorporated into other judgments I had about legal issues. Some would be
less filtered. Some would be more filtered. Some wouldn't be passed on at all.
But I think that that's an important distinction.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So last big picture question, then I want to get back
to some nitty-gritty.
MR. ELIAS: Yep.
MR. HIMES: Again, you know, the distinction between the conventional

47
UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE
and the unconventional, maybe even the sensational, is sort of important - is very
important to this committee. And I - you know, there are allegations made out
there that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. That is an allegation that
this committee is about understanding.
MR. ELIAS: Right.
MR. HIMES: There are allegations out there which, quite frankly, I don't
understand the logic of, but, nonetheless, they're out there, and please don't ask
me to run you through the logic, but there are allegations that somehow the
Clinton campaign and/or the DNC worked with the Russians, paid the Russian
sources to come up with damaging allegations against Donald Trump and
su bsequently the President.
I don't understand or lend any particular credence to those allegations, but I
do want to ask you some questions, because you're at the nexus of that
connection between campaign, DNC, all the way to Fusion, Orbis, Steele.
So, at any point in time, did you see any evidence that anybody associated
with the Clinton campaign or the DNC was communicating directly with Fusion
GPS, with Orbis, with Michael Steele, or any of his sources?
MR. ELIAS: You mean Christopher Steele?
MR. HIMES: Sorry. Christopher Steele, yes.
MR. ELIAS: So I would be -- you know, we're all surprised in life
about -- you're only surprised about what you're surprised about. I would be more
than surprised if anyone - if anyone who worked for the DNC or the Clinton
campaign was communicating with Christopher Steele or Russian -- or, for that
matter, you know, as far as I know, anyone in Russia.
You know, you may tell me that you all know of meetings at the policy level
UNCLASSTFTED, COMM]TTEE SENS]TIVE

48
between governments and transition -- or not transitions, but, you know,
campaigns pre-transition. But with respect to this, the stuff I know about and was
responsible for, I'm confident that there -- that Christopher Steele and the -- or any
Russians he was dealing with had no dealings with the Clinton campaign or the
DNC.
IUR. HIMES: Okay. Thank you. I note that you left out Fusion and Orbis.
MR. ELIAS: Oh, Orbis. I assume that Orbis is Christopher Steele, but I
don't know that.
MR. HIMES: Okay.
MR. ELIAS: That's based on by what I read in - what I read in the press.
lsn't Orbis the same as -- isn't that his -
MR. HIMES: I think it's his organization, yes.
MR. ELIAS: Okay, yes. So I put that in the same bucket.
MR. HIMES: Okay.
MR. ELIAS: With respect to Fusion, it is - it is : it is possible -- it's more
than possible. I think there may have been instances in which people in
the -- associated with the campaign or the DNC had relationships with or
othenruise had interaction with Fusion around, you know -- but not around the -- not
around Christopher Steele issues.
MR. HIMES: So you weren't the sole gatekeeper between people at the
DNC, the Clinton campaign -

MR. ELIAS: I was the sole. I was the -- I was the gatekeeper. But there
were -- but there were instances in which there were some interactions othenryise.
But that - but I was the gatekeeper.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Are these interactions that would be covered under

49
UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE
the privilege that we've discussed today?
MS. RUEMMLER: I think we should consult because I don't know the
answer.
MR. HIMES: Okay.
MS. RUEMMLER: So I can advise.
MR. ELIAS: Let me - | think I can clarify this. There were -- in the
representation of the Clinton campaign and the DNC, I had, you know, probably,
all told, a couple of dozen of lawyers who reported to me, both inside my firm and
inside the organizations. Outside of the legal - outside of lawyers who reported
directly to me, which is why I said I was the gatekeeper, there -- I'm unaware of
there being any contacts between -- between Fusion and anyone with the
campaign. And those contacts within my legalteam, you know, the buck stops
with me. I was -- they were acting as -- you know, as my agents.
MR. HIMES: Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
All right. Let me just get into some sort of nitty-gritty questions. First, just
following up on something Mr. Gowdy asked you, he was -- appeared interested in
your decision to hire Fusion GPS for litigation research because its employees are
not lawyers. ls it fair to say that litigation research often includes nonlawyers of
all sorts of varieties, accountants, journalists, et cetera?
MR. ELIAS: From my standpoint, I won't say a hundred -- I won't say
never to anything, but I -- I am -- I am hiring people who are not lawyers. lf I
needed lawyers, I have lawyers. So, yes, it is typically people who have an
expertise other than being a lawyer.
MR. HIMES: Yes, got it. Great. Let's get back to some of the

50
circumstances around the hiring of Fusion GPS, and l'll try not to be repetitive.
But so you were referring to the fact that you knew at the time that Fusion had
been retained by a wealthy Republican.
ls that - I understand the previous hiring of Fusion GPS to have been done
by the Washington Free Beacon. ls that the wealthy Republican you're talking
about?
MR. ELIAS: Well, I don't know.
MR. HIMES: Okay.
MR. ELIAS: I can only tell you how it was communicated to me. lt was
not on behalf of a conservative newspaper; it was on behalf of a wealthy
Republican.
MR. HIMES: And did they disclose the name of that wealthy Republican?
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. HIMES: They just told you, '\ffe have been hired by a wealthy
Republican"?
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So it's quite possible it could be somebody

associated with the Free Beacon? You just don't know?
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. HIMES: Okay. What was the date of that conversation?
MR. ELIAS: I don't know. lt would have been in, I'm guessing, the
March-April timeframe.
MR. HIMES: March-April, okay. Did you'receive any of the reports that
were produced by Fusion for the, as what you understood, the wealthy
Republican?
UNCLASSTF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
PROPERTY OF T}IE TINITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

5L
MR, ELIAS: I don't even know if they produced reports for the wealthy
Republican, So I don't know.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So they never offered you reports that they
characterized as having been already done. They just told you, "We've done
research"?
MR. ELIAS: Right.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Okay. And I think you alluded to this, but let me just
ask it more precisely. You said that the conversation, the initial conversation with
Fusion GPS was March or April, and then, if I took notes well, you said that you
came to know that Christopher Steele was involved in research in July.
MR. ELIAS: That's my best estimate, yes.
MR. HIMES: Okay. And how was Christopher Steele, when you learned
of his involvement, how was his involvement and who he was characterized to
you?
MS. RUEMMLER: I think that question, as stated, calls for privileged
information, so l'm going to have to instruct you not to answer.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Well, in the interest of not causing another
conference, I'm going to move on.
Had you known Mr, Simpson before you hired Fusion GPS?
MR. ELIAS: So I believe that he wrote some of the stories at one of the
newspapers in the mid-nineties about some of my clients. So I knew who - |
knew who he was as a newspaper reporter, but I wouldn't say we had anything
other than the relationship that one has when a newspaper is writing negative
stories about your clients.
MR. HIMES: So is it fair to say that prior to that meeting in which he

52
shopped his services, you had -- prior to that meeting, you had never discussed
Trump, Clinton, campaigns, Russia, any of that?
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. HIMES: Okay. How frequently did you communicate with individuals
from Fusion GPS during the election cycle, upon their engagement?
MR. ELIAS: Yes. I said this when Congressman Gowdy said "monthly"
and I said it was more frequent than monthly. I would say - yeah, I would say
typically - if I had to put a number on it, l'd say weekly.
MR. HIMES: Okay.
MR. ELIAS: Yeah, it was a little dependent on what else was going on in
my -- you know, I was going back and forth to Brooklyn, you know, regularly. I
can't complain to Members of Congress about having to travel every week, but it
WAS --
MR. HECK: Please don't if it's Brooklyn.
MR. ELIAS: But it was -- so - but I would say, in general, it was weekly.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Over the course of those conversations, did you tell
Fusion GPS what to explore in their investigation?
MR. ELIAS: Yes. Yes. Generally, yes, with the understanding -- and I
think the med malexample is a good one, which is, you know, understanding that
they may come across other things and they bring them to your attention and say,
"ls this something we should pursue or not?"
MR. HIMES: Right. And the conversation in which you were introduced
to Steele, which I think you recallwas in July --
tvlR. ELIAS: No, that's when I learned the name.

MR. HIMES: The name. At what point in those conversations did the
UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE

53
UNCLASSTFTED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE
concept of Russia get introduced? You start on bankruptcies and business
dealings, normally garden variety stuff. At what point did the concept of Russia
and Donald Trump's possible involvement in any way with Russia, at what point
did that come up?
MS. RUEMMLER: You can describe the timeframe without getting into
content.
MR. ELIAS: Okay. Well, I'm going to describe the timeframe with very
limited reference to the content. lt was sometime after the Democratic National
Committee was hacked by Russia and the Trump campaign, through the platform
at the RNC and other public statements, were taking an unconventional positive
posture towards Russia. So you would have to look at the public clips to figure
out.
MR. HIMES: So, just to be very clear, the hack occurs, it does not become
public for some period of time. When you say after the DNC --
MR. ELIAS: After it's public.
MR. HIMES: So after the disclosure, the public disclosure of the hack, it
was at some point after that public disclosure that Russia as a concept first comes
up in your relationship with Fusion GPS?
MR. ELIAS: I - yes. lt could have been the week of the public disclosure,
the week before, but in that generaltimeframe
MR. HIMES: Okay.
MR. ELIAS: And ldon't rememberwhen the platform meeting of the RNC
was, but that would be the other sort of temporal point I would look at.
MR, HIMES: Okay. Did you receive work products that were produced
with research conducted by anyone other than Chris Steele?
UNCLASS]F]ED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE

54
MR. ELIAS: I don't know what you mean.
MR. HIMES: So --
MR. ELIAS: I received work products from Fusion.
MR. HIMES: Yeah, yeah. Let me ask that more precisely. Did Fusion
give you work product that was not associated with the work done by Chris
Steele?
MR. ELIAS: You'd have to ask them.
MR. HIMES: Okay. How did you receive information from Fusion? Was
it written? You've obviously -- you said you had regular conversations. Did they
also produce written reports for you?
MR. ELIAS: Sometimes. lt depended on the nature of what I was looking
for. Sometimes it was -- you know, particularly with court files, it would be the raw
files, because I -- you know, I'd want to look at and make some judgments myself
on the legal merits. Sometimes it would be orally. They would just tell me, you
know, "This is something that is of interest," And sometimes it would be in written
form in one form or another.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So here I'm going to go back to sort of my
conventional/unconventionaldistinction. You're doing opposition research,
litigation, bankruptcy. I would categorize that as conventional. lt may or may not
be good for the candidate involved, but it's pretty -- at some point in your
discussions with Fusion GPS, were you troubled by reporting that they provided
you to? And what I would define as troubled would be because you saw or heard
something that was unconventional.
MR. ELIAS: l'm not sure why unconventionalwould be troubling. I mean,
that - I don't mean that philosophically. ls the question "did I receive information

55
that was unconventional" or "did I receive information that was troubling"?
MR. HIMES: Did you receive information that was troubling to you?
MR. ELIAS: Troubling that they provided it to me or troubling as a citizen
of the country?
MR. HIMES; Both.
MR. ELIAS: Yes, I received information that was troubling as a citizen of
the country or as, you know, someone who cares about democracy.
MR. HIMES: And when was that?
MR. ELIAS: ln the summer and early fall.
MR. HIMES: And what type of details did you find troubling?
MS. RUEMMLER: I think that question, as stated, unfortunately, calls for
information protected by applicable privileges, so l'm going to instruct him not to
answer.
MR. HIMES: Let me rephrase the question then. What values, ethical
concerns you had, were violated by the information that troubled you?
MR. ELIAS: I was concerned that a foreign adversary had hacked into one
of the two major political parties for the purpose of influencing the outcome of the
2016 Presidential election and potentially other elections, including the
congressionalelection, and that there might be U.S. individuals who had some
role -- and I'm not going to use the word "collusion" or "conspiracy" because that's
all for you all to decide * but that might have some role in that, and I found that
deeply troubling.
MR. HIMES: So you look at some work product, and now you've told us
why you find it troubling. This is quite important to this committee's work.
Are there other things that you are provided that this committee may not

56
have? And we have had the Steele dossier for a long time and all the things
associated with it. Are there things that caused you to be troubled that you think
we may, as a committee, not have access to?
MR. ELIAS: lt's a hard question to answer because I don't know what you
have access to.
MR. HIMES: Well, let's start with the assumption that we - that all that we
have access to is the so-called Steele dossier.
MR. ELIAS: I think there are other things that are troubling.
MR. HIMES: That we may not have?
MR. ELIAS: Well, that's what I don't know whether you have or not.
MR. HIMES: lf you assume that all we have is what is publicly
available - let me put it that way. lf you assume that all we have is what is
publicly available, are there other things that you are aware of that we may not
have that caused you to be troubled?
MS. RUEMMLER: I think that the question, as stated, as you are aware of,
is okay and you can answer that.
MR. ELIAS: So, I mean, this is publicly available information', but it's
illustrative, and I don't know whether this is something the committee, you know, is
aware of or not aware of. But it was deeply troubling to me that among the
records that were hacked and produced on the internet were records that seemed
to target -- or not seemed, that targeted particular congressional races in what
appeared to me, just my opinion, betrayed a high level of sophistication of how to
influence important congressional races. I mean, it struck me -- and I apologize if
this goes beyond your question. But it struck me that it was plausible that the
Republican -- I'm sorry. lt was plausible that Russia had expertise to hack a party

57
and post emails on the internet. lt was plausible that they would know that John
Podesta's emails would be important. lt was plausible that - that they would be
timed around the Democratic convention and that all of that could be done without
the involvement of anyone in the United States.
It seemed to me less plausible or, to put it another way, troubling that swing
House district opposition research would be posted in a way that seemed to me,
again, just as just one person, seemed targeted to influence the -- to create the
maximum impact in those swing House races to hurt Democrats.
I would dare say that not even every member of this committee would, if
given the -- was able to hack either the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee or the National Republican Congressional Committee, would have the
level of sophistication to pick out the kinds of records that were picked out and put
online. And certainly, it seemed to me unlikely that a foreign adversary sitting in
Moscow did that,
So I found that deeply troubling, and I do find that deeply troubling. I
assume that is information that is within the possession of the committee,
however, though, because it's -- it's public -- it's public information. lt was
posted - you know, that information was posted on Wikileaks.
MR. HIMES: Well, let me follow up on that point, and I don't want to beat
this dead horse, but it's important. What I'm trying to get at here -- the committee
obviously is interested in getting all the evidence. You saw things that were
troubling. There's no way for us to know if you -- if we have everything that you
have seen that was troubling. The example you just gave was an example of
the : a public example. We can easily check that. So let me see if I can ask this
artfully.

58
ls it possible that you saw material that has not become public that is
evidence one way or another of things that you found troubling that might be in the
scope of this committee's investigation? lf the answer to that question is yes,
obviously, we have that much more reason and there may already be enough
reason to get the DNC and the Clinton campaign to waive privilege. But the point
is, if you believe that there is material evidence that is of interest to the committee,
we have to figure out a way to get it.
MR. ELIAS: As I sit here -- it's an interesting question, and it's one I'd like
to reflect on. But, as I sit here today, I can't think of anything that is not public that
falls in that category.
MR. HIMES: Okay. That's helpful.
MR. ELIAS: Just more that I can think of things that are public that I have
given thought to the inferences to, which is more in the hypothetical -- or not
hypothetical, the example I used.
MR. HIMES: Okay, great. We're almost out of time on our side here, but
just a couple quick questions. Did you ever speak with the FBI or other law
enforcement about claims in any of the work product you saw?
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. HIMES: And why not?
MR. ELIAS: Why didn't I talk to the FBI about it?
MR. HIMES: You sort of talked about being troubled to an extent that you
were really concerned about the suborning of our system.
MR. ELIAS: Look, I was aware that the FBI was investigating the hack of
the Democratic Party and of John Podesta's emails and others. I was aware
that -- that other lawyers, including lawyers at my firm, were talking to the FBI

59
UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE
about those matters. I don't have a security clearance. I never wanted a security
clearance. Maybe it's because I didn't want to have to take my Apple watch off.
But so that's one reason
The second is that, by the time we got to September, there was an
attribution to Russia by the 17 intelligence agencies. So I guess the short answer
is it seemed like they were -- I assumed the law enforcement was kind of on the
case, such as it was.
MR. HIMES: You just made reference to the fact that you knew that some
of your law partners were talking to the FBl. Can you elaborate on that? Was
that as part of the investigation, or was that something separate?
MR. ELIAS: No. So one of my partners handled the DNC breach for
the -- for the DNC, and I know that he -- his name is Michael Sussmann. He has
whatever security clearances, like a whole bunch of letters after it.
So, you know, he was talking to whomever. And he was a former DOJ
cybercrimes guy. So he was dealing with the FBI around the breach and the
hack, and ljust dldn't have any reason to --
Five minutes.
MR. ELIAS: -- sort of put myself into that mix.
MR. HIMES: And was that the only - again, you made this reference to
your partners dealing with the FBl. ls that the only example?
MR. ELIAS: Yes. Michaelwould be the only example.

MR. HIMES: Okay. So --
MR. ELIAS: I meant - maybe I should have said partner.
MR, HIMES: Partner, okay. Okay. So you weren't making reference to
the possibility that a partner was cooperating with the Mueller investigation or
PROPERTY OF THE L]NITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

60
anything?
MR. ELIAS: With the Mueller investigation? No.
MR. HIMES: Okay. So - okay, got it.

MR. ELIAS: No, I thought we were talking back in the time period
MR. HIMES: Yeah, okay. Four minutes now?
Yes
MR. HIMES: Okay. You became - I asked the question previously; you
became aware of Russia as a concept you estimated in July. Do you know when
Fusion GPS made the Steele hire to assist in their research?
MR. ELIAS: I think I said the Russia as a concept was before July, I think
I said I became aware of Steele in July -

MR. HIMES: Okay.
MR. ELIAS: -- the name Christopher Steele in July. I - and the reason
why I say that is I believe that that hire was made sometime in June.
MR. HIMES: ln June, okay. Have you ever met Chris Steele?
MR. ELIAS: ldid.
MR. HIMES: Where and when?
MR. ELIAS: I met him once in the fall of 2016. I had a, sort of a brief, you
know, sort of "hello, nice to meet you" kind of meeting.
MR. HIMES: There's a long tradition in this committee of the nature of
meetings, so I try to avoid that nightmare.
So this was not a business meeting. This was not you need to meet a
subsource and everything. The way you make it sound, it was sort of like you
crossed, you know, at a cocktail party or -- so give us --
MR. ELIAS; No, it was not crossing at a cocktail party.

61
MS. RUEMMLER: I think the originalquestion was where and when. You
missed the where.
MR. ELIAS: l'm sorry. I apologize. Where was at Perkins Coie. When
was in the fall.
MR. HIMES: ln the fall. Can you be more specific than "in the fall"?
MR. ELIAS: I'm going to guess it was late September or early October.
MR. HIMES: And what was the purpose of his visit to Perkins Coie?
MS. RUEMMLER: You can describe the purpose generally.
MR. ELIAS: l'm trying to remember. I don't recallwhether he was coming
to meet me and sort of introduce himself or whether they were using a conference
room for something else and that happened. ljust don't remember.
MR, HIMES: Okay. You characterized this as a brief meeting. Did you
communicate with him about his work in that meeting?
MS. RUEMMLER: You can answer that yes or no.
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. HIMES: Okay. Was that the only time you communicated with Chris
Steele prior to the election?
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. HIMES. What about subsequent to the election?
MR. ELIAS: I don't believe I -- no, I've never spoken -- I believe -- I'm 99.9
percent sure that was the only time I communicated before the election, and I
never communicated with him after the election.
MR. HIMES: Okay. When did you actually receive the so-called Steele
dossier?
MR. ELIAS: So -- can I answer?

62
MS. RUEMMLER: Yes. You can answer, yes. Answer it succinctly.
MR. ELIAS: Got it. As what has been portrayed on BuzzFeed, I never
received the Steele dossier in that form.
MS. RUEMMLER: That's resPonsive.
MR. HIMES: ln the one meeting you had with Christopher Steele, had you
received, in whatever form you received it in, this so-called information contained
in the Steele dossier?
MS. RUEMMLER: You can answer.
MR. ELIAS: Some of it.

MR. HIMES: Some of it. Okay. I think we've got about another minute,
right? We'll yield our time. Take a quick break,
[Recess.]
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63
UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMfTTEE SENSITIVE
[4:05 p.m,]
DR. WENSTRUP: Let's go to the work you do on campaigns, or the firm
does on campaigns. So you do Presidentialcampaigns, non-Presidential
campaigns, your firm has traditionally?
MR. ELIAS: Yes, House, Senate. Traditionally, House, Senate,
Presidential, governor.
DR. WENSTRUP: ls this the first Presidential campaign for Perkins Coie?
MR. ELIAS: No, no, no.
DR. WENSTRUP: ls this your first involvement with a Presidential
campaign?
MR. ELIAS: No.
DR. WENSTRUP: And ljust want to be clear too that Fusion is not a
client, right, because clients pay you, you don't pay them.
MR. ELIAS: Fusion is not a client.
DR. WENSTRUP: Okay. When you engage and your clients come to
you, as you have stated, DNC and Hillary for America, those are your clients, but
just using them as an example, we don't even have to say them, but any client that
comes to you, do they come to you with a set of expectations?
Like, you make an agreement, you make an arrangement, we're here hiring
you, this is what we expect of you? Do they usually come forth with a list of
expectations of services they expect you to provide?
MR. ELIAS: They usually have a core set of expectations. I tell folks that,
you know, I think, by and large, I typically get hired by campaigns because of
campaign finance laws. So, like, that is kind of like a core expectation.

64
Beyond that, some have other additional expectations. Some don't.
Some just want just that core.
DR. WENSTRUP: Right, but they could hire you, just say, hey, we want to
be able to call you every once in a while for legal advice, or they could hire you
and say, we want you to hire our opposition research. We want you to do A, B, C,
and D. And you're probably going to write a contract that says what the
expectations are. I would imagine, as attorneys, you are going to want that
defined as you go into this contract, Or is it just -

MR. ELIAS: No. Our - most law firms, not just ours, but most law firms,
the engagement letters that are used to retain law firms are fairly nonspecific.
DR. WENSTRUP: So you just hired Fusion GPS on your own? They
didn't ask you to hire someone for opposition research?
MR. ELIAS: Well, two different questions.
One is, you asked what the contract was between us and campaigns
generally. And the answer is that most clients, whether they are in the political
space or not political space, law firm engagement letters tend to be fairly general
and not quite as -

DR. WENSTRUP: So most of your clients, then, you are saying, will come
to you and hire you, and you will bill them, and you can do whatever you want?
MR. ELIAS: No. That's not what I'm saying.
DR. WENSTRUP: I mean within campaign finance rules or whatever the

case may be.
ln other words, you don't always hire a legal team to go out and find
someone to do the opposition research. People don't do that all the time, I can
tellyou that.

6s
MR. ELIAS: No, I agree, I was answering just the question about what
the written agreement says,
With respect to the scope of services, so I think, again, speaking generally,
because I think that's the way you framed the question, there are campaigns that
hire us to serve as general counsel to the campaign and to be responsible for all of
the legal affairs of the campaign.
And there are campaigns that hire us to do more discrete pieces of it, where
they're not looking for us to do -- to be in charge of all their legal affairs, they may
just want us to do a piece of it.
DR. WENSTRUP: That's my point. So there was apparently in this case
with the DNC and with the Clinton campaign an expectation that you would hire
opposition research, because you went and did it. And they didn't balk. They
paid the bill.
MR. ELIAS: There was an expectation -

DR. WENSTRUP: I assume they paid the bill. I'm sorry.
MR. ELIAS: They did.
DR. WENSTRUP: Okay.

MR. ELIAS: There was an expectation that we would hire the consultants,
including research consultants, necessary to enable us to provide services to the
campaign.
DR. WENSTRUP: Was that in writing in this case?
MR. ELIAS: I don't believe so. I think our engagement letter simply says
we'll serve as general counsel for the campaign, but I haven't --
DR. WENSTRUP: That includes allthat. That's interesting. I'm not an
attorney, so you have to bear with me here. That kind of blows me away. As a

66
client, I would sure want it in writing, but that's just me, I guess.
Were there any competitors to Fusion in this case? Were there any other
opposition research firms that you entertained, that you spoke with, that you
considered for the job?
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
DR. WENSTRUP: Were anY others hired?
MR. ELIAS: By Perkins?
DR. WENSTRUP: Uh-huh. That you would have had oversight on, you
would say, yeah, hire them as well, they're bringing this to the table, that to the
table.
MR. ELIAS: But that where Perkins hired them?

DR. WENSTRUP: Yeah. Just as you did Fusion GPS.
MR. ELIAS: There may have been.
DR. WENSTRUP: I'd be curious to know who they may have been as well
ln the hiring process, do you ask for references when you're bringing in
somebody you've never worked for? Do you look them up on Facebook? Do
you look for four Stars or five stars? You know, what's your process when you --
MR. ELIAS: Yeah. So it depends on the: it depends on the
circumstance. Sometimes it's reputational. So, you know, we might retain a

cybersecurity remediation firm, and it would be reputational. You know, there are
a handfut of them that are well known and, you know, you generally know what
they have been involved in in the past through public sources.
There are times where it is based on word of mouth or individualized
recommendation, someone Says, hey, I think these folks do good work, they have
done good work in the past.

67
There are times where it's just experience or expertise, they have a
particular expertise in a particular field.
DR. WENSTRUP: And they're known for that?

MR. ELIAS: And they're known for that.
DR, WENSTRUP: Okay. When it comes, you decide, okay, we're going
to go with you, do you negotiate a payment schedule or do they just say -
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
DR. WENSTRUP: -- this is what we charge, take it or leave it?
MR. ELIAS: You always try to negotiate. Sometimes, depending on who
they are, sometimes it's more negotiation, sometimes it's less.
DR. WENSTRUP: So in this case, I think you said, and I may have gotten
this wrong, 60,000 a month with Fusion?
MR. ELIAS: I think that --
DR. WENSTRUP: To start anyway.
MR. ELIAS: I think that *

DR. WENSTRUP: Plus expenses.
MR. ELIAS: I think it was -- I think it was 25 a month for the DNC and 25 a
month for - | think Perkins was paying 25 and 25, plus expenses.
DR. WENSTRUP: Okay. And did you say, "Well, give us a sample of
some of your work"? Because they're coming to you and they're saying, hey,
we've done allthis research already, and so you should hire us.
So do you say, okay, give me a sample of what you got, does that happen?
MR. ELIAS: ln this case -- again, you know, I think at the congressional
level, oftentimes what you're looking for in a campaign is a research book. I don't
know whether they did or didn't do a research book for their prior rich person, their
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSfTIVE

68
prior client.
I wasn't -- I wouldn't have hired them to do a research book. The
campaign had dozens of researchers to do research books.'
I was hiring them to provide expert consulting services to me on the things
that I thought were important so that I could provide services to the campaign. So
getting a sample wouldn't have been meaningful unless it was on a topic that I
was, you know, I really focused on.
DR. WENSTRUP: Well, I know when I hire someone to do writing, I get a
sample of their writing before I make the hire. You know, l'm kind of curious
about their product.
And they say they've already produced a product, and I think the next thing
that l'd be curious about, and wonder if you did this, is, you know, I would say,
well, listen, you've already produced a product, somebody paid you once for it.
So do I get a discount rate, because you've already got it done?
Or did they actually - were they able to double the bill -- double bill on
this -
MR. ELIAS: So it's a fair question. I think both to your last point and this
one, I would say lwas mindful, as I always am, of, you know, since I'm in the client
confidence business, I am mindful of other people's obligations to keep things
confidential.
So, you know, I wouldn't have pressed them for, you know, hey, what did
you - what exactly did you do for this other, or give me what you gave them.
That wouldn't have struck me as, frankly, as appropriate.
On the billing question, you know, I assumed that I was going to save
money for the firm and ultimately therefore for the clients by the fact that they had
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69
UNCLASSTFTED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE
such a broad preexisting familiarity.
I mean, one of the first things you asked before I hired them, like, what were
the things I would have thought about before I hired them. I think, and I could be
wrong, this is pu.blic record, that Donald Trump has written, I think, five books.
So at a minimum, someone's going to need to read the five books. I don't
know if it's five books he wrote or five books was written about him, but there's a
genre of work about him.
And if someone has already done that, then I assumed I was going to save
money relative to someone who is walking in cold.
DR. WENSTRUP: Well, if I was hiring you, I would want to make sure you
were doing that, to be honest with you, you know, be a little frugal with my money.
So, again, I'm not a lawyer, but in these situations, if I'm seeking legal
advice for my campaign and opposition research is coming in with stuff, I would
certainly want the legal team to take a look at it.
MR. ELIAS: The legalteam -- I'm sorry, the legal team take a look at?
DR. WENSTRUP: The legalteam to take a look at it.
I guess l'm going to ask you this bluntly. Do you ever in your situation say,
if you can't prove it, don't use it?
MR. ELIAS: Say that to who?
DR. WENSTRUP: A client.
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
DR. WENSTRUP: Okay.
MR. ELIAS: Yes. ln fact, you may have been out of the room for this.
One of the things, which I assume your lawyers do for your campaign that I think
good campaign lawyers do, is when campaigns are making claims, for example, in

70
television ads, they review them and they say, you can't say this. You can't say
that, you know, Congressman Gowdy voted against this billwhen, in fact, the
history of this isn't; or you can't say he lied about X, Y, and Z when in fact that
isn't -- you know, he's going to sue you for defamation.
So part of the job of the larnnTer is to say, no, you can't make this claim.
DR. WENSTRUP: Thank you.
Mr. Gowdy.
MR. GOWDY: Mr. Himes, towards the end, you were discussing with him
what you believed to be the one and only time you met Christopher Steele -
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: - which I think, if ! remember your testimony correctly, was
the fall of 2016, and maybe we narrowed it down to September?
MR. ELIAS: ljust don't remember if it was late September or early

October.
MR. GOWDY: All right. And if I remember right, the meeting took place at
your law firm?
MR. ELIAS: lt did.
MR. GOWDY: And that would be the Washington office of your law firm?
MR. ELIAS: The Washington, D.C., office. We actually have a
Washington State office.
MR. GOWDY: All right. The Washington, D.C., office.

Do you recall who, if anyone, accompanied Mr. Steele to that meeting?
MR. ELIAS. So what I recall is it was someone from -- it was either Peter
or Glenn or both, lt was Mr. Steele and it was a third or fourth person, who was a
woman. And I don't recallwho - whether she was another Fusion person or she
UNCLASSIFIED, COMM]TTEE SENSTTIVE

71
was a Steele person. I don't know.
MR. GOWDY: Are you familiar with the name Nellie Ohr?
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. GOWDY: So you don't remember whether it was a Fusion employee
or someone that was just accompanying Mr. Steele?
MR. ELIAS: Honestly, ldon't.
MR. GOWDY: Who set up the meeting?
MR. ELIAS: Fusion.
MR. GOWDY: And the purpose of the meeting was what?
MS. RUEMMLER: lf you can describe the purpose generally.
MR. ELIAS: Yeah. The purpose from my end, as I understood it, was to
say hello and meet someone who had been doing work, who otherwise I had not
had any contact with.
MR. GOWDY: Why was that important?
MR. ELIAS: Can l?
MS. RUEMMLER: I think you can give your opinion about why you thought
was important.
MR. ELIAS: I thought it was important because -- I think that it was
important to -- I think that the Fusion folks thought it was important that Mr. Steele
hear from me directly that I was aware of his work and was appreciative.
MR. GOWDY: You couldn't do that in a telephone call?
MR. ELIAS: See, this is -- I don't recall. I don't know if you were here. I
don't recall whether he was - they were in town, like, meeting and this was
a -- this was --
MR. GOWDY: Meeting at your law firm?

72
MR. ELIAS: Using a conference room or whether this was scheduled. I
just don't remember.
MR. GOWDY: Do you remember discussing with Mr. Steele any sources
that he
MR. ELIAS: No
One minute
MR. GOWDY: Do you remember asking Mr. Steele about any of the
for any of the work that he had produced?
MR. ELIAS: Can lanswer?
MS. RUEMMLER: You can answer "yes" or "no."
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. GOWDY: How long did the meeting last?
MR. ELIAS: Ten, 15 minutes.
MR. GOWDY: I am looking at a letterfrom Matthew Garringer (ph)' Am I

pronouncing that name right?
MR. ELIAS: That's correct.
MR. GOWDY: lwilltry to summarize the letter. lt is giving Fusion GPS

permission to answer a very small number of questions thal they saw fit to answer
when we were talking to them.
So for want of a better explanation, I guess it's a waiver from Perkins Coie
to Fusion GPS that you can talk about X, Y, and Z. ls that a mischaracterization
of the letteP
MS. RUEMMLER: Well, I think you can -- you are the witness' I think you
can answer.
MR. GOWDY: lt's really not a trick question.
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73
MR. ELIAS: I think the letter speaks for itself. I don't know.
MR, GOWDY: I do too. I do too.
MR, ELIAS: I don't know.
MR. GOWDY: I guess what I'm getting at is whether or not you asked any
of your clients for a waiver to be able to answer any questions today?
MR. ELIAS: Do you mean the two clients we have talked about?
MR. GOWDY: The DNC and Hillary for America. ls that right?
MR. ELIAS: Yeah.
MS. RUEMMLER: I think what I said at the outset was that we have
discussed the matter with them and they - neither DNC nor Hillary for America
has authorized Mr. Elias to disclose any attorney-client privileged information.
MR. GOWDY: But you would agree that's very different than whether or
not you asked?
MS. RUEMMLER: Well, I think that that question as stated actually calls
for information that's protected by the applicable privileges.
MR. GOWDY: I haven't asked for their answer yet. I just asked whether
he asked.
MS. RUEMMLER: Well, I think his question to them is also covered by the
attorney-client relationship, and l'd instruct him not to answer.
MR. GOWDY: Mr. Heck.
MR. HECK: Mr, Elias, let me go back to the beginning. Remind me, sir,
what year you graduated from law school.
MR. ELIAS: I graduated law school in 1993.
MR. HECK: And did you indicate earlier that you had interned the year
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74
before?
MR. ELIAS: I was a Summer associate, which is the equivalent of an
internship.
MR. HECK: With?
MR. ELIAS: With Perkins Coie the summer before. So the summer of
1992.
MR. HECK: And did you immediately go to work for Perkins Coie upon
graduation?
MR. ELIAS: Idid.
MR. HECK: Have you been there continuouslY?
MR. ELIAS: I did. I didn't grow up with enough money to not work.
MR. HECK: And at what point, again, did you begin specializing in political
law?
MR. ELIAS: So some time, I'd say, in the mid-1990s. I have sometimes
joked that I owe my career to Newt Gingrich, because it was the -- it was the
House taking - the Republicans taking control of the House that really ushered in
a much larger - the role of campaigns became much larger.
MR. HECK: And are you currently the managing partner for the political
law practice at Perkins Coie?
MR. ELIAS: Yeah. I chair the practice.
MR. HECK: You chair the Practice?
MR. ELIAS: ldo.
MR. HECK: And how many lawyers report to you or work with you?
MR. ELIAS: I think it's now 31.

MR. HECK: Are those all in Washington, D.C.?

75
MR. ELIAS: No. They're predominantly in Washington, D.C., but we have
some in Chicago, we have a couple in Phoenix. I think that's it.
MR. HECK: At what point since you were first hired at Perkins Coie did
you begin having input and/or responsibility for hiring outside consultants to assist
you in the political law support you gave to clients?
MR. ELIAS: Good question. You know, as an associate - so I was an

associate from '93 to 2001. So as a senior associate, I - you know, there were a
handful of matters that I was involved in where I was in a position where I had that
authority.
But as an associate, you're an employee, so it's always constrained by the
partner for whom you are working. Once I became a partner, then I was, you
know, authorized to do that.
MR. HECK: And you became chair again when?
MR. ELIAS: I became chair in two thousand and -- when did Craig leave?
MS. RUEMMLER: Inaudible.]
lvlR. HECK: Your attorney knows when you became chair?

MR. ELIAS: I became chair because one of my partners left to become
White House counsel. So my counsel knows when that happened. So it was in
2009.
MR. HECK: And have served continuously in that capacity since?
MR. ELIAS: lndeed.
MR. HECK: So let's dealjust with the time since you've become chair.
MR. ELIAS: Okay.
MR. HECK: Can you estimate the number of consultants that you have
hired?

76
MR. ELIAS: lf you count repeats as separate engagements, because they
were engaged for separate clients, probably 20,25.
MR. HECK: Twenty to 25 nonduplicated?
MR. ELIAS: l'm saying it may be the same consultant, but they'd be
separate engagements of them. ln other words, I might engage a consultant for
one matter here and then a year later for something -

MR. HECK: So that would be two?
MR. ELIAS: That would be two, yeah.
MR. HECK: Can you estimate the number of different consultants that you
have hired over that period of time? So, for example --

MR. ELIAS: Ten lo 12.
MR. HECK: -- Mr. Elias, it's not one consultant 25 times?
MR. ELIAS: No, no. Ten to 12.
MR. HECK: So would it be fair to say that it is the norm over time for you
to regularly hire someone for the first time?
MR. ELIAS: Yeah.
MR. HECK: That's more than once a year --
MR. ELIAS: Yeah.
MR. HECK: - if I do my math correctly.
You mentioned that you would tell Fusion GPS what to look for in its
research? Did you indicate that earlier?

MR. ELIAS: I said that I would give them direction on what research they
could do that would help me do my job. So I might say, I will make - this is
a - this is not waiving privilege because it's a hypothetical.
I might say, okay, I know that the campaign is likely going to want to make
UNCI,ASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSITIVE

77
public statements about the way the local Scottish population was treated around
Trump's golf course in Scotland, so I need -- l'm going to need records of lawsuits
or, you know, documentary films which exist only in Scotland so that I can see that
and digest it. And, you know, that would be an example.

MR. HECK: So you gave them specific direction at times -- if you are using
that as a hypotheticalexample, that's very --
MR. ELIAS: ln that hypothetical example, I wouldn't know whether there
are court filings or not, whether there are movies -- documentary films or not,
whether he's beloved by the population of Scotland or hated by the population of
Scotland.
So I would just say, like, what can you help me gather that relates to his
relationship in Scotland? And then they would go off and, you know, see what
they come back with. And then I might say, this is useful, this is not worth using,
this is not worth passing along, this is really worth passing along, this is worth me
just knowing as a fact in the back of my brain so that when there is a particular ad
that's going to run, I know this is a dividing line.
MR. HECK: I'm trying to differentiate between whether the direction you
gave them was of a broad topical nature or of a specific nature.
MR. ELIAS: lt depended.
MR. HECK: Meaning both?
MR. ELIAS: Both, yeah. Sometimes one and sometimes the other,
depending on the topic or depending on the need.
MR. HECK: How often did you give them that direction?
MR. ELIAS: So like I said, I met with them typically, or spoke to them
typically, l'd say on average, once a week.
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78
MR. HECK: I assume that part of the purpose of those meetings, however,
would be for you to receive information -

MR. ELIAS: Sure.
MR. HECK: -- not just, then, to give direction.
MR. ELIAS: Yeah. lt was both. lt was a give-and{ake. I mean, it was

iterative, which is the way I would normally work with any consultant, is they're
reporting back to you information. That is then shaping your judgment as to what
further work is worth pursuing or not.
MR. HECK: And if they were retained May, June, July, August,
September, October, basically 6 months, approximately, and you met
approximately once a week, then we're talking, by your best estimate, at least 20
such meetings -
MR. ELIAS: Yeah, Yeah.
MR. HECK: -- where these kinds of iterative conversations would take
place of receiving information and giving either broad or specific direction.
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. HECK: Did you ever direct them -- pardon the use of this
phrase - directly or indirectly to find a specific conclusion?
MR. ELIAS: I wasn't looking for conclusions. I was looking for
information.
MR. HECK: Did you ever direct them, directly or indirectly, to procure a
certain fact not yet in evidence, to use the legalterm?
MR. ELIAS: I would ask them to help find out if a fact was correct.
MR. HECK: Why are you pointing at me?
MR. GOWDY: Oh. I thought you were looking at me.
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79
MR. HECK: lwas.
MR. GOWDY: Oh.
MR. HECK: I'm trying to get over the fact that none of those election
experts are in theirWashington State office.
MR. GOWDY: You are so popular, you don't need an expert.
MR. ELIAS: That's not entirely true. None of the members of the group -
MR. HECK: You mentioned Scottsdale and Chicago. I heard no mention
of Seattle.
MR. ELIAS: No member of the political law group is in Seattle, but we
have three lawyers who are out there who do work for Democratic campaigns.
MR. HECK: I think I know that.
MR. ELIAS: But they're in the labor group. And it's a point of contention.
So I refuse to count them, because they're not in my group. They would tell you
they are, they should be counted.
MR. HECK: I might mention that to them.
MR. ELIAS: You should. lt's a jurisdictional dispute that we have, kind of
like the stuff you guys do.
MR. HECK: I yield back, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
MR. GOWDY: All right. I will get this in before we go vote.

l'm going to ask you about a couple names. And then here is the question,
whether or not you talked to them in 2016.
MR. ELIAS: Sure.
MR. GOWDY: Natalia Veselnitskaya.
MR. ELIAS: I don't know who that is, so I doubt it.
t\IR. GOWDY: All right.
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80
UNCLASSIFTED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE
MR. ELIAS: lf you tell me who it is, I might be able to --
MS. RUEMMLER: Inaudible.]
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. GOWDY: I'm happy to -- well, I'm not going to get you to change your
answer. She is ostensibly a Russian lawyer that --

MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. GOWDY: -- I think most of the world knows met with Donald Trump
Jr.
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. GOWDY: Not as much of the world knows met with Glenn Simpson.
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. GOWDY: Bruce Ohr.
MR. ELIAS: I don't know who that is.
MR. GOWDY: Andrew McCabe.
MR. ELIAS: ls he the Director of the FBI?
MR. GOWDY: Deputy.
MR. ELIAS: Oh. No.
MR. GOWDY: Peter Strzok.
MR. ELIAS: I don't know who that is.
MR. GOWDY: Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: Were you part of the decision on whether or not to
surrender the server that had been hacked to the Bureau?
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. GOWDY: Do you know anything about it?

81
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: What do you know about it?
MS. RUEMMLER: I assume that anything that you know is from a
privileged -
MR. ELIAS: Correct.
MS. RUEMMLER: -- communication. So I instruct you not to answer.
MR. GOWDY: I don't know whether any of these assertions are true,
they've been made. I don't make any judgment about the validity of them. I'm
just going to ask you whether or not you're familiar with them.
Whether or not Fusion GPS paid reporters.
MR. ELIAS: I have no reason to think that that's true. No, I don't know
anything about it.
MR, GOWDY: Whether Fusion GPS sent Christopher Steele to certain
media outlets in the fall of 2016.
MR. ELIAS: I am aware that he talked to media outlets in that time period
MR. GOWDY: Well, there are a number of ways you could be aware of it.
You could have actually read an article where he was quoted in it. You could
have known ahead of time. So how were you aware?
MR. ELIAS. I hate to take a break, but I think we're going to have to.
MS. RUEMMLER: All right. A quick one.

MR. GOWDY: All right.
MR. ELIAS: lknow.
IRecess.]
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UNCI,ASSTFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
[4:38 p.m.]
MR. GOWDY: I think we had established that you did not know anything
about Fusion GPS paying reporters. And I think my next question is whether or
not you knew anything about Fusion GPS sending Christopher Steele to media
outlets in the fall of 2016.
MR. ELIAS: And lthink lsaid yes.
MR. GOWDY: And then lwill probably ask, how did you know that?
MR. ELIAS: That's where I think we were up to.
MS. RUEMMLER: And that, lthink, calls for privileged information and l'd
instruct him not to answer.
MR. GOWDY: Were you part of the decision to send him to media outlets?
IvlR. ELIAS: lwas aware of it.

MR. GOWDY: Before or after?
MR. ELIAS: Before.
MR. GOWDY: Were you part of selecting which media outlets would be
approached?
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. GOWDY: I gleaned from your earlier testimony that what people
referred to as the dossier, you never saw in the form of what's called a dossier.
MR. ELIAS: Correct.
MR. GOWDY: I'm assuming you saw individualsummaries of investigative
work that was later compiled into a dossier.
MR. ELIAS: Some of it. Some of it. But not all of it.
MR. GOWDY: And how would those -- what you did see, how would it
come to you?

83
MR. ELIAS: Either in person, in hard copy, or orally.
MR. GOWDY: From whom?
MR. ELIAS: Either Mr. Simpson or Mr. Fritsch.
MR. GOWDY: And when did that begin?
MR. ELIAS: I'm trying to remember. I think late -- either early -- maybe
early July, late - maybe late June, early July.
MR. GOWDY: Are you familiar with the expression "paid media" versus
"earned media"?
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: All right. And how do you distinguish between the two?
MR. ELIAS: Paid media is like television commercials, radio, television, or
paid advertising, things that the campaigns pay for.
Earned media, or free media, is stuff that the press will report or will go viral
via Twitter or Facebook, but not paid.
MR. GOWDY: Would there be an order in which you pursued those two
forms of media? Would you try the --
MR. ELIAS: Me?
MR. GOWDY: -- free route first? Just in general campaigns. Would you
try to shop a story to a reporter before you invested any money in disseminating
whatever it is you wanted disseminated?
MR. ELIAS: Not always. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. lt really
depends.
I mean, my experience with campaigns is sometimes they want to get a
story written about it first in the free media. Sometimes they'd rather control the
way the issue is presented and they'd rather do paid media first. lt really just
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84
depends on the campaign, the campaign manager, and their philosophy.
MR. GOWDY: All right. I want to make sure I get it right. So if I get this
wrong, let me try to summarize it, you can correct me.
You were not aware if Fusion GPS paid reporters to report on any aspect of
what's later been called the dossier?
MR. ELIAS: Correct.
MR. GOWDY: You were aware beforehand of a decision at least
contemplated or debated to send Steele to certain media outlets?
MR. ELIAS: Correct.
MR. GOWDY: You did not have a hand in selecting those media outlets?
MR. ELIAS: ldid not.
MR. GOWDY: Were you present when it was discussed which media
outlets might be friendliest to that entreat?
MS. RUEMMLER: You can answer whether you were present.
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: Did that conversation take place at your law firm?
lVlS. RUEMMLER: You can answer that if you recall.

MR. ELIAS: That's what I'm trying to remember, if I recall.
I think so, but I don't -- I can't honestly say 100 percent.
MR. GOWDY: lf it had not taken place at your law firm, where would it
have taken place?
MR. ELIAS: By phone.
MR. GOWDY: You believe you saw some of the material --
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: - in its organic form before it went into the dossier --

85
UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: -- but perhaps not all of it?
MR. ELIAS: Yes. Correct.
MR. GOWDY: Do you recall asking that any follow-up work be done after
you read portions of it?
MR. ELIAS: Yes.
MR. GOWDY: And what was the nature of that follow-up work you
contemplated?
MS. RUEMMLER: I think that's protected by privilege and I'd instruct you
not to answer.
MR. GOWDY: Well, he answered one of the questions.
I'm trying to get back to kind of where we started, which is what duty, if any,
exists to investigate assertions and how they would be investigated.
MR. ELIAS: Taking it out of the dossier and putting it in a more abstract,
which I think will be helpful to you, because I think it will -

MR. GOWDY: Only if it's done quickly, because I got to go vote.
MR. ELIAS: Because I think it will allow me to say more.
It depends what the goal is. Sometimes you get as a lawyer, as a
Congressman, you get assertions, and you just don't do anything with it. So
there's no duty or anything to do anything with it. You are just not -- it's just
not -- it's not useful, it's not interesting, it's not --
MR. GOWDY: Well, you would agree --
MR. ELIAS: And sometimes it is.
MR. GOWDY: - it could impact your willingness and ability to believe other
material produced. lf someone brings you 10 facts, 9 of which you don't believe,
UNCiJASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSfTIVE

85
that could --
MR. ELIAS: Sure.
Ir/R. GOWDY: - that could in theory impact whether or not you believe the
tenth.
MR. GOWDY: Hence the need for some form of corroboration,
investigation, vetting, understanding better where that information came from.
MR. ELIAS: I think in my experience in the context of campaigns
generally, these campaigns are rnoving very, very fast. I'm not evaluating this for
a congressional committee or the FBI a year later. l'm making judgments in
realtime whether the information I'm receiving is information that is going to be
useful or not useful to the task that I have.
If it is not useful to the task I have, then it's simply not useful and there is no
point in me chasing it down.
lf it is useful, then, yes, I will do more -- I will do more follow-up, depending
on whether it's -- what that level is. That level might be to get more case files,
that level might be to consult a second expert, it might be to try to do further
vetting, to use your term.
But I don't think it's true that every time I get a piece of information from a
consultant, I am under some obligation or would find it a good use of time to track
it down.
MR. GOWDY: I am not even insinuating that you are under an obligation,
but if I were to tell you that your car had just been stolen, it would be really
relevant to you whether or not I heard that from the chief of the Capitol Police or
whether or not I heard that from one of my colleagues who had a reputation for
UNCI,ASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
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87
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMfTTEE SENSIT]VE
mendacity.
MR. ELIAS: That's true. And if you told me that Kash had jaywalked, I
wouldn't follow up.
MR. GOWDY: But if it were something that were important that you were
interested in, why not ask the folks at Fusion GPS or Christopher Steele, Where
did you get that information?
MR. ELIAS: I assumed -- can I say?
MS. RUEMMLER: Yeah. Go ahead.
MR. ELIAS: I assumed that I was dealing with professionals who had their
own sets of confidential arrangements and had their own professionaljudgment.
And I did not view myself in a position to sort of engage a second-level review of
information that I received.
lf I received information and it was useful and it was verifiable and it was
information that I felt comfortable with, then it went in one bucket. lf it was
information that wasn't, it wasn't.
MR. GOWDY: Early on in your interview today, you said that you were
very interested in learning as much as possible and that the committee should
continue looking into Russia's efforts to interfere with our 2016 election cycle.
MR. GOWDY: But you would agree that that would be relevant or either
side, whether it was efforts to assist the Trump campaign through official Russian
Government channels or whether it was a current or former Russian Government
employee who was feeding information to Steele. lt's still an effort to influence
the outcome of the election, right?
MR. ELIAS: lwould encourage the committee to do everything it can to
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88
figure out whether Russia or any other foreign state tried to influence our election.
l'm not going to -- l'm not expert to comment on whether -

MR. GOWDY: Well, when you say a foreign state, Great Britain doesn't
leap to people's mind, for the most part --
MR. ELIAS: Right.
MR. GOWDY: -- except for the fact that Chris Steele is a British citizen.
MR. ELIAS. True.
MR. GOWDY: So that could be a foreign country, foreign citizen's effort to
influence an election. Agree?
MR. ELIAS: I didn't say a foreign citizen. I said a foreign state.
MR. GOWDY: Does it matter to you whether the person's a current or
former employee of that foreign state?
MR, ELIAS: l-
MR. GOWDY: Does it matter whether they're accessing information that
may be held by that foreign state?
MR. ELIAS. I mean, we're now into a philosophical discussion perhaps,
but --
MR. GOWDY: But it's not philosophical if - if someone relied on Russian

sources that were government sources. Then it's outside the realm of the
philosophical into the realm of what happened.
MR. ELIAS: Well, first of all, you may know more about what happened
than I do.
MR. GOWDY: I don't. That's why l'm asking you.
MR. ELIAS: Number one.
Number two, I think that at the point that the Russian Government through
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UNCIJASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
its intelligence agencies victimized the Democratic National Committee and
they were -
MR. GOWDY: And John Podesta.
MR. ELIAS: And John Podesta.
MR. GOWDY: lagree 100 percent.
MR. ELIAS: And they were the victim.
MR. GOWDY: lagree 100 percent.
MR. ELIAS: And I think it was a reasonably prudent step, and you may
disagree, to try to determine what facts we as a - I could know in my efforts to
represent my client, what facts I could know about the involvement of anyone in
that process.
MR. GOWDY: I am not equating, I am not equating Christopher Steele
checking with some sources in Russia with the Russian Government's active
measures to impact and hack a DNC server or John Podesta's email or to partner
with WikiLeaks to disseminate. I'm not equating them.
I'm just saying that if we're going to look into Russia's efforts to influence
the 2016 election cycle, I would vote for looking into all of them. And they're very
creative and they don't have our country's best interest in mind, and I don't think it
is unreasonable to ask who Chris Stee which is
kind of the genesis of why I'm asking you that.
And I'm sure the privilege you cited earlier is the same one you're going to
cite now.
MR. ELIAS: As to who
MR. GOWDY: Yes.
MS. RUEMMLER: Well, I mean, lthink you can go ahead and answer
UNCLASSIF'IED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

90
UNCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE
that.
MR. ELIAS: I have -- I don't know.
MR. GOWDY: All right. Last question, and then! has got something
for you.
Did either of your clients ever query you with specificity about expenses?
MR. ELIAS: With respect to this work or other work?'
MR. GOWDY: This work.
MR. ELIAS: No.
MR. GOWDY: Because I thought it was $30,000, but now it's $2S,000 per
client, per month, right?
MR. ELIAS: lt was -- let me clarify, because --
MR. GOWDY: I wasn't quarreling with you, but it does matter.
MR. ELIAS: No. lt was $30,000 billed to the client, plus expenses.
Fusion charged Perkins Coie $25,000 -- it was billed to client $60,000 -- billed from
Fusion to us at $50,000, and both those expenses are on top. So there was
$10,000 of it which was paid to Perkins Coie for managing, for the additional costs
of managing our work.
MR. GOWDY: All right. I think we established from a math standpoint

that at least half the total amount of money that came from those two clients would
have gone for expenses and not for that base retainer?
MR. ELIAS: That's right.
MR. GOWDY: And your testimony is they never queried you on what was
the nature of the expenses, are these copying charges for bankruptcy proceedings
or are you paying people for information in Samaria?
MR. ELIAS: I think it was somewhere in between. I think it -- they
UNCLASSTFIED/ COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE

91
were -- I think that Robby knew. Iwould tell Robby, we're going" --
MS. RUEMMLER: We're on the record, so you have to say who you are
talking about.
MR. ELIAS: Sorry. I thought you were going to claim privilege.
tUS. RUEMMLER: No.
MR. ELIAS: I would tell Mr. Mook -- sorry -- you know, this month it's going
to be, you know, substantially higher. Sometimes I'd be able to give him an
estimate, sometimes not.
And sometimes * and depending on the nature of it, I might tell him, you
know, this is because we're going to have just a boatload of copying expenses, or
this is because l'm hiring additional consultants, or subconsultants. But that
would be the level of detail.
MR, GOWDY: I
DR. WENSTRUP: Just realquick.
You mentioned earlier, you used the phrase you found some things
troubling as a citizen.
MR. ELIAS: Yeah.
DR, WENSTRUP: And I think we all can agree that Russia is willing to
create chaos in any election here and to create chaos in any way that they can
within the system of the United States.
Do you find it troubling as a citizen only if it's affecting one party or either
pafty?
MR. ELIAS: Oh, I find it troubling if it affects either party. I think that now
you've really just asked me my opinion, so take this for what it's worth, not on
behalf of any of my clients.

92
I think that when -- I think that the chairs of the six national party
committees should all agree that if anyone is hacked, no other party will use that
information in any way and will in fact take some active measure, to use perhaps
the wrong term, to actually mitigate it in some way, that, you know, would have to
be worked out.
No, I don't view this as a partisan issue. I think that it's wrong for the
conduct to be taking place against either party. Which is why, you know, as I look
back, if I could do it again, I would have -- I would have tried to spend more money
to try to learn more, more quickly.
DR. WENSTRUP: I find it troubling as a citizen about the hacking and I
find it troubling as a citizen that Russians are potentially and likely involved with
the dossier. lt's troubling either way, and I would guess you agree with me on
that.
MR. ELIAS: lf you -- I don't have enough knowledge about when you say
that Russians were involved in the dossier. I mean that genuinely. l'm not privy
to what information you all have.
It sounds like the suggestion is that Russia somehow gave information to
the Clinton campaign vis-d-vis one person to one person, to another person, to
another person, to me, to the campaign. That strikes me as fanciful and unlikely,
but perhaps you all - as I said, I don't have a security clearance. You all have
facts and information that is not available to me. But I certainly never had any
hint or whiff.
I This won't take long. I have just got a couple of quick
questions.
BYI

93
O So you, Marc Elias, on behalf of the DNC and the Hillary Clinton
campaign retained Fusion GPS. ls that correct?
A I'm sorry.
0 I'll say it again.
A I was saying -
O lt's okay.
A I was saying goodbye.
O They're going to votes. This won't take long.

You, Marc Elias and Perkins Coie, on behalf of the DNC and the Hillary
Clinton campaign, retained Fusion GPS?
A True.
O And then Fusion GPS in turn retained the services of Christopher
Steele and Orbis lnternational?
A Yes. I understand those -- I said this before -- I understand those
two to be the same.
O The same thing?
A Okay.
O For purposes of this, we will say Christopher Steele and Orbis
lnternational are the same thing.
A Okay.
O So Fusion GPS, after they were hired by you, they went out and
retained Chris Steele?
A Right.
O Where I got a little lost was, did you say you had a sign-off on that or,
like, a say in that relationship, that is, Fusion's relationship to Christopher Steele?
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94
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMTTTEE SENSTTIVE
MS. RUEMMLER: I think you --
MR. ELIAS: Yeah. I had a sign-off on that they were going to retain
someone. The who the someone was, I think as a contractual matter, I probably
had the authority to, but in practice, I didn't. I mean, I didn't exercise that
authority.
BY
O So in this instance, you did not exercise that --
A I wouldn't have known who -- who -- I don't come out of an
intelligence background.
O Sure. And about what timeframe are we talking about? What

month and year are we talking here?
A As I said, it would be after the hack and after the rules and bylaws
platform, Republican platform.
O Give me an approximate timeframe.
A So I'm guessing it was June.
o ot2016?
A 2016.
O Okay. So when was the first time you became aware that Fusion
GPS had retained Chris Steele?
A As the name Chris Steele?
O Right.
A I think it was in early July, but it could have been late June.
O Again, 2016, correct?
A All of this is 2016.
O Okay. Thanks.
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSTTTVE
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UNCLASSIF']ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
And the first time you met Chris Steele, you said, was at the Perkins Coie
law offices in Washington, D.C., when he came to your law office. ls that correct?
A Yep.
O And you said he came with a few folks that you identified were
possibly Mr. Katan, Mr. Fritsch, and another lady?
A Yeah. A younger woman. And I - you know, I'd say she was in
her twenties.
O Okay.
A But I don't know.
O Fair enough. And I'm sure -- but in the bookkeeping world of private
practice, which l've never been a part of, so I'm just going to assume here, that
your office has a record of who attended that meeting and the time and date of
that meeting?
A The time and date -- here - it is possible we would have the time
and date.
O Would you have the attendees?
A Unlikely.
O So there is no record at Perkins Coie -

A I don't know. I think this is something counsel should take back.
O That's where I was getting. Would you through your counsel take
back for action whether or not there is any information that could show us who was
at that meeting in the fall, late September, early October of 2016, at the
Washington.
MS, RUEMMLER: Yes, we will.
At your law office?
IINCLASSIF]ED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

95
UNCLASS]FfED, COMMITTEE SENSTTIVE
MS. RUEMMLER: We will check and see if we have anything in the office
I Thanks. And any information on that would be appreciated

BY
O So in late September, early October, you have representatives of
Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele sitting in your law office. Anyone else walk in
and out of that meeting?
A I don't think so. No. I mean --
O Okay. And correct me if the following characterization is incorrect.

You, Perkins Coie, were paid by the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign for
your services in total somewhere around $5 million or $6 million?
A lf that's what the reports say.
O Okay. And some of that money was then utilized for you to go
about and conduct your business, which would involve retaining Fusion GPS?
A A relatively small part would involve that, yes.
O What is your recollection of that number?
A Well, if it was $5 million or $6 million in total, then, you know, I don't
know what the - what you would say is probably about a million dollars.
O A million dollars. Okay. And you knew of all these transactions
involving money between your law firm and Fusion GPS, because you would have
to have signed off on it?
A Sure, Yeah.
O So as you sit in late September, early October of 2016 in your law
offices with representatives from Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, you, the
attorney for the DNC and Hillary campaign, knew you had paid those individuals
approximately a million dollars at that point in time for services?

97
A Well, most of what they were paid, though, didn't go to them. lt was
just expenses.
A When you say "they" and "them" --
A Any - either Fusion or Christopher Steele.

O Right. But I'm just saying you are aware -- I mean, you must be
aware or agree with the fact that money went to them that you signed off on?
A Yeah.
O So you knew that at the time of the meeting?
A Yeah.
O Okay. And my question to you is, were members of the Democratic

National Committee or the Hillary campaign for America aware of that meeting
before or after it took place in 2016 in yourWashington, D.C., law office?
A No.
O So you never informed anyone back at the DNC or HR - or the
Hillary for America that you had met with both Fusion GPS and Christopher
Steele?
A No.
O Did you ever -- or did they ever become aware that the individuals
that you had retained, Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, who would ultimately
produce what's known as the dossier, were ever in your law offices?
A No.
O Okay. You said you did not have a sort of -- you did not have a
hand in which media outlets Christopher Steele was sent to in the fall of 2016, but
you're aware of it. ls that correct?
A Yeah. I did not direct that, but I was aware of it.

98
O You could have also told them not to do it?
MS. RUEMMLER: I mean, it's a hypotheticalquestion.
MR. ELIAS: Hypothetically, yes.
I okay. But you chose not to, right? I mean, he did it.
MS. RUEMMLER: I think, again, the communications between Mr. Elias
and Fusion are, I think, covered by privilege, so l'd instruct him not to answer. But
if it's a hypothetical, I think he can answer.
I okay. Fairenough.
Why did you not stop Mr. Steele from speaking to media in the fall of 2016
after he was in your Washington, D.C., law offices?
MS. RUEMMLER: I think that assumes facts that haven't been
established.
But you can answer the question the best you can.
MR. ELIAS: I thought that the information that - I thought that the
information that he or they wished to convey was accurate and important.
O So the information that Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele wished
to portray to the media in the fall of 2016 at that time, you thought, was accurate
and important?
A As I understand it.
O As you understood it. Sitting here today, do you still consider that
information that was relayed to the media in the fall of 2016 after the meeting in
your law offices to be accurate and important?
A Yes.
O Have you had the opportunity to verify it independently?
A No.

99
O So how do you know it's still accurate and important?
A You asked me my opinion.
O Right.
A That's my opinion.
O Okay. But it hasn't changed?

A lt has not changed.
0 Have you followed up with anyone at Fusion GPS or Chris Steele on
that matter?
A No.
O And would you say the information that became - ultimately became
the dossier that was published on BuzzFeed, are you familiar with that?
A I skimmed it when it came out.
O Okay. Was there any information that was accurately portrayed in

that dossier that was relayed by Christopher Steele to the media in the fall of
2016?
A I don't know what he actually conveyed to the media. I mean, lwas

not present when he - if he conveyed information to the media.
There were -- there was information in it that I was familiar with. There
was information in it that I was not familiar with. Some of the information that was
in it I think has actually prbved true. So, you know, my opinion that it was
accurate and important, I think lwas right.

100
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[5:05 p.m.]
BYT
O Okay. When you say some of the information, give me a
percentage.
A I don't know.
O I mean, more than 50 percent, less than 50 percent?
A That I thought was accurate and important?
O Yeah.
A I don't know. Of the whole dossier or of what I -

O Of what you have knowledge of.
A lt's hard to do that.
O Okay.
A lt's really hard to. I mean --
O Would agree that there's parts of that dossier that remain unverified
to this day?
A I assume there are.
O Okay.
A I mean, you would know -- you would know better than I what is
verified and what is not, because you have a security clearance, we're sitting in a
SCIF, and you have access to the intelligence.
O I understand that, but I'm asking what you knew based on your
relationships since you were the individualwho hired Fusion GPS, who then
retained Christopher Steele on behalf of the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign
for America in the fall of 2016 and they ended up in your law offices in the fall of
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITTVE
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101
UNCLASS]F]ED, COMMITTEE SENSIT]VE
2016. So I'm asking you, based upon your knowledge.

A And I've told you based on my knowledge.
0 Okay. Were you aware that Fusion GPS had relationships with
individuals in the Department of Justice?
A No.
O Have you met with any individuals from the Department of Justice
about the matters that we've talked about today?
A No, Well, l've * not as a -- not as a witness. As you probably --
O Yeah, I don't mean as a witness. I don't want into get that. ljust
mean have you met with any individuals --
A Not me as a witness.
O Right,
A But as a lawyer to others. You know, as you know, as you probably

know the Department reached out to various Democratic-related entities around
the hack.
O Oh, okay. So in your capacity as a lawyer for individuals such as

the DNC, and possibly CrowdStrike, or anything like that?
MR. MCQUAID: I think what Mr. Elias answered is that he has not met
with individuals related to the -- as a witness has not met with the law
enforcement. To the extent you're asking about his work as a lawyer, that would
go into-
I Yeah, I'm not asking about that.
MR. ELIAS: That's what I was --
I I'm not asking about that.
MR. ELIAS: Not as a witness.
UNCLASS]FIED, COMMITTEE SENSfTIVE
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102
BYI
O Fair enough.
And excluding as a witness, but just as a private citizen in your capacity, in
your personal time, have you ever met with any individuals with the Department of
Justice?
A No, no, no, no, no. I met with you all as a lawyer for a client. So
I'm trying to exclude --
O And my last questioning is just basically related to the DNC hack real
quick. Was it your decision that the DNC hire CrowdStrike? Were you involved
with that at all?
A [Nonverbal response.]
O Do you know who took that for action over there?
MS. RUEMMLER: lf you know who hired CrowdStrike. You can answer
that if you know.
MR. ELIAS: I believe MichaelSussmann, but I could be wrong.
MR. PATEL: And then with Michael Sussmann, was he involved with any
of the matters that we talked about today as they pertain to Fusion GPS,
Christopher Steele, and.the ultimate production of the material that was -- resulted
from their work?
MS. RUEMMLER: I think as stated that question calls for information that's
protected under privilege, and I instruct you not to answer.
That's all I've got
You guys have anything?
I
We just appreciate your patience today, Mr. Elias

103
UNCLASSfF]ED, COMMITTEE SENS]TIVE
No further questions.
Thanks for coming in
MR. ELIAS: Thanks. Thanks for having me.
[Whereupon, at 5:09 p.m,, the interview was concluded.]

Exhibit 2
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/politics/donald-trump-soho-settlement.html
Donald Trump Settled a Real Estate Lawsuit, and a Criminal Case Was Closed
By Mike McIntire
April 5, 2016
For Donald J. Trump, it is a long-held legal strategy, if not a point of pride, to avoid knuckling under to plaintiffs in court.
“I don’t settle lawsuits — very rare — because once you settle lawsuits, everybody sues you,” he said recently.
But Mr. Trump made an exception when buyers of units in Trump SoHo, a 46-story luxury condominium-hotel in Lower
Manhattan, asserted that they had been defrauded by inflated claims made by Mr. Trump, his children and others of
brisk sales in the struggling project. He and his co-defendants settled the case in November 2011, agreeing to refund 90
percent of $3.16 million in deposits, while admitting no wrongdoing.
The backdrop to that unusual denouement was a gathering legal storm that threatened to cast a harsh light on how he
did business. Besides the fraud accusations, a separate lawsuit claimed that Trump SoHo was developed with the
undisclosed involvement of convicted felons and financing from questionable sources in Russia and Kazakhstan.
And hovering over it all was a criminal investigation, previously unreported, by the Manhattan district attorney into
whether the fraud alleged by the condo buyers broke any laws, according to documents and interviews with five people
familiar with it. The buyers initially helped in the investigation, but as part of their lawsuit settlement, they had to notify
prosecutors that they no longer wished to do so.
The criminal case was eventually closed.
Mr. Trump’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination rests on the notion, relentlessly promoted by the
candidate himself, that his record of business deals has prepared him better than his rivals for running the country. An
examination of Trump SoHo provides a window into his handling of one such deal and finds that decisions on important
matters like whom to become partners with and how to market the project led him into a thicket of litigation and
controversy.
Trump SoHo is one of several instances in which Mr. Trump’s boastfulness — a hallmark of his career and his campaign
— has been accused of crossing the line into fraud. Other lawsuits have charged that he peddled worthless real estate
sales courses and misled investors into thinking he had built hotels when in fact he had only licensed his name to them.
He has won several cases at trial and is continuing to fight others.
Alan Garten, the general counsel for the Trump Organization, said that the condo buyers’ lawsuit was not focused on Mr.
Trump himself “in any material way” and that there was little reason not to settle it, adding that it cost Mr. Trump
nothing. “It was solely a function of returning deposits,” Mr. Garten said.
He described the case as “buyer’s remorse,” in which people who bought real estate at the wrong time turned to the
courts to recoup their investment.
Mr. Garten would not talk about the criminal investigation or whether it was a factor in the decision to settle.
“The terms of the settlement are confidential, and thus I’m not at liberty to discuss them,” he said.
The district attorney’s office declined to comment, saying it could not provide information on “a criminal investigation
which does not result in an arrest or prosecution.”
When Mr. Trump and his co-defendants made the decision to settle the condo buyers’ lawsuit in 2011, it was a far cry from
the heady days of 2006, when Mr. Trump closed an episode of his hit television show “The Apprentice” with a splashy
plug for Trump SoHo. In typical Trump fashion, he piled on the plaudits for “my latest development.”
“When it’s completed in 2008,” he said, “this brilliant $370 million work of art will be an awe-inspiring masterpiece.”
Mr. Trump with Tevfik Arif, center, and Felix H. Sater at the official unveiling of Trump SoHo
in September 2007, when it was still under construction. Mark Von Holden/WireImage
Jumping In With New Partners

To the artists and creative types inhabiting its trendy downtown Manhattan neighborhood, Trump SoHo was an
oxymoron from the start. Many of them loudly opposed a huge glass tower at 246 Spring Street that would stab the sky
high above its low-key surroundings.
If the plans for it attracted controversy, so too would the company most responsible for its development: Bayrock Group.
Mr. Trump was foggy on how he first came to do business with Bayrock, a small development company whose offices
were in Trump Tower in Midtown. In a deposition a few years ago, he said it might have been a Bayrock associate, Felix
H. Sater, who first approached him in the early 2000s.
Mr. Sater, a Russian immigrant, had recently joined Bayrock at the behest of its founder, Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet-era
commerce official originally from Kazakhstan. Bayrock, which was developing commercial properties in Brooklyn,
proposed that Mr. Trump license his name to hotel projects in Florida, Arizona and New York, including Trump SoHo.
The other development partner for Trump SoHo was the Sapir Organization, whose founder, Tamir Sapir, was from the
former Soviet republic of Georgia. In addition to receiving a licensing agreement, Mr. Trump would manage the
completed condo-hotel, and he was also given a minor equity interest in it.
Emails and testimony in several lawsuits show that Mr. Sater and Mr. Arif worked closely with Mr. Trump and others in
the Trump Organization. Mr. Trump was particularly taken with Mr. Arif’s overseas connections. In a deposition, Mr.
Trump said that the two had discussed “numerous deals all over the world” and that Mr. Arif had brought potential
Russian investors to Mr. Trump’s office to meet him.
“Bayrock knew the people, knew the investors, and in some cases I believe they were friends of Mr. Arif,” Mr. Trump said.
“And this was going to be Trump International Hotel and Tower Moscow, Kiev, Istanbul, etc., Poland, Warsaw.”
What sort of due diligence Mr. Trump did before jumping in with his new partners is unclear. But he, as well as many
others, apparently missed some dark spots on Mr. Sater’s résumé. Mr. Garten said the Trump Organization typically did a
background check on potential business partners like Bayrock, but not on their individual employees, so nothing about
Mr. Sater would have turned up.
Mr. Sater was convicted and sent to prison in 1993 after a New York bar fight in which he stabbed a man in the face with a
broken margarita glass. That was a matter of public record. However, what few people beyond insiders at Bayrock knew
was that five years later, Mr. Sater was implicated in a huge stock manipulation scheme involving Mafia figures and
Russian criminals — and that he became a confidential F.B.I. informant.
Recently unsealed federal court records show that Mr. Sater helped the government disrupt an organized crime ring on
Wall Street and deal with an unexplained national security matter involving his foreign connections. He was not the only
F.B.I. informant in Bayrock’s offices. Another was Salvatore Lauria, an associate of Mr. Sater, who sometimes showed up
to work wearing a court-ordered ankle monitor.
Mr. Lauria brokered a $50 million investment in Trump SoHo and three other Bayrock projects by an Icelandic firm
preferred by wealthy Russians “in favor with” President Vladimir V. Putin, according to a lawsuit against Bayrock by one
of its former executives. The Icelandic company, FL Group, was identified in a Bayrock investor presentation as a
“strategic partner,” along with Alexander Mashkevich, a billionaire once charged in a corruption case involving fees paid
by a Belgian company seeking business in Kazakhstan; that case was settled with no admission of guilt.
Mr. Trump in 2010 with, from left, his children Eric, Ivanka and Donald Jr. at the Trump SoHo
ribbon-cutting ceremony. Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters
Slowing Sales and a Lawsuit

The official unveiling of Trump SoHo in September 2007 was quintessential Trump: a red-carpet announcement followed
by a big bash, where flavored vodka flowed, dancers whirled and models wandered about. Amid the hoopla, Mr. Trump
took the microphone to extol the greatness of the project. Standing beside him, beaming, were Mr. Arif and Mr. Sater.
The timing of Trump SoHo’s completion and marketing could hardly have been worse. The real estate bubble was
bursting, and the global economy was on the brink of crisis as the developers began advertising luxury condo-hotel units
costing as much as tens of millions of dollars.
The economics of the investment were largely untested in New York real estate. To get around residential zoning
restrictions, owners of Trump SoHo units were allowed to live in them only 120 days a year. The rest of the time, the units
would be rented as hotel rooms, with the owners sharing in the revenue.
The project was marketed aggressively to potential investors overseas, where exchange rates were favorable and the
Trump brand carried a certain cachet. Many early buyers were from Europe, including a French former soccer star,
Olivier Dacourt, who put down a deposit of $460,400 on a $2.3 million unit.
After an initial flurry of activity, the pace of sales slowed considerably. In addition to the economic decline, Trump SoHo
was jolted by bad publicity when The New York Times published an article in December 2007 revealing Mr. Sater’s
criminal past.
According to data the Trump SoHo developers filed with state and federal agencies, only 15 to 30 percent of the units had
been sold by the start of 2009. But those numbers did not come close to the grand-sounding sales figures promoted,
publicly and in private, by people affiliated with Trump SoHo, according to a lawsuit filed in August 2010 by Mr. Dacourt
and other people who had bought units.
In June 2008, Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka was quoted in a Reuters article saying that about 60 percent of the units had
been sold. In April 2009, Mr. Trump’s son Donald Jr. appeared in another news article saying that 55 percent of the units
were sold by March of that year. More purported cases of puffery occurred in emails and statements by sales agents.
The lawsuit also suggested that Mr. Trump had contributed to the deception, citing a claim he made at the project’s
unveiling. Depending on the news account, he said 3,200 prospective purchasers either had signed up to see the units or
had requested applications to buy them; the plaintiffs argued that this figure was exaggerated, given how few units had
actually been sold at the time. The Trumps and the other defendants denied that there had been any deception.
The inflated numbers were more than just harmless self-promotion and amounted to fraudulent enticement of investors,
who believed they were buying into a project that was healthier than it actually was, said Adam Leitman Bailey, the
lawyer representing the buyers.
“They relied on these misrepresentations to their detriment,” he said.
The people familiar with the criminal investigation said that not long after Mr. Bailey’s lawsuit was filed, the district
attorney’s office began looking into the allegations it had raised. These people insisted on anonymity for fear of legal
repercussions from speaking about confidential agreements or sealed criminal matters.
Documents reviewed by The Times, including a state grand jury subpoena, make clear that an area of focus for
prosecutors was determining whether the accusations in Mr. Bailey’s lawsuit rose to the level of a crime. The
investigation was being handled by the Major Economic Crimes Bureau.
Trump SoHo’s condo-hotel concept did not pan out, but the property remained open and
became a popular luxury hotel. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Gradually Cutting Ties

Shortly before the condo buyers’ lawsuit was filed, another suit appeared, this one by Jody Kriss, a former finance
director of Bayrock. It claimed that by concealing Mr. Sater’s criminal record, Bayrock had committed fraud on banks
and investors with which it did business. Mr. Trump is not a defendant in that case, which is continuing.
Mr. Kriss’s lawsuit was filled with unflattering details of how Bayrock operated, including allegations that it had
occasionally received unexplained infusions of cash from accounts in Kazakhstan and Russia. Bayrock and Trump SoHo
drew more negative headlines in October 2010, when news spread from Turkey that Mr. Arif had been aboard a luxury
yacht raided by the police, who were investigating a suspected prostitution ring that catered to wealthy businessmen. He
was charged but later acquitted.
The next year, when it was clear that Mr. Bailey’s lawsuit would be allowed to proceed and with the district attorney’s
criminal investigation continuing, Mr. Trump and his co-defendants agreed to settle the condo buyers’ suit. The financial
terms were announced publicly, but another part of the settlement was kept secret.
That part required the plaintiffs to notify any investigative agency with which they “may have previously cooperated”
that they did not want to “participate in any investigation or criminal prosecution” related to matters in the lawsuit,
according to a confidentiality agreement signed by more than 20 people. The plaintiffs could respond to a subpoena or
court order, but would also have to notify the defendants that they had received it, the agreement said. The criminal
investigation was closed sometime afterward.
As for Trump SoHo, the condo-hotel concept did not pan out. Only about a third of the units were ultimately sold, and one
of the project’s lenders foreclosed on the rest, although the property remained open and became a popular luxury hotel,
still managed by Mr. Trump’s company.
Mr. Sater left Bayrock after the news of his criminal background was reported. But even after that, his association with
Mr. Trump did not end. The Trump Organization later gave him a business card identifying him as a “senior advisor” to
Mr. Trump, as well an office. Mr. Garten, the general counsel for the organization, said that Mr. Sater was never an
employee, but that he had worked independently to steer potential deals to Mr. Trump. The arrangement lasted about six
months, Mr. Garten said. Mr. Sater declined to comment on his dealings with Mr. Trump or with Bayrock.
By the time Mr. Trump sat for a deposition in a lawsuit in November 2013, it was clear he no longer saw the benefit of
knowing the Bayrock executives with whom he had once completed big deals. He said he barely knew Mr. Arif: “I mean,
I’ve seen him a couple of times; I have met him.”
As for Mr. Sater, “if he were sitting in the room right now,” Mr. Trump said, “I really wouldn’t know what he looked like.”
Exhibit 3
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/business/media/16trump.html
Trump Suit Claiming Defamation Is Dismissed

By Peter S. Goodman
July 15, 2009
A judge in New Jersey dismissed on Wednesday a $5 billion defamation lawsuit filed by

Donald J. Trump against an author whose book placed Mr. Trump’s personal wealth far
below his public estimates.
Superior Court Judge Michele M. Fox in Camden, N.J., found there was insufficient
evidence to allow the case to go to trial.
Mr. Trump sued the author, Timothy L. O’Brien, in 2006 after his book “Trump Nation:
The Art of Being the Donald” placed Mr. Trump’s wealth at $150 million to $250 million,
citing three confidential sources. Mr. Trump argued it was in the billions.
Mr. Trump failed to demonstrate “clear and convincing evidence to establish malice,”
Judge Fox ruled, according to Bloomberg News.
Mr. Trump vowed to press further legal claims, insisting that his wealth was more than $5
billion when the book was released in 2005 and is more than $6 billion now.
“The libel laws in this country have never been fair,” he said. “We proved our case 100
percent. We’ll appeal and see what happens. Unfortunately, the court’s decision today
condones the gross negligence, and lack of professionalism and bias on the part of a
reporter.”
Mr. O’Brien now the editor of the Sunday Business section of The New York Times said
he was “deeply gratified that the court’s decision has vindicated the reporting in ‘Trump
Nation.’ ”
The judge also dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims that the co-defendant in the lawsuit, the
Hachette Book Group, was “vicariously liable,” concluding that Mr. O’Brien had worked
independently on the project. The book was published by a Time Warner subsidiary that
was subsequently bought by Hachette.
“We are gratified that the court has granted summary judgment dismissal of Mr. Trump’s
meritless lawsuit,” the publisher said in a statement.
Exhibit 4
ELECTION 2016 Who Will Win? Senate Forecast Latest Polls Get the Podcast Primary Results
Sept.22, 2015
May. 13, 2016
May. 12, 2016
May. 11, 2016
May. 10, 2016
May. 9, 2016
May. 6, 2016
May. 5, 2016
May. 4, 2016
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Political News, Now.
3:03 pm ET
By Alan Rappeport
Donald Trump Threatens to Sue Club

for Growth Over Ad Campaign
3:03 pm ET
By Alan Rappeport
Updated, 3:29 p.m. |

Donald J. Trump is hitting back at the Club for Growth, threatening to sue the
conservative organization unless it stops running advertisements asserting that he
wants to raise taxes.
Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Alan Garten, sent a two-page letter to the group’s
president, David McIntosh, accusing it of trying to damage Mr. Trump’s reputation
by lying about his policies. The threat of litigation comes a week after the group
started a $1 million advertising campaign that paints Mr. Trump as a disingenuous
politician who intends to impose a huge tax increase if elected president.
“We will not sit idly by and allow special interest groups and political action
committees like yours to defame Mr. Trump,” Mr. Garten wrote, accusing the
group of libel and threatening a “multimillion dollar lawsuit.”
The gambit is not a new one for Mr. Trump, who has a long history of tying
opponents up in expensive legal adventures in hopes of bending them to his
wishes.
But it is a relatively novel tactic for a political campaign, where the cut and
thrust of attack ads can resemble a blood sport with no referees.
Mr. Trump has said that he wants to raise taxes on hedge fund and private
equity managers, but that he does not plan an overall tax increase.
The letter goes on to remind Mr. McIntosh that he had previously solicited Mr.
Trump for a $1 million donation in exchange for political support. In a statement,
Mr. Trump berated the free-market advocacy group and said that he would be
releasing his tax plan this week.
“I am not surprised the dishonest, irrelevant and totally failing Club for
Growth has resorted to attacking the definitive front-runner, especially after I
refused to contribute to their pathetic group,” he said.
The Club for Growth said the ads would not be removed and challenged Mr.
Trump to defend his record.
“Tough guy Donald Trump starts whining when his liberal record is revealed,”
Mr. McIntosh said in a statement. “Trump has advocated higher taxes numerous
times over many years, just like he’s advocated for universal health care, the Wall
Street bailout and expanded government powers to take private property.
“Trump’s own statements prove that our ads are accurate. They will continue
to run.”
Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get
politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter.
Mon. Sept. 21 9 Posts Wed. Sept. 23 3 Posts
© 2017 The New York Times Company

Exhibit 5
Trump lawsuit aims to set record straight on where he

slept in Las Vegas
lasvegassun.com/news/2015/oct/29/trump-lawsuit-aims-to-set-record-straight-on-where/
October 29, 2015
L.E. Baskow
By Kimberly Pierceall, Associated Press
Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015 | 9:41 a.m.
Billionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump is suing over where he slept during a recent
Las Vegas campaign stop.
Trump's companies that own the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas with fellow
billionaire Phil Ruffin filed a federal lawsuit against the Culinary Workers Union and
Bartenders Union on Oct. 14 accusing the groups of saying he stayed overnight at Ruffin's
unionized Treasure Island casino-resort instead of his own Trump Hotel.
The Culinary Union has been pushing to unionize Trump's hotel.
The trademark lawsuit says the unions distributed a flyer stating that "when Donald Trump
stays in Las Vegas, he stays at a union hotel."
Not so, say Trump's lawyers who say the Republican presidential candidate stayed at the
Trump hotel Oct. 7 and Oct. 8 before speaking inside the Treasure Island.
Exhibit 6
POLITICO Politico Logo

politico.com/story/2015/12/trump-threatens-mike-fernandez-defamation-216496
Trump threatens top Bush donor with defamation suit over ‘hater’
ads
As Donald Trump is a public figure, his lawyer could have trouble successfully suing for
defamation. | AP Photo
By Marc Caputo
12/07/2015 02:29 PM EST
Updated: 12/07/2015 05:24 PM EST
Donald Trump’s top lawyer is threatening Jeb Bush’s largest donor to watch what he says in
ads bashing the Republican front-runner — or face a defamation lawsuit.
Trump’s lawyer dashed off the letter Dec. 4 — after POLITICO first reported that Coral
Gables, Florida, billionaire Mike Fernandez planned to take out newspaper ads calling
Trump a demagogic “hater” and a “narcissistic BULLYionaire” — and sent it by Federal
Express to warn the Bush donor about the potential consequences of “directly and
personally attacking my client.”
Fernandez responded by posting the letter on Facebook with this comment: “Only in
America can an immigrant scare a #bullyionaire … If there is any damage being done to the
Trump brand.”
Alan Garten, the Trump Organization’s general counsel and executive vice president, did not
make a direct threat of immediate action. He did, though, lay down broad parameters for
what would trigger a lawsuit.
By
“Though we believe your decision is fool hearted [sic], please be advised that in the event
your ads contain any false, misleading, defamatory, inaccurate or otherwise tortious
statements or representations concerning Mr. Trump, his business or his brand,” Garten
wrote, “we will not hesitate to seek immediate legal action to prevent such distribution and
hold you jointly and severally liable to the fullest extent of the law for any damages resulting
therefrom ... and will look forward to doing it.”
Because Trump is a public figure, however, he’ll have trouble successfully suing for
defamation.
Fernandez isn’t the first political critic the Trump Organization — not the campaign — has
warned about a potential lawsuit. It similarly threatened the political committee backing Ohio
Gov. John Kasich and the conservative Club for Growth, both of which targeted Trump in
ads.
Trump has a long and litigious history as a businessman, once going so far as to sue
comedian Bill Maher for failing to pay up on a $5 million offer for anyone who could prove
that Trump was not “the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.” Trump also
gained a measure of infamy in his part-time home of Palm Beach, Florida, for warring with
the town over its codes regulating flagpoles and social clubs tied to the Trump-owned Mar-
a-Lago resort. He also was involved in an ongoing suit against Palm Beach International
Airport, the main flight path of which is right over Mar-a-Lago.
“The thing with Trump is that he’s always at war, a man on a mission to get the next thing,
whether it’s the biggest pole, the best social gathering of the season, or the idea that the rest
of America should be calling him ‘Mr. President.’ And woe be to those who get in his way,”
Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino wrote in a September POLITICO piece about
the New York developer.
On his “Trump Organization” letterhead directed at Fernandez, Garten also listed the Bush-
backing Right to Rise PAC. But that political group, a political committee, has been dormant
ever since Bush announced his candidacy. A similarly named committee, Right to Rise USA
super PAC, hasn’t been, however. Garten likely listed the wrong committee by mistake. A
Trump spokesperson couldn’t be reached for comment.
Regardless, the super PAC had nothing to do with the ads, Fernandez said. The fact that
Fernandez — who contributed $3 million to Right to Rise — felt personally compelled to run
ads against Trump indicates a level of frustration some donors have had with the
committee’s effectiveness in helping Bush.
For Fernandez, the threat from Trump’s organization was exactly what he was looking for: a
fight. Fernandez, in prior interviews, said he looks forward to comparing his record as a rags-
to-riches Cuban immigrant with that of Trump, who inherited his money and was “born on
third base.” Fernandez later told The Miami Herald that Trump is so bad that he would vote
for Hillary Clinton instead of the Republican if he had to.
After Fernandez first told POLITICO of his plans to run newspaper ads, he was mocked on
social media for using a dead medium to communicate. Some said the attack would be
feckless and unseen.
But Trump’s organization gave it outsize relevance.
In thefull-page Trump-bashing ads Fernandez proposed for papers in Miami, Las Vegas and
Des Moines, Iowa, Fernandez referenced how “Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and
Peron in Argentina” took advantage of economically hard times and misled the masses.
But despite all the help from Fernandez, Bush distanced himself from his donor this past
weekend in a live interview on ABC News’ “This Week.” In response to questions from host
George Stephanopoulos, Bush said “I don’t” think Trump should be compared to the Axis
powers dictators. And Bush said he’d back Trump if he became the GOP nominee, “but
Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee.”
Bush didn’t disavow Fernandez, and Fernandez — who also favors a rapprochement with
Cuba, unlike Bush — didn’t mind Bush’s distance.
“We will disagree on many issues, but he is still the best man for the job,” Fernandez told
POLITICO. He said he still stands by everything he wrote in the ads, fearing that Trump is a
divisive demagogue — a point that the candidate seemed to drive home later Monday when
he issued a press statement that called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims
entering the United States.”
“I worry as I witness whipped-up crowds emboldening and encouraging forked-tongue

hatefulness,” Fernandez says in the ads. “Mr. Trump portrays himself as someone who can
do no wrong, unblemished by almost any human faults — indeed, the paragon of smartest
and greatest. But his words and actions tell us who he really is — a destroyer.”
POLITICO
Exhibit 7
NEWS
Exclusive: Trump's 3,500 lawsuits

unprecedented for a presidential
nominee
Nick Penzenstadler, and Susan Page USA TODAY
Published 3:17 p.m. ET June 1, 2016 Updated 1:24 p.m. ET Oct. 23, 2017
Donald Trump is a fighter, famous for legal skirmishes over everything from his golf
courses to his tax bills to Trump University. But until now, it hasn’t been clear
precisely how litigious he is and what that might portend for a Trump presidency.
An exclusive USA TODAY analysis of legal filings across the United States finds that the
presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his businesses have been involved in at
least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts during the past three decades. They
range from skirmishes with casino patrons to million-dollar real estate suits to personal
defamation lawsuits.
The sheer volume of lawsuits is unprecedented for a presidential nominee. No candidate of

a major party has had anything approaching the number of Trump’s courtroom
entanglements.
Just since he announced his candidacy a year ago, at least 70 new cases have been
filed, about evenly divided between lawsuits filed by him and his companies and those
filed against them. And the records review found at least 50 civil lawsuits remain open
even as he moves toward claiming the nomination at the Republican National Convention
in Cleveland in seven weeks. On Tuesday, court documents were released in one of the
most dramatic current cases, filed in California by former students accusing Trump
University of fraudulent and misleading behavior.
The legal actions provide clues to the leadership style the billionaire businessman would
bring to bear as commander in chief. He sometimes responds to even small disputes with
overwhelming legal force. He doesn’t hesitate to deploy his wealth and legal
1 of 10 4/18/22, 10:56 AM
firepower against adversaries with limited resources, such as homeowners. He sometimes

refuses to pay real estate brokers, lawyers and other vendors.
As he campaigns, Trump often touts his skills as a negotiator. The analysis shows that
lawsuits are one of his primary negotiating tools. He turns to litigation to distance himself
from failing projects that relied on the Trump brand to secure investments. As USA
TODAY previously reported, he also uses the legal system to haggle over his property tax
bills. His companies have been involved in more than 100 tax disputes, and the New York
State Department of Finance has obtained liens on Trump properties for unpaid tax bills
at least three dozen times.
Exclusive: More than 100 lawsuits, disputes, tied to Trump and his companies
And despite his boasts on the campaign trail that he “never” settles lawsuits, for fear of
encouraging more, he and his businesses have settled with plaintiffs in at least 100 cases
reviewed by USA TODAY. Most involve people who say they were physically injured at
Trump properties, with settlements that range as high as hundreds of thousands of
dollars.
Alan Garten, general counsel for the Trump Organization, said in an interview that the
number and tenor of the court cases is the “cost of doing business” and on par with other
companies of a similar size. "I think we have far less litigation of companies of our size," he
said.
However, even by those measures, the number of cases in which Trump is involved is
extraordinary. For comparison, USA TODAY analyzed the legal involvement for five top
real-estate business executives: Edward DeBartolo, shopping-center developer and former
San Francisco 49ers owner; Donald Bren, Irvine Company chairman and owner; Stephen
Ross, Time Warner Center developer; Sam Zell, Chicago real-estate magnate; and Larry
Silverstein, a New York developer famous for his involvement in the World Trade Center
properties.
To maintain an apples-to-apples comparison, only actions that used the developers'

names were included. The analysis found Trump has been involved in more legal
skirmishes than all five of the others — combined.
The USA TODAY analysis included an examination of legal actions for and against Trump
and the more than 500 businesses he lists on the personal financial disclosure he
2 of 10 4/18/22, 10:56 AM
filed with the Federal Election Commission. USA TODAY also reviewed five depositions in
which Trump sat for 22 hours of sworn testimony. This report is based on those legal
filings as well as interviews with dozens of his legal adversaries.
A handful of the ongoing cases involve local or state government entities, with the
possibility of personal legal disputes between the president of the United States and other
branches of government if Trump is elected. For instance, the Trump team has filed a
lawsuit seeking a state ethics investigation of the New York attorney general. The suit was
filed in response to an ongoing fraud investigation into Trump University by the attorney
general, an elected state official.
Trump, New York attorney general spar again over Trump U.
And at a campaign rally in San Diego last Friday, Trump railed against a federal judge
overseeing an ongoing lawsuit against Trump University. Trump said Judge Gonzalo
Curiel "happens to be, we believe Mexican," and called him a "hater of Donald Trump"
who "railroaded" him. Born in Indiana, Curiel was appointed to the federal bench by
President Obama. The judge on Tuesday unsealed hundreds of pages of documents in the
case.
The trial is set for November — just after Election Day.
Trump’s history of legal actions provides clues about his style as a leader and manager.
While he is quick to take credit for anything associated with his name, he is just as quick to
distance himself from failures and to place responsibility on others. In one lawsuit — filed
against him by condo owners who wanted their money back for a Fort Lauderdale condo
that was never built — he testified in a sworn deposition: “Well, the word ‘developing,’ it
doesn't mean that we're the developers.”
At times, he and his companies refuse to pay even relatively small bills. An engineering
firm and a law firm are among several who filed suits against Trump companies saying
they weren't paid for their work. In a 2011 deposition tied to a dispute over his deal with
Van Heusen menswear, he said he abruptly decided not to sign a check to a firm that
helped broker the deal, after 11 consecutive quarterly payments, because "I don't feel that
these people did very much, if anything, with respect to this deal.”
The number of lawsuits raises questions about potential conflicts and complications if
Trump does win the White House. Dozens of cases remain unresolved, about half in which
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he is the plaintiff. It raises the possibility of individuals being sued by the president of the
United States, or suing him, in non-governmental disputes.
Under the law, Trump wouldn’t get special advantages as the plaintiff — or protections as
a defendant. Under long-standing conflict-of-interest rules, as a plaintiff he couldn’t
improperly benefit from governmental knowledge. He also wouldn’t get immunity from
civil litigation that stemmed from events prior to taking office.
How USA TODAY NETWORK gathered Trump court files
Together, the lawsuits help address this question: How would Trump’s record in business
translate into leading the most powerful government on the globe — a task that involves
managing a $4 trillion annual budget, overseeing 1.8 million civilian federal employees
and commanding the most powerful armed forces in the world?
While leaders who had business careers sometimes have been elected to the White House
— oilmen George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, for instance, and mining engineer
Herbert Hoover — the jobs have some fundamental differences, political scientists and
presidential historians say. A president can't rule by fiat, as some CEOs do. And getting
things done in government often involves building coalitions among legislators and
foreign leaders who have their own priorities and agendas.
“He’s operating as his own boss and a CEO-on-steroids mentality, where you snap a finger
and things get done,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, who has written
biographies of Franklin Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt and edited Ronald Reagan’s
diaries. “But a lot of good governance is on learning how to build proper coalitions and
how to have patience with the glacial pace of government, and you’re forced to abide by
laws at all times. "
Brinkley sees "a lot of warning signs about having someone of Trump’s temperament and
professional disposition being the commander-in-chief.”
To be sure, likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has had her own legal
challenges, including an ongoing FBI investigation and civil lawsuits into her exclusive use
of an email server while secretary of State. When husband Bill Clinton was president, she
was involved in investigations by special counsels looking into the Whitewater land deal in
4 of 10 4/18/22, 10:56 AM
Arkansas and other controversies. None resulted in legal charges against her.
During her time as first lady, U.S. senator from New York and secretary of State, Clinton
has been named in more than 900 lawsuits, mostly as a defendant, a review of state and
federal court records finds. More than a third of the lawsuits were filed by federal
prisoners, political activists or other citizens seeking redress from the government by
suing a list of high-ranking officials.
The USA TODAY analysis identified at least 3,500 legal actions involving Trump.
Reporters reviewed thousands of pages of records collected electronically and in person
from courts in 33 states over three months, read more than 20 hours of depositions and
interviewed dozens of litigants.
Among those cases with a clear resolution, Trump's side was the apparent victor in
451 and the loser in 38. In about 500 cases, judges dismissed plaintiffs' claims against
Trump. In hundreds more, cases ended with the available public record unclear about the
resolution.
Close to half the court cases — about 1,600 — involved lawsuits against gamblers who had
credit at Trump-connected casinos and failed to pay their debts. About 100 additional
disputes centered on other issues at the casinos. Trump and his enterprises have been
named in almost 700 personal-injury claims and about 165 court disputes with
government agencies.
Dozens dealt with the bankruptcy proceedings of Trump's companies, and dozens more
involved plaintiffs' lawsuits against Trump businesses that judges terminated because the
Trump companies targeted had gone bankrupt.
They include Trump's ongoing suit against the town of Palm Beach over airplane noise
near his Mar-a-Lago Club and an earlier lawsuit against the town over an 80-foot flag pole.
Trump's team argued in court that a smaller flag would understate his patriotism, but he
eventually settled with town officials, agreeing among other concessions to lower the pole
by 10 feet.
There also are disputes with local governments from New York to Florida to Nevada over
the size of his property-tax bills.
The terms of most of the 100 settlements that Trump and his businesses reached with
plaintiffs have not been disclosed. In about 60 additional cases, those sued by the Trump
5 of 10 4/18/22, 10:56 AM
side have settled with him.
A few have become fodder on the campaign trail, including two breach-of-contract

lawsuits he filed against restaurateurs in connection with Trump's development of the Old
Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The businesses said they backed out
of deals with Trump because of his derogatory comments about Mexicans. Both lawsuits
are pending.
The luxury Trump hotel will have a prime view of the Inaugural Parade next January.
Review of thousands of legal actions show that Trump is fiercely protective of his brand,
quick to distance himself from deals that struggle, willing to deploy outsized resources
against adversaries and sometimes prone to micro-management, even in disputes that
involve relatively small amounts of money. Those approaches, however appropriate in a
business setting, may not translate to a political one, especially at the level of the White
House.
Among the details:
• Trump distances himself from deals that sour.
When projects struggle, Trump doesn’t hesitate to cut ties, even those that relied on his
name to secure investments. That was the case in condo projects that were never
completed in Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Panama and Baja, Mexico.
Condo buyers who sued to get their deposits back often said they believed Trump was a
full partner in the buildings. Trump was shielded by disclaimers in sales agreements
explaining his branding-only role, though plaintiffs and their lawyers argued in court that
fine print didn’t sync with marketing materials that made it appear these were Trump
properties.
In depositions and court filings in the condo cases and similar branding deals, Trump's
team appears to try to have it both ways in depicting his involvement. On one hand,
Trump contends deep influence over even the smallest details to ensure Trump-branded
products and developments are up to his standard, and he places high importance on the
influence of his marketing muscle in such deals — usually as the lead name, face and voice
behind a project.
On the other hand, his team argues in court that he's not liable for the deals that fail
6 of 10 4/18/22, 10:56 AM
because he's simply lent his name.
Trump himself walked lawyers through the difference between a brander and a developer
in a 2013 deposition in one of the Fort Lauderdale condo cases.
“Well, the word ‘developing,’ it doesn't mean that we're the developers,” Trump said,
arguing he’s not accountable when a project he lends just his name to goes under. “We
worked on the documents, we worked on the room sizes and the things, but we didn't give
out the contracts, we didn't get the financing, we weren't the developer, but we did work
with the developer.”
In lawsuits over his Trump University, he testified that he had never met instructors who
were described in the university’s promotional materials as being “handpicked” by him. “It
depends on the definition of what that means, handpicked,” Trump said during an
exchange with a lawyer in a sworn deposition last December.
When attorneys representing plaintiffs pointed out some instructors had criminal pasts
and had been accused of berating seniors who signed up for the program, Trump replied:
“In every business, people slip through the cracks.”
Florida attorney Sherri Simpson, who defends homeowners in foreclosure actions, said she
signed up for Trump University classes because she hoped to capitalize on low prices
during the housing downturn. She wanted to turn to a trusted real-estate name to learn
how.
“I’m aggravated that I lost all that money,” she said in an interview. “He promised to hire
the best, to handpick the instructors, make sure everyone affiliated with the program was
the best. But he didn’t do that.”
• Trump is willing to spend large sums on small claims.
No detail is too small for a Trump suit, and he often brings to bear overwhelming legal
resources that enable him to outlast his adversaries.
In February, he filed five lawsuits against eight neighbors of his Doral golf club in
Miami for $15,000 in damages to reimburse him for "vandalizing" or "destroying"
expensive areca palms and other plants his groundskeepers installed between their homes
and the course. Trump's staff says the foliage was planted to block golfers' views of the
houses; the homeowners say the trees blocked their views of the course. All five cases
7 of 10 4/18/22, 10:56 AM
are pending.
“No other developer put so many resources in trying to fight claims brought by the
plaintiffs,” said Jared Beck, a Miami attorney who has represented dozens of clients in
lawsuits against developers in South Florida. He said none has fought with the tenacity of
Trump, citing a “mismatch of resources” that often works in Trump’s favor.
Beck is now appealing to the Florida Supreme Court a case that dates to 2008 in which he
represented a group of people who invested in condos in a failed development in Fort
Lauderdale to which Trump licensed his name. “He is willing to go to the mat and has
practically unlimited resources.”
• Trump fiercely protects the monetary value of “Trump” as a brand name.
Trump publicly has placed the value of his licensed real estate and other branding deals at
$3.3 billion, though Forbes and other analysts question whether the figure is
inflated. His moniker drives the value of his licensing deals, which now make up an
important arm of his business model.
In one case, a South Florida developer hired experts who testified that having Trump's
name attached to their proposed condominium development boosted the condos' value by
at least $200 per square foot. The swanky seaside complex was only partially built,
prompting some condo buyers to file a lawsuit against Trump and the developers seeking
to recover their deposits. The developers had paid to license Trump’s brand, allowing them
to use Trump’s name, his image and his reputation to help them sell units.
Trump has attempted to pull out or distance himself from similar licensing deals, real
estate and otherwise, if he feels the situation is hurting his brand. He also goes to court to
collect royalties and other fees he says he's owed on those same kinds of deals.
“Anything I put my name to is very important,” Trump said in a 2010 deposition tied to a
failed real-estate development in Tampa licensed to carry Trump’s “mark," as he calls it.
"If I allow my name to be used, whether it’s a partnership or whether it is a licensing deal,
they are all very important to me.”
Trump sued for $4.5 million over unpaid royalties after a company that had been paying
him to call its liquor Trump Vodka fell on hard times during the economic downturn,
hurting sales of pricier spirits. The company stopped making its licensing payments, and
Trump terminated the deal and sued to recoup what he was owed. He won a judgment for
8 of 10 4/18/22, 10:56 AM
the amount, though it's unclear whether he ever collected from the troubled company.
And he has been aggressive in suing unrelated companies that were using his name
without permission. He won rulings over attempts to market Trump’s Best Coffee, a series
of websites with names like trumpabudhabi.com and trumpbeijing.com, and a marketing
agency calling itself Trump Your Competition.
Trump’s general counsel, Garten, defended the number of lawsuits. “Our philosophy is
that we are a company of principle,” he said. “When we believe we are in the right, we are
going to pursue the matter to the end. If that requires that we go to trial and present
evidence to a jury, we are prepared to do so. We are not going to cave to pressure.”
But experts in the presidency and business say Trump’s record, including in courtroom
disputes, raise questions about whether he has exhibited the leadership qualities that have
distinguished the nation’s most successful presidents.
“Somebody like Lyndon Johnson was a guy who woke up in the morning studying the
decisions and the hopes and the strengths and the weaknesses of all the people he had to
influence,” said Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business
and author of Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time. “For
that, you need two traits I think Trump lacks: Number one, an attention to detail, and
number two, you have to subordinate your own ego. I’ve seen nothing from Trump that
suggests he has that capacity, and government is the art of compromise.”
Trump’s lack of government experience was a political advantage during the GOP
primaries, reinforcing his status as an outsider vowing to shake up a dysfunctional
Washington. But it threatens to be a liability in the general election. In an NBC News/Wall
Street Journal poll released last week, six in 10 voters said they had reservations about or
were uncomfortable with Trump’s lack of experience in government or the military.
Even so, some of those who have sued Trump, been sued by him or otherwise been caught
up in his legal wake, say they still may vote for him in November.
Philip Monnin represented his daughter, Miss Pennsylvania contestant Sheena Monnin, in
a defamation suit Trump filed after she posted on Facebook that she thought the 2012
Miss USA Pageant was “rigged.” An arbitration ruling upheld by a federal judge ordered
her to pay $5 million in damages, although she and Trump eventually settled out of court
for an undisclosed lesser amount. Monnin, who lives in Michigan, said the suit
9 of 10 4/18/22, 10:56 AM
demonstrated Trump’s bullying tactics and attempts to intimidate legal opponents.
But he doesn’t rule out voting for Trump for president. “Both sides have failed to bring
satisfactory candidates,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think any of us in the family has
decided what to do, and we have a lot of time to consider how to cast our votes.”
Contributing: David McKay Wilson, Karen Yi, John Kelly and Kevin McCoy
Exclusive: Trump's 3,500 lawsuits unprecedented for a presidential nominee
USA TODAY exclusive: Hundreds allege Donald Trump doesn't pay his bills
Trump, companies accused of mistreating women in at least 20 lawsuits
Exclusive: More than 100 lawsuits, disputes over taxes tied to Trump and his companies
Dive into Donald Trump's thousands of lawsuits
Trump casino empire dogged by bad bets in Atlantic City
As campaign rolls on, so do Trump's lawsuits in Florida
How USA TODAY NETWORK is tracking Trump court files
Trump and the Law
10 of 10 4/18/22, 10:56 AM
Exhibit 8
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-
clinton-emails.html
Donald Trump Calls on Russia to Find Hillary Clinton’s

Missing Emails
By Ashley Parker and David E. Sanger
July 27, 2016
DORAL, Fla. — Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he hoped Russian intelligence
services had successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish
whatever they may have stolen, essentially urging a foreign adversary to conduct
cyberespionage against a former secretary of state.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,”
Mr. Trump said during a news conference here in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s
deleted emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Mr. Trump’s call was another bizarre moment in the mystery of whether Vladimir V.
Putin’s government has been seeking to influence the United States’ presidential race.
His comments came amid questions about the hacking of the Democratic National
Committee’s computer servers, which American intelligence agencies have told the White
House they have “high confidence” was the work of the Russian government.
At the same news conference, Mr. Trump also appeared to leave the door open to
accepting Russia’s annexation of Crimea two years ago — which the United States and its
European allies consider an illegal seizure of territory. That seizure, and the continued
efforts of Russian-aided insurgents to undermine the government of Ukraine, are the
reason that the United States and its allies still have economic sanctions in force against
Moscow.
When asked whether he would recognize Crimea “as Russian territory” and lift the
sanctions, Mr. Trump said: “We’ll be looking at that. Yeah, we’ll be looking.”
Mr. Trump’s apparent willingness to avoid condemning Mr. Putin’s government is a

remarkable departure from United States policy and Republican Party orthodoxy, and
has fueled the questions about Russian meddling in the campaign. Mr. Trump has denied
that, saying at the news conference that he has never met Mr. Putin, and has no
investments in Russia.
“I would treat Vladimir Putin firmly, but there’s nothing I can think of that I’d rather do
than have Russia friendly as opposed to the way they are right now,” he said, “so that we
can go and knock out ISIS together.”
Mr. Trump later tried to modify his remarks about hacking Mrs. Clinton’s emails,
contending they represented an effort to get the Russians to turn over their trove to the
F.B.I.
With the political conventions coming to an end on Thursday, Mr. Trump is expected to
receive his first national security briefings from American intelligence agencies in
coming days. It is unclear whether those briefings — which describe the global
challenges facing the United States but not continuing covert operations or especially
sensitive intelligence — will change any of his views.
His comments about Russian hacking came on a day when Obama administration
officials were already beginning to develop options for possible retaliation against Russia
for the attack on the Democratic National Committee. As is often the case after cyber
incidents, the options for responding are limited and can be viewed as seeming too mild
or too escalatory.
The administration has not publicly accused the Russian government of the Democratic
National Committee hacking, or presented evidence to back up such a case. The leaked
documents, first published by a hacker who called himself “Guccifer 2.0” and who is now
believed to be a character created by Russian intelligence, portrayed some committee
officials as favoring Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy while denigrating her opponent, Senator
Bernie Sanders. The release of the internal party emails and documents led to the
resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz as chairwoman of the party.
Mr. Trump contended on Wednesday that the political uproar over whether Russia was
meddling in the election was a “total deflection” from the embarrassing content of the
emails. Many Republicans, even some who say they do not support Mr. Trump, say they
agree.
If Mr. Trump is serious in his call for Russian hacking or exposing Mrs. Clinton’s emails,
he would be urging a power often hostile to the United States to violate American law by
breaking into a private computer network. He would also be contradicting the Republican
platform, adopted last week in Cleveland, saying that cyberespionage “will not be
tolerated,” and promising to “respond in kind and in greater magnitude” to all Chinese
and Russian cyberattacks.
In the past, the Obama administration has stopped short of retaliating against Russia —
at least in any public fashion — for its attacks on the State Department and White House
unclassified email systems, or on networks used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It never even
publicly identified Russian intelligence as the source of those intrusions, though the
subject was widely discussed by senior United States officials when they were not
speaking for attribution.
In contrast, the United States did bring indictments against Chinese and Iranian hackers
for thefts of intellectual property and attacks on American banks, and imposed economic
sanctions against North Korea in early 2015, for hacking into Sony Pictures
Entertainment’s computers.
Almost as soon as Mr. Trump spoke, other Republicans raced in to try to reframe his
remarks and argue that Russia should be punished. A spokesman for Speaker Paul D.
Ryan termed Russia “a global menace led by a devious thug.” The spokesman, Brendan
Buck, added: “Putin should stay out of this election.”
Even Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, Mr. Trump’s running mate, issued a statement, saying
that “if it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties
and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences.” Mr. Pence
did not attend Wednesday’s news conference because he was giving local television
interviews, and an aide to Mr. Pence said that his team had written his statement about
Russia before Mr. Trump began speaking.
Shortly after that Mr. Trump sent a message on Twitter declaring “If Russia or any other
country or person has Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they
should share them with the FBI!”
The fact that the Democratic committee’s servers were targeted — and, apparently, not
those of the Republican National Committee — has brought up inevitable comparisons
with the origins of the Watergate scandal, when burglars found little after breaking into
Democratic committee offices before the 1972 election. The hackers, more than 40 years
later, were more successful: A reconstruction of events suggests the first successful
piercing of the Democrats’ networks occurred in June 2015, long before the Russians, or
anyone else, could have known Mr. Trump would get the nomination.
The Clinton campaign, eager to turn the subject from the chaos caused by the email
release to the question of Russian interference, accused Mr. Trump of encouraging
Russian espionage.
“This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged
a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” said Jake Sullivan,
Mrs. Clinton’s chief foreign policy adviser, whose emails from when he was a State
Department aide were among those that were hacked.
“This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a
national security issue,” he added.
For his part, Mr. Trump cast doubt on the conclusion that Russia was behind the hacking.
“I have no idea,” he said. He said the “sad thing” is that “with the genius we have in
government, we don’t even know who took the Democratic National Committee emails.”
Mr. Trump then argued that if Russia, or any other foreign government, was behind the
hacking, it showed just how little respect other nations had for the current administration.
“President Trump would be so much better for U.S.-Russian relations” than a President
Clinton, Mr. Trump said. “I don’t think Putin has any respect whatsoever for Clinton.”
Former Representative Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, a Republican who had served as

chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Mr. Trump was right to keep
hammering Mrs. Clinton on the subject of her private emails.
Mr. Hoekstra said he was untroubled by Mr. Trump’s goading of a foreign power,
particularly in light of Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private server while she was secretary of
state.
”Trump is bringing up a fairly valid point: Hillary Clinton, with her personal email at the
State Department, has put the Russians in a very enviable position,” Mr. Hoekstra said.
“Most likely the Russians already have all that info on Hillary.”
But Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who led the House oversight
committee that looked into Mrs. Clinton’s emails, was more critical. If Mr. Trump’s
comments were meant literally, he said in an interview, “I think he was absolutely wrong
and out of line. I would never have said it that way, and I think it was ill-advised.”
If the remark was tongue-in-cheek, he added, it failed at political humor.

Exhibit 9
1
EXECUTIVE SESSION
PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE,
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
INTERVIEW OF: GLENN SIMPSON
Tuesday, November14,2017
Washington, D.C.
The interview in the above matter was held in Room HVC-304, the Capitol,
commencing at 2:13 p.m .
Present: Representatives Conaway, King, Rooney, Ros-Lehtinen, Gowdy,
Schiff, Himes, Speie r, Quigley, Swalwell, Castro, and Heck .

2
Appearances:
For the PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE:
For GLENN SIMPSON:
ROBERT F. MUSE, ESQ.
JOSHUA LEVY, ESQ.
RACHELCLATTENBURG,ESQ.

3
Good afternoon . This is an unclassified transcribed
interview of Mr. Glenn Simpson.
Thank you for speaking to us today. For the record, I am a
staff member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Others
present today will irtroduce themselves when they speak.
But before we begin, I have a security reminder. If you haven't left your
electronics outside, please do so at this time. That includes blackberries,
iPhones, androids, tablets, iPads, or eReaders, laptops, iPods, MP3 players,
recording devices, cameras, wireless headsets, pagers, and any type of bluetooth
wristbands or watches.
I also want to state a few things for the record. The questioning will be
conducted by members and staff during their allotted time period. Some
questions may seem basic, but that is because we need to clearly establish facts
and understand the situation. Please do not assume we know any facts you have
previously disclosed as part of any other investigation or review.
We ask that you give complete and fulsome replies to questions, based on
your best recollection . If a question is unclear or you are uncertain in you r
response, please let us know. And if you do not know the answer to a question or
cannot remember, simply say so.
During the course of this interview, we will take any breaks that you desire.
This interview will be transcribed. There is a reporter making a record of
these proceedings so we can easily consult a written compilation of your answers.
Because the reporter cannot record gestures, we ask that you answer verbally. If
you forget to do this, you might be reminded to do so. You may also be asked to

4
spell certain terms or unusual phrases.
You are entitled to have a lawyer present for this interview, though you are
not required to do so. I see that you have counsel present and would ask that
your attorneys make an appearance for the record.
MR. LEVY: Joshua Levy, counsel for Glenn Simpson.
MR. MUSE: I am Bob Muse, also counsel for Glenn Simpson.
Thank you. To ensure confidentiality, we ask that you
do not discuss this interview with anyone other than you r --
MS. CLATTENBURG: Rachel Clattenburg, also for Glenn Simpson .

To ensure confidentiality, we ask that you do not discuss
the interview with anyone other than your attorney.
Consistent with the committee rules of procedure, you and your counsel , if
you wish, will have a reasonable opportunity to inspect the transcript of this
interview in order to determine whether your answers were correctly transcribed.
The transcript will remain in the committee's custody. The committee also
reserves the right to request you return for additional questions should the need
arise.
The process for today's interview is as follows: The majority will be given
45 minutes to ask questions; and the minority will be given 45 minutes to ask
questions. Immediately thereafter, we will take a 5-minute break, after which the
majority will be given 15 minutes to ask questions; and the minority will be given
15 minutes to ask questions. These time limits will be strictly adhered to, with no
extensions being granted. Time will be kept for each portion of the interview, with
warnings given at the 5-minute and 1-minute marks.
Our record today will reflect that you are appearing voluntarily, pursuant to

5
an agreement dated today. Under procedures adopted for the 1°15th Congress
that have been ·provided to you along with Rule 11 of the rules of the House of
Representatives, only you or your personal counsel may make objections during a
deposition.
I also want to state for the record that the agreement that has been struck
today was signed by both Mr. Conaway and Mr. Schiff.
Objections must be stated concisely and in a nonargumentative manner. If
you or your counsel raises an objection, the interview will proceed and testimony
taken is subject to any objection. You may refuse to answer a question only to
preserve a testimonial privilege. When you or your counsel have refused to
answer a question to preserve a testimonial privilege, the objection may be ruled
on by the chairman after the interview has recessed .
Finally, you are reminded th?t it is unlawful to deliberately provide false
information to Members of Congress or staff.
As this interview is under oath, please raise your right hand. Do you swear
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
MR. SIMPSON: I do.
The record will reflect that the witness has been duly
sworn.
MR. CONAWAY: Gentlemen, thank you for coming.
Adam, any comments before we start?
MR. CONAWAY: All right. The floor is yours .
MR. GOWDY: Good afternooh, Mr: Simpson.
MR. SIMPSON: Good afternoon.
MR. GOWDY: My name is Trey Gowdy. I'm from South Carolina. I will
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMI TTEE SENSITIVE

6
ask you questions initially. If I ask you any question that you don't understand,
just ask me to rephrase it.
MR. SIMPSON: Okay.
MR. GOWDY: It won't be a trick question. It will be because I ask it
inartfully.
Where do you work and how long h~v~ you worked !her~?
MR. SIMPSON: I work at a consulting firm here in Washington. The trade
name is Fusion GPS. The entity, the legal entity is called Bean LLC. And I've
been there since I believe 2010. And it's a research consulting firm.
MR. GOWDY: All right. That was my next question. What does Fusion
GPS do? '
MR. SIMPSON: It's a commercial research firm, sometimes also does
strategy, public affairs. The primary line of work we're in is research. Generally,
it specializes in public records research, other sort of journalistic style information
gathering.
MR. GOWDY: When someone uses the phrase "opposition research,"
does that mean anything to you? Does that have any trade meaning?
MR. "SIMPSON: Well, I was introduced to opposition research when I was
a reporter on Capitol Hill. And so the conventional term is usually people who
work on campaigns who are looking for information that will be useful in debates or
other election related activities is my general historical understanding of the term.
MR. GOWDY: Does Fusion GPS do what you just described as opposition
research?
MR. SIMPSON: From time to time. It's not very -- it's not a very big part
of our business. Generally, we have - we work for corporate clients and banks
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSI T IVE

7
and large law firms. And most of our work is not election-related, it has to do with
fraud and corruption investigations and policy disputes and high-dollar litigation.
MR. GOWDY: Were you hired by a person or entity in either 2015 or 2016
to do research into then-candidate Donald Trump?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes, we were. We were hired around October,
September-October of 2015.
MR. GOWDY: By whom?
MR. SIMPSON: The Free Beacon has been publicly stated as the client or
identified to the committee as the client, and I can confirm that._
MR. GOWDY: All right. I'm going to be asking you questions even though
there's been public reporting. I don't want anybody in the media to take any
offense, but sometimes they're right, sometimes they're not right. So --
MR. SIMPSON: I can agree with that.
MR. GOWDY: So in this instance, we can all celebrate the fact that they
were correct. You were hired by the Washington Free Beacon?
MR. SIMPSON: That was the client, yes.
MR. GOWDY: All right. And what were your instructions? What were
you asked to do?
MR. SIMPSON: I -- that's I think covered - our client relationships are
confidential, and so I can't get into what anyone specifically told me. I think I can
speak more broadly and say that it was an open-ended look at Donald Trump's
business career and hls litigation history and his relationships with questionable
people, how much he was really worth, how he ran his casinos, what kind of
performance he had in other lines of work.
It was a very broad unfocused look, which is the way we do our business.

8
Essentially, we don't usually allow clients to tell us what to look at and what not to
look at, because we don't think that's a smart way of trying to understand a
subject. So, generally speaking, we just do an open-ended look at everything we
can find .
So it starts with literature review. We obtain all the books we can on a
subject and order them all, you know, used from Amazon, and all the newspaper
·- - ·· ·- ·-- -- - -- - - -
articles, all the court records, all the public records you can lay your hands on.
And only after you've digested all that information do you start to figure out, you
know, where to focus your inquiries.
MR. GOWDY: Were you asked to write a report or just accumulate
information?
MR. SIMPSON: Again, I need to steer clear of specific communications I
had with my clients, but I can tell you that as a business practice, generally
speaking, we do engagements on a 30-day basis, and at the end of the 30 days
we write a report about what we found. And if there's specific things that are
interesting, a particular lawsuit or a dispute or a business deal or something like
that, you know, we will write a separate treatment of that issue.
But, generally speaking, for most of our clients, particularly in the beginning
of an engagement, it's a 30-day assignment, and at the end of 30 days you get a
report. And if you think what we told you was interesting and you want more, we
can sign up again.
MR. GOWDY: Well, I really am trying to limit the number of times you r
lawyer has to lean over there and give you counsel, so I'm trying to stay within the
parameters of what I think you feel like you're able to answer.
But are you asked to write what some of our friends may refe r to as a fair

9
and balanced piece, or are they primarUy interested in negative information?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, we've only had a very small number of political
clients. So I can tell you, I mean, our methodology doesn't really change.
We - my firm is -- all the principals are former journalists, so we don't come out of
the political combat industry. We come out of the, you know, journalism industry,
which is all about sort of sticking to the facts and not leaping to conclusions and
not trying to, you know, come up with a hit piece on anybody. So, generally
speaking, you know, what we get compensated for is producing reliable treatments
of whatever the subject is.
And I should just add, I mean, it doesn't - it doesn't heip us or our clients if
we only look for negative information. What the clients want is all the information.
And so, you know, someone -- if you're in a campaign and the, you know, other
side is a businessman and you're reviewing his career, it's important information
whether he's a good businessman or bad businessman. And you don't want your
client trying to make an issue of his business career if he's a brillianl businessman
who knows how to make money in an honest and ethical way.
MR. GOWDY: All right. Let me ask you about a couple words you just
used. You just used the words "good" and "bad," which some would argue are
inherently subjective; but you also used the word "facts," and what did you mean
when you used the word "facts"?
MR. SIMPSON: I mean, factual information is - a lot of what we do is
gather facts. And sometimes facts are provable facts; sometimes facts are
established facts; sometimes they're allegations, factual allegations. So we do all
of the above. When you gather up lawsuit information, for example, you have two
sides making factual allegations against each other; and what's important is that
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITI VE

10
you have a reliable, credible basis for your information.
And, you know, it is a lot like journalism in that journalism is called the first
draft of history, where essentially you're gathering up information, and your job is
not to determine the truth, it's to gather credible information and to present all the
possibilities and all the reliable information you can find.
But, you know, every day in the newspaper every story has two sides to it,
and it's not the reporter's job to figure out who's telling the truth and who's not or
who's right and who's wrong , it1s to be responsible and professional in gathering
up al! of the facts and allegations and presenting them in a neutral way. So our
method is journalistic, and our reports are written along those lines.
MR. GOWDY: Do you draw a distinction between facts and allegations?
MR. SIMPSON: Certainly.
MR. GOWDY: What is that distinction?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, I mean, a fact is something that's subjectively
verifiable to all reasonable observers; and an allegation is something that hasn't
been confirmed .
MR. GOWDY: All right. No offense to people that do what you do for a
living, but if it is all publicly available, why do people need to hire you?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, we live in an information society, and there's a ·lot of
information out there. Some people are good at finding it and processing it, and
others not so much, or it's just a question of specialization.
So you're running a business and you're busy running your business and
you think that the guy who's your main competitor is cheating or maybe paying a
bribe to steal a contract from you. And that's not your main line of work. You
don't know how to investigate whether someone is engaged in corruption or

11
whether they've got a bad business history. And so, you know, you hire someone
who specializes in that kind of work. So we specialize in finding records and
reading things and digesting large volumes of information.
MR. GOWDY: If I understood your testimony correctly, you don't
specialize in political opposition research?
MR. SIMPSON : It's not a major line of business for us. It's, you know,
every couple of years, 3, 4, when there's a Presidential campaign we get asked to
do stuff. We sometimes get asked to do stuff in California initiatives and other
things.
Generally speaking, the market niche that we occupy is not the opposition
research niche. I don't think our pricing structure is conducive to getting
opposition research business, which is -- generally doesn't pay very well.
MR. GOWDY: Well, given that and given the fact that it's not your niche,
why did the Washington Free Beacon approach you about doing the research on
candidate Trump?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, one of our, you know, specialties that l think people
know is that we are good at business investigations, corporate investigations, and
Mr. Trump is a big businessman.
So I can't get into exactly sort of what was said, but - and, in fact, I don't
think I even remember, you know, if l had that kind of information. But I think it's
reasonable to interpret that it was because we have a background doing business
investigation.
MR. GOWDY: And how long were you employed by the Washington Free
Beacon?
MR. SIMPSON: As I said, J think we started in September or October, and

12
I think it wound down in April, sometime in the spring. As the Republican
primaries came to an end, it became obvious that that work was going to end.
MR. GOWDY: Did you rely on sources or subsources during your work for
the Washington Free Beacon?
MR. SIMPSON: I don't specifically remember. We may have engaged
someone. Typically speaking, we engage subcontractors to gather documents in
far away places. And, you know, far away in this case may be even just being
California or Illinois or something like that. So I assume we had some
subcontractors, for instance, but I don't specifically remember.
MR. GOWDY: At some point, did the Washington Free Beacon stop
paying you for the project into then-candidate Trump? Did the business
relationship end?
MR. SIMPSON: I remember that we stopped doing the Trump work for the
Beacon sometime in the spring of 2016.
MR. GOWDY: Did you pick up --
MR. SIMPSON: He just reminded me, I don't know the exact date of when
the payments, the last payment was. And so I can tell you, generally spea king,
that I -- you know, in the division of labor in my company, I don't handle the
invoicing and banking stuff. So I can tell you more substantively when it stopped,
but I don't - you know, the records are not something that I'm immersed in.
MR. GOWDY: Well, let's go with that. When did the work stop?
MR. SIMPSON: I think it was April or May.
MR. GOWDY: All right. And were you retained by a subsequent client to
pick up on the work that you had begun?

13
MR. SIMPSON: It was the same subject. And obviously, the first work
was informed by the new project. But, you know, it wasn't like a direct line
continuum. It was similar work, but we obviously by then knew quite a bit about
Mr. Trump and his business career and his associations and all that.
MR. GOWDY: Well, that leads me to ask were you approached by a
subsequent client or did you market yourself to other people as having started this .
research and being willing to continue it?
MR. SIMPSON: I think that covers a client confidentiality area, but I
can -- I also can tell you l don't specifically remember how it -- what the genesis of
it was .
MR. GOWDY: You've got to help me.here.. Being approached by the first
client you testified at some length about, and now l'r.n asking about how you were
approached by the second client. So why would the second client be governed
by confidentiality concerns , but the first one not?
MR. SIMPSON: It would - it would depend on the nature of the
communication. But I'm not the only person in my company, so I think the
answer -- I don't think I have the answer to your question, in any event.
MR. GOWDY: Did you have a second client interested in opposition
research on candidate Trump?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes, sir.
MR. GOWDY: Who was that second client?
MR. SIMPSON: I think the records indicated that it's Perkins Coie, and I
can confirm that.
MR. GOWDY: And who is Perkins Coie?
MR. SIMPSON: It's a law firm . I think they're headquartered in Seattle,
UNCL..:n.BSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

14
and they're a big law firm.
MR. GOWDY: Had you ever worked for them in the past?
MR. SIMPSON: I don't think I can get into the -- essentially, I haven't been
released by any clients to get into my work for them.
Generally speaking, we sign confidentiality agreements with all of our
clients , which is an essential part of the kind of work we db. And I haven't been
released or directed to get into whether I worked for these clients before or what
kind of things I did for them.
MR. GOWDY: So I assume you did not sign a confidentiality agreement
with the Washington Free Beacon?
MR. SIMPSON: I actually don't know. We --
MR. GOWDY: I'll direct this to your lawyer. This is what I'm trying to
avoid, picking and choosing which questions you want to answer.
MR. LEVY: Yes. Just to be clear, I think what he was trying to do in
response to your questions on the Washington Free Beacon was talk as a general
matter why the company would be hired. I thought he was careful to say he
wasn't getting into the actual conversations or communications with the Free
Beacon.
So, in that sense, he is trying to be consistent. He has not been released
by either client to talk about confidential client communications, but he will tell you
about the work and he's here all night for you.
MR. SIMPSON: I mean, my answer for the second client wou ld be the
same as my answer for the first, which is that I worked for the Wall Street Journal
for about 15 years, and I specialized in complex financial investigations, political

15
corruption, that sort of thing, and it's what I'm known for.
And so, you know, I can't tell you what other people were thinking about
why they hired me, but, generally speaking, people hired me because that's what
they know I do.
MR. GOWDY: Well, let's try to approach it this way: When you were
hired by Perkins Coie, did you consider them to be the client?
MR. SIMPSON : Yes.
MR. GOWDY: Do you recall who, if anyo·ne, you specifically talked to at
Perkins Coie?
MR. SIMPSON: I think that would be getting into client communication.
MR. GOWDY: I'm going to have to look at my colleague from California.
For months and months I have been hearing about all the privileges that we do not
recognize in congressional investigations, and this is a brand new one to me. So
is this a privilege that we recognize?
MR. SCHIFF: I think the answer is we should get through the interview,
and then we can decide whether there's a privilege we are going to recognize or
whether we're going to use compulsory process. I don't know the answer, but I
suggest we try to get as much information as we can voluntarily and then figu re
out whether we need any more than that.
MR. ROONEY: Well, this did come up, as you know, with another witness
where I was in chair and this exact thing came up. And I asked the witness to
an·swer one of your questions, because of this congressional committee not
recognizing the privilege of attorney-client. And they answered the question. So
we didn't wait until it was over.
MR. SCHIFF: But we had a couple interviews, one in which we asked
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENS I TIVE

16
about other clients, and we were not allowed to get the answers because there
was an objection on your side that it was beyond the scope orwe shouldn'tjust be
asking about other clients that weren't necessarily related. So we've had kind of
rulings that have gone back. I don't know whether --
MR. ROONEY: That's fine, but we're just trying to get the information here.
And if I was willing to make Carter Page answer a question fo r Mr. Swalwe ll that
he did not want to answer and begged us not to answer, and I made him answer it,
and he's trying to get some background information on his client, it's kind of like,
you know, it's not a two-way street, and that's not really fair.
MR. SCHIFF: Carter Page was subpoenaed to come in, because he
wouldn't cooperate otherwise. I'm not objecting to the question. I just don't know
the answer. And so I'm not objecting to the question , though . And my only
suggestion was we try to get all the answers we can get answered, and then we
can figure out, okay, we need to go back and say we need to get answers to these
questions or maybe we get what we need. That was just my suggestion. But
I'm -
MR. GOWDY: All right. We'll keep trying.
MR. CONAWAY: Just to be clear, you're invoking attorney-client privilege
with all these folks or ju st client-client privilege or just work product? I mea n, what
is it?
MR. LEVY: It's a voluntary interview, and so he's just respectfully declining
to answer this question.
MR. CONAWAY: On what basis?
MR. LEVY: He's got a confidentiality obligation to the client. The client
has not waived that confidentiality for him to get into his communications with the
UNCLASS IFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

17
client. He can, however, talk to you as long as you'd like about the work that he
did, his communications with Mr. Steele, the work on the dossier. He just can't
talk about communications with the client, because they are confidential, and
those confidentiality considerations have not been waived.
MR. CONAWAY: I'm going to figu·re out a way to officially put the objection
on the record so that when we revisit how we enforce the House investigatory
prerogatives, we'll know what to do. So what do we do?
I think what we should do is, if you can't answer the
question, raise the objection.
MR. CONAWAY: He won't answer the question.
He won't answer the question. So there's been an
objection. And I'll just say that the witness is reminded that he may refuse to
answer a question only to preserve a testimonial privilege. Neither the U.S.
House of Representatives nor the committee recognizes any purported
nondisclosure privileges associated with common law, Including attorney-client
privilege, attorney work product protections; and neither the U.S. House of
Representatives or the committee recognizes any purported contractt1al privileges,
including those supposedly deriving from nondisclosure agreements.
So we'll just raise that's the objection that's on the record. We'll move on
to the next question.
MR. LEVY: And just to ask clarification just so we're making sure we're all
proceeding under the same rules, are those rules for staff depositions or for
voluntary interviews, which is what this is?
Well, we consider this to be a - this Is a voluntary staff
deposition. You're here on a voluntary basis.

18
MR. LEVY: Okay. The letter that we had talked about last week said
voluntary interview, which we thought was covered by a different set of rules.
We're happy to follow whatever rules govern. Of course, we're going to follow the
rules, but just want clarity on what they are.
MR. SCHIFF: The only thing I will say is we had this issue come up with a
witness who was subpoenaed, and we read the advisem~nt that those privileges
are not - they are not recognized.
So the only thing I would commend to you is you can assert whatever
privilege you want today, but if the majority decides that they need more
information, they'll have to bring you back under subpoena . Then those privileges
won't be recognized.
So I think the more information you're able to give today, the greater
likelihood we won't have to bring you back under a subpoena.
MR. LEVY: Understood. And that's our aim today is to cooperate as
much as we can with the entire committee today. I appreciate that. And while
we've not yet seen a copy of the letter, we understand that the letter was going to
withdraw the subpoena. We have it now. Okay. And let me just-- no, th is is
not the letter.
MR. CONAWAY: No, it's one signed by me.
MR. MUSE: The subpoena has been withdrawn. We have that.
MR. LEVY: Because I believe in the other situation the members are
referencing, the subpoena was not withdrawn.
MR. SCHIFF: Correct. I mean, you're not under subpoena at this
moment, but my point is the more forthcoming you can be, the greater the
likelihood you won't have to be brought back under subpoena.

19
MR. LEVY: Understood.
MR. GOWDY: Mr. Simpson, were you aware that Perkins Coie was
retained by the DNC?
MR. SIMPSON: I'm aware. I was aware of that and have been for years
that they have -- they were one of the main lawyers for the Democratic party, yes.
I don't have any specific awareness -
MR. GOWDY: That wasn't my precise question. With respect to this fact
pattern , with respect to your firm being retained, were you aware that Perkins Coie
was working on behalf of the DNC?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes. I mean, I know that they are - the DNC is a client
of Perkins Coie. I don't - I didn't see it -- nobody gave me a document or
inforr:ned me specifically of that.
MR. GOWDY: Did you think the law firm was just doing it on their own?
MR. SIMPSON: I'm sorry, I don't understand your question.
MR. GOWDY: Did you think the law firm was just doing it on their own?
MR. SIMPSON: Doing what? Doing --
MR. GOWDY: Opposition research into candidate Trump.
MR. SIMPSON: No.
MR. GOWDY: Paying you to do opposition research into candidate Trump,
did you think Perkins Coie was doing that on their own?
MR. SIMPSON: No, sir. What I'm trying to explain is that I have been in
Washington for several decades, and I spent a lot of time on Capitol Hill and it was
well-known to me that Perkins Coie represented the DNC.
MR. GOWDY: Is that the only way that you knew that they w ere doing
work on behalf of the DNC when they retained you in this specific fact pattern?

20
MR. SIMPSON: I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to ask me, but
if it's - I'm not going to get into what discussions I had with my client about who
their clients were.
MR. GOWDY: I'm looking at a release from Perkins Coie that is giving me
more information than you are. Have you seen the release where they released
you from some of your confidentiality obligations?
MR. SIMPSON: I would like to see a copy of that, if you don't mind.
MR. GOWDY: Do your lawyers not have it?
MR. SIMPSON: It's been a busy time. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry if I'm not
giving you a clear answer. I knew it was the DNC that we were working for.
MR. GOWDY: Okay. How did you know it was the DNC?
MR. SIMPSON: I honestly don't -- I couldn't tell you if someone specifically
said, this is for the DNC.
MR. GOWDY: Well, how else would you know it was for the DNC? Did
you read it?
MR. SIMPSON: As I'm trying to explain, I know -- I've been in Washington
for a long time, and Perkins Coie represents the DNC.
MR. GOWDY: So you knew it by habit and custom?
MR. SIMPSON: I'm -- yes.
MR. GOWDY: By habit and custom?
MR. SIMPSON: I feel like I'm in a difficult position, because I have not
been released from my client - by my client to talk about anything that we talked
about, but I'm trying to give you the answer that I think you want, which is I was
definitely aware that Perkins Coie represented the DNC and that they were thf3
client in this matter.

21
MR. .GOWDY: Right. And I'm asking you how you knew that?
MR. SIMPSON: And I'm -- I don't know what to tell you other than that I
was generally aware that Perkins Coie represented the DNC.
MR. GOWDY: Okay. So how did your work for Perkins Coie begin?
MR. SIMPSON : My recollection is we began to review what we had
learned over the previous months and talk about what we would do, you know,
now that we would have resources to pursue this - some of these matters further.
So it's -- when you get into that point of a piece of research, you begin to develop
lines of inquiry and things that you think might be important, things you want
to -- that other people are - you know other people are interested in.
So we began to develop more specific lines of inquiry. So they would
be -- so the things that we started looking at specifically were a lot of Mr. Trump's
overseas business deals, his history with regard to tax disputes. We were very
interested in things like his clothing line and where his -- you know, he -- I can't
remember exactly when this came up, but we gradually figured out that he -- while
he was running on a platform of economic nationalism that he's outsourced his
clothing line to developing countries. So we were interested in the labor practices
around his factories.
You know, we had gradually accumulated more and more things about his
bankruptcies. And we had gotten a better sense of who his business partners
were. So those were issues. So we sort of-- when we reached an agreement
about, you know, funding and we thought we would have fundin g to do a bunch of
things, we began to look for people who could help us pursue some of these
things. And l guess that's a general description of what we began to do.
MR. GOWDY: Were the lin es of inquiry dictated by the client or suggested

22
by the client, or did you come up with those on your own?
MR. SIMPSON : Generally speaking, we seek and usually receive a lot of
leeway to develop our lines of inquiry. And typically, when you're already familiar
with the subject and the client isn't -- and that was obviously the case
here -- you're running the investigation .
. So we like to get -- we like to have a lot of freedom to pursue everything or
the things that we think are important, because we have found from experience
that clients, you know, generally they have something that they maybe are trying
to do or have some preconceived notions about things, and we find that to be
unhelpful. So I'd say, in general, we were the arch itects of the research and we
made most of the decisions about what to look for and where to look.
MR. GOWDY: What was the budget for you to enjoy the freedom to
pursue the lines of inquiry you wanted to pursue?
MR. SIMPSON : I don't remember being given a specific expenses budget.
I think the fees were $50,000 a month.
MR. GOWDY: Flat fee, $50,000 a month?
MR. SIMPSON: That's right.
MR. GOWDY: Plus expenses, minus expenses?
MR. SIMPSON : Plus expenses, yes.
MR. GOWDY: How did you come to know Christopher Steele?
MR. SIMPSON: I met Chris in -- I left the Wall Street Journal in 2009.
And. in my last few years at the Wall Street Journal, I had been livi ng in Belgium, in
Brussels, and had developed a line of reporting around the former Soviet Union
and crime and corruption in the former Soviet Union.
And I had written a series of articles about Vladimir Putin and a lot of

23
corruption and organized crime activities sort of making its way westward from
Russia, and eventually started doing a lot of work on Ukraine, corruption in
Ukraine and gas trade in Ukraine, and connections to the Russian mafia. That's
when I first came across Paul Manafort.
And in any event, when I decided to leave the Journal in 2009, I had
developed a lot of relationships with people who worked on organized crime
issues, Russian organized crime issues, and had become known as someone who
specialized in that. And a mutual acquaintance of ours suggested that - Ch ris
had just left the British Government, and a mutual acquaintance of ours suggested
that we might be able to work together or at least, you know, had a lot in common.
And so I don't remember the details, but we were introduced. We met.
And, you know, it turned out w~ did, in fact, have a, you know, kind of obsessive
interest in a pretty obscure -- what was then a pretty obscure subject. And, you
know, this is 2009, so we've just come off of 8 years of focus in the national
security world on al-Qa'ida, Islamic terrorism . And I had spent several years
specializing on that.
And so there were very few people at that time who were interested in this
issue, and so the small number of us tended to meet at conferences and that sort
of thing. So over time, Chris and I would have coffee together when I was in
London or he was in Washington, and we would talk about various Russian
corruption issues, organized crime, oligarchs.
MR. GOWDY: How did he come to work on this project?
MR. SIMPSON: As I said , I mean, we've done other things together. And
over - well, at the very beginning of this project, one of the very first t hings t hat I
focused on was Donald Trump's relationship with a convicted racketeer named

24
Felix Sater, and who was alleged to have an organized crime, Russian organized
crime background.
And over the course of the first phase of this or the first project, we
developed a lot of additional information suggesting that the company that Donald
Trump had been associated with and Felix Sater, Bayrock, was engaged in illicit
financial business activity and had organized crime connections.
We also had sort of more broadly learned that Mr. Trump had long time
associations with Italian organized crime figures . And as we pieced together the
early years of his biography, it seemed as if during the early part of his career he
had connections to a lot of Italian mafia figures , and then gradually during the
nineties became associated with Russian mafia figures .
And so all of that had developed by the spring of 2016 to the point where it
was not a speculative piece of research; it was pretty well-established. And Mr.
Trump had, quite memorably, attempted to downplay h[s relationsh ip with
Mr. Sater in ways that I found, frankly, suspicious and not credible. Saying he
wouldn't recognize him on the street, but there were pictures of them together.
And the other people around Bayrock were also from the former Soviet
Union and also had associations suggestive of possible organized crime ties . One
of them is a guy named Tevfik Arif, A-r-i-f, who it turned out his real name was Tofik
Arifov, and that he was an alleged organized crime figure from the central As ia.
So there was all that. And then, you know, we also increasingly saw that Mr.
Trump's business career had evolved over the prior decade into a lot of projects in
overseas places, particularly in the former Soviet Union , that were very opaque, and
that he had made a number of trips to Russia, but said he'd never
UNCLASSIFIED,COMMITTEESENSIT I VE
25
done a business deal there. And I found that mysterious.
And so I had the perfect person to go see if they could figure out what was
going on there. And so that's how I decided to ask Chris if he could look into it for
me. And I had - the initial engagement with Chris was much like we do. I didn't
hire him for a Jong-term engagement. I said, take 30 days, 20 or 30 days,· and
we'll pay you a set amount of money, and see if you can figure out what Trump's
been up to over there, because he's gone over a bunch of times, he said some
weird things about Putin, but doesn't seem to have gotten any business deals.
So that was the initial assignment. It was pretty open-ended. I didn't say,
find me this or get me that. I just said , see if you can figure out what's going on·
over there.
MR. GOWDY: And how much did you pay Chris Steele?
MR. SIMPSON: I think what we've told the committee from the bank
records is that it was ultimately $160,000. That sounds right to me. I think
probably the initial engagement was for 20 or 30 thousand dollars. There's, you
know, currency differences between pounds and dollars, so I don't remember how
it was denominated or exactly how it was priced .
MR. GOWDY: Now, help me understand this. Would that payment for
Steele have been expensed to the law firm, or would Fusion have paid that out of
its own money that it received from the law firm?
MR. SIMPSON: I believe, at least if things were running the way I hope
they ran, it was expensed to the law finn.
MR. GOWDY: So Perkins Coie paid Chris Steele?
MR. SIMPSON: I think it was --1 mean, I think we billed them for it.
MR. GOWDY: Okay.

26
MR. SIMPSON: I was generally aware of Chris' history. You know,
because of the strictures on government work, when you're involved in intelligence
and talking about it, we never discussed in any great detail what kind of work he
did. And at least publicly it was - even though he had been exposed in a prior
leak by a former government agent over there, so it was. in fact, in the public
domain that he had worked for British Intelligence, he generally didn't talk about
his government work other than the way you would if you formerly worked for the
government. I used to work for the government, you know. Sometimes he would
say foreign office. But we had mutual friends who were familiar with his
background.
MR. SCHIFF: Just to clarify, Mr. Gowdy, you're not confirming or denying,
you're just asking?
MR. GOWDY: I'm just asking what he said.
MR. SIMPSON:
MR. GOWDY: Did you ever have any conversations with the FBI?
MR. SIMPSON: Not about this, no.
MR. GOWDY: Did Chris Steele go to Russia as part of this project?
MR. SIMPSON: No, sir.
MR. GOWDY: How do you know that?

MR. SIMPSON: Well, that's what he told me. I mean, assuming - unless
it was a covert thing that he was keeping from his client, he would have billed me
for it.

27
MR. GOWDY: How was he able to accumulate information in Russia if he
d idn't go?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, so to be clear, he really would not be safe if he went
to Russia. He's been exposed as a former undercover British Intelligence officer
who worked in Moscow. So it wouldn't be wise for him to go to Russia .
Five minutes, Mr. Gowdy.
MR. SIMPSON: So, to answer your question, you know, generally
speaking, his line of work is very different from mine and that was why I hired him.
So I do mostly public records and we don't do much interviewing. But I'm familiar
with how his work is done. And generally, you have a network of sources who
live in or came from the place that you're interested in. So, you know, generally
speaking, you would have -- you would run a network of subsources or
subcontractors who travel around and gather information for you . And so without
getting into who his sources are, I can say generally, he hires people who can
travel and talk to people and find out what's going on.
MR. GOWDY: Were you able to vet or corroborate or contradict any of the
sources or subsources?
MR. SIMPSON: We did get into assessing the credibility o( the sources
and whether they were in a position to know the things that they were saying. I
didn't ask for the specific identities of specific people. So_me people, I think I know
who they are for other reasons. But that's about as much as I can say.
We did a lot bf -- when the first reports came In, we did a lot of discussing of
whether this was credible information. And obviously, evaluating human
Intelligence is not the same thing as looking at documents. And so it's a much
trickier process and the thresholds are different. And so what you're really trying

28
to do, which is kind of like interviewing in journalism, is figure out whether there's
reason to think that what's being said is credible. And so we did a lot of that.
MR. GOWDY: Can you give me an example of something that he
produced to you that you found to be not credible?
MR. SIMPSON: No, I don't think anything comes to mind. I mean, I must
say my original reaction to all this was to suspend judgment. I was not
particularly interested in some of the things that he found that are among the most
controversial, because I didn't think they were useful or important for what I was
trying to do. And so I to this day can't tell you whether a lot of those things -- I just
don't have a strong view as to whether they are false or true, per se.
But what we did do is look at names and places and people and whether
they matched up with information we could get elsewhere. And all of that, as far
as it went, checked out. I haven't seen anything that has contradicted anything in
the memos to date, at least not that I can think of.
MR. GOWDY: Well, that's a very different standard. You haven't seen
anything to contradict it, whereas my question was, what did you have that
corroborates it? How were you able to asse~s the accuracy of the information,
the underlying information he provided you?
MR. SIMPSON: I'm sorry, I thought you asked me whether there was
anything in there that I found to be wrong.
MR. GOWDY: I did.
MR. SIMPSON: I haven't found anything to be wrong. If you'd like me to

get into more of the corroboration, I can do that.
MR. GOWDY: Yes, I'm sure we will get into that. My other question is,
was there anything not included in your report that you concluded was wrong? In

29
other words, I think my primary question was, is there anything that Steele, his
sources or subsources told you that you didn't include because you immediately
found it to be incredible? And I think your answer was no.
MR. SIMPSON: That is correct. My answer to that is no.
MR. GOWDY: And how did you assess the reliability of that information,
given the fact that you did not talk to the sources or subsources?
MR. SIMPSON: So it's obviously a challenging thing to assess human
intelligence, field interviews, and it is different from looking at a lawsuit. But there
are similarities to the interview process in journalism, where there are elements of
people, what people say that you can check.
And so, you know, for example, in one report they described how the
Kremlin's election operation was being run by Sergei Ivanov, who is the head of the
presidential administration, and, you know, gave a number of details about that.
That was news to me. I thought if you were going to run an intelligence operation
against the United States, you'd use the SVR. They'd be in charge.
As I dug into some of the more obscure academic work ~n how the Kremlin
operates by some of the more distinguished scholars of the subject, I found that
Ivanov is, in fact, or was at the time, in fact, the head of a sort of internal kind of
White House plumber's operation for the Kremlin and that he seemed to have the
kind of duties that were being described in this memo.
So either this person was familiar with some fairly obscure research or they
knew what they were talking about. So that's the kind of work you can do. You
can do a lot of that work. And that's why I think I can give a much more definitive
answer on whether anything's been disproved, because, generally speaking, when
you're evaluating things, you're looking for things that someone clearly made up.
UNCL.~SSIFIED, COMMITTEE S ENSITIVE

30
UNCLASSIF IED, COMMITTEE SENS ITIVE
And I couldn't find anything that was clearly made up. They had accurate names
and events that, while not totally secret, were pretty obscure that turned out to be
on target.
We -- you know, they identified - one memo identified a Russian guy who
worked for an NGO called Rossotrudnichestvo, which is -- you know, I didn't know
it at the time, but I was able to learn from looking at it that the FBI considers that to
be a front for the SVR. So, you know, either the people were extremely
knowledgeable about a lot of obscure intelligence stuff or, you know, they -- what
they're saying had some credibility.
I'll add that, you know, again, like journalism, British Intelligence
methodology is a kind of strict recitation of what sources are saying. And so, you
know, I didn't do this -- I've never done this much work with Chris, but in the
process of doing this work, you know, I learned a good bit about British
Intelligence methodology.
And in a way, it is like journalism, because they are somewhat rigid in
reporting what sources in the field are saying, and, you know, they - they don't do
a lot of the -- th is is what this guy said, but we don't think it's true or we believe this
or we believe that he might have gotten the data wrong. They just - it's a kind of
a here's what they said type report. ·
So, again, what we were trying to do is evaluate whether the information
was credible. Chris is the spy. I'm the ex-journ alist, so I defer a lot to his
professionalism. From everything I know now and knew at the time, he's an
extremely well-regarded profe·ssional. And I had no reason -- I have no reason
today to change my opinion.
MR. STEWART: Time is up.

31
MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Simpson, you described understanding Perkins Coie's
client was likely to be DNC because of the long relationship between the two. Did
you know who Free Beacon was doing the work for?
MR. SIMPSON : I don't know that they were doing the work for anyone.
mean , it's a foundation . So it's a freestanding entity, to my knowledge.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, without getting into conversations, client
conversations , can you tell us what you know about the Free Beacon and why
they were likely employing you to do this kind of work?
MR. SIMPSON: I think they were from the wing of the Republican party
that was concerned about a takeover of the party by the Donald Trump wing. And
as you probably know, there was a pretty brutal struggle during the primaries
between the more traditional conservatives and the more sort of populist,
nationalist, protectionist conservatives. So I think they were from the free markets
arm of the party.
MR. SCHIFF: And do you know whether it was their intention to -- I mean,
I only know of them as a very conservative publication. Do you know whether it
was their intention to publish the information that you provided them or to provide it
to one of the GOP opponents of Mr. Trun,p, or more than one of the opponents?
MR. SIMPSON: I can tell you that the information that we gathered
appeared in print in various places, not just the Beacon. And I don't have any
specific knowledge of it being provided to a particular candidate, or at least not in
any kind of -- I don't think that they were a proxy for a specific ca ndidate, not to my
knowledge.
MR. SCHIFF: So you saw your work product, what yo u cou ld recognize as
your work product appear in various publications, not just theirs?
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENS ITIVE

32
MR. SIMPSON: Right. Well, so the way that we work is that we're all
ex-journalists. And, you know, part of the business idea behind the c;ompany is
, that, you know, research is expensive, and if we gather it and have it and
journalists call us looking for things, you know, we will work with them. And so we
would get calls from journalists during the primaries saying, what do you know
about Trump this or Trump that? And we would provide them with that
information.
So I want to be clear that, you know, it appeared in other places because
other journalists called us and asked us about it. And we would ask -- well, I'm
sorry. I'm not going to say -- in general, let me just say in g~neral, if a reporter
calls you and says, I need information on such-and-such, and it's of significance to
your client, you know, you would call the client and say, do you have any objection
to, you know, you know, helping this reporter? So in both of these instances, you
know, I think those rules would generally apply.
MR. SCHIFF: Well, in that circumstance, though, the reporter calling you
would know that the Free Beacon -- that the publication you're working for was a
client, right?
MR. SIMPSON: Not necessarily.
MR. SCHIFF: So it might be part of your practice that if you're doing work
on behalf of a client, it could be I guess one of two situations: The client could
either authorize you to talk to reporters on their behalf; or if a reporter called you
and asked you for information, you could check with your client as to whether you
have their permission to share the information?
MR. SIMPSON: That is correct. And, I mean, generally speaking, you
know, we get a fair number of inquiries about, you know, lots of differen t subjects.

33
MR. SCHIFF: You wouldn't be sharing information without your client's
approval one way or the other?
MR. SCHIFF: And can you tell us what publications your work appeared
within, in terms of the work that you were doing for the Free Beacon?
MR. SIMPSON: It would --1 would struggle to come up with a list right
now. I'm -- that was, you know, a good while ago. I think we probably had
inquiries from, you know, all the networks and most of the major papers. And I
don't have a specific recollection of who published what.
MR. SCHIFF: Did your work product appear on Fox News?

34
[3:11 p.m.]
MR. SIMPSON: I honestly don't know.
MR. SCHIFF: And how about Breitbart?
MR. 'SIMPSON: Again, I'm sorry to say, I just -- I don't have any
recollection.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, you don't have a recollection because there might be
other people at the firm who would be providing that information, or it would be you
but you just don't recall?
MR. SIMPSON: It would be a little of both. I mean, those aren't my go-to
news sources, so I don't really spend a lot of time -- you know, I don't read
Breitbart every day, and I certainly don't watch FOX every day.
So, you know, if it ran in The New York Times and it was my work, I'd
probably remember it, but not if-- and so -- but it's also true that, you know, we
have 12 or so people in the company, and depending on the matter, someone else
might have handled it.
MR. SCHIFF: So this might also be a situation where your client, the Free
Beacon, might be providing information to various news sources without
discussing it with you?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: I see. So in that case, it could appear on FOX even though
you didn't have a conversation with FOX yourself?

MR. SCHIFF: During the time that you·were doing work for Free Beacon,
you had mentioned some work in the first phase. You had discovered business
relationships with Felix Sater and Bayrock. By first phase, do you mean while you

35
were doing work for Free Beacon?
MR. SIMPSON: It was one of the first things we found. And I should
emphasize, it was, you know -- originally I saw it in the New York Times article, so
it.wasn't a grei;lt investigative discovery. But then when I read into it and I found
depositions in which he was, you know, more than evasive about the relationship,
that's when I got really interested.
MR. SCHIFF: So during the period of time you were working for Free
Beacon, you came across some of the first information about candidate Trump's
business ties in Russia, including those with Felix Sater.
MR. SIMPSON : Yep, that's correct. And lots of other issues came up
during the primaries that raised concerns in my mind about whether there might be
connections -- Donald Trump might have unexplained connections to Russia or
people involved in that part of the world.
I mean, among other things, eventually Paul Manafort was appointed to his
campaign as the -- first the convention manager and then the chairman -- or the
campaign manager. And I knew a lot about Paul Manafort from my career at The
Wall Street Journal. I had written a number of stories about his involvement with
Oleg Deripaska and the pro-Russia party in Ukraine and another oligarch named
Firtash. And I had even written a story about whether he should have registered
as a foreign agent.
All that had occurred years earlier. So when he suddenly surfaced, I was,
you know, struck by that.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, he surfaced though after you were no longer working
for Free Beacon , right?
MR. SIMPSON : I think he originally -- I don't remember the dates, but I

36
think it was somewhere in the transition period .
MR. SCHIFF: I'm sorry, the -- oh, your transition period .
MR. SIMPSON: Yeah, between --
MR. SCHIFF: Well, the convention was in July, I believe.
MR. SIMPSON: The convention was in July, but Paul Manafort surfaced
with the Trump campaign in like March.-
MR. SCHIFF: So if you would go through with us some of the
Russia-related things that concerned you that you learned in that first phase while
you were doing work for the Free Beacon, as best you can recall.
MR. SIMPSON: Well, the Bayrock, the funding of Bayrock was, I think,
much of what we initially were concerned about and focused on. The company
seemed to have some sort of funding source from either Russia or the former
Soviet Union that was opaque. So we spent a lot of time looking at the people
around that and their backgrounds and why Mr. Trump would be in business with
them . So that was one of the major issues.
Another one that I think surfaced in probably the early winter was the
amazing number of people from the former Soviet Union who had purchased
properties from Mr. Trump, including Dmitry Rybolovlev, who purchased a derelict
estate at an extreme markup in Florida . And a number of other people bought
Into his properties.
We also looked at his trips and marketing activitie·s in Russia . And I think
all of that came up, you know, during the first phase of the project.
MR. SCHIFF: You mentioned that you'd done a lot of work as a journalist
in terms of Russian organized crime, financial crimes, organized crime more
generally. What can .you tell us about how the Russians launder their money and

37
whether that was an issue of concern during the first phase of your work for Free
Beacon?
MR. SIMPSON: I guess the general thing I would say is that, you know;
the Russians are far more sophisticated in their criminal organized crime activities
than the Italians, and they're a lot more global. They understand finance a lot
better. And so they tend to use quite elaborate methods to move money.
You know, obviously, the offshore system has grown in sophistication in the
last decade or so, too, so they've taken advantage of that. Th ings that I had
wrote about involved laundering money through security straits, laundering money
through fake arbitrations in court, laundering money through commodities deals.
I mean, if you can think of a way to launder money, the Russians are pretty
good at it. But they specifically understand financial markets. So I think I can tell
you all of that.
I can tell you also that the Russians are much more integrated in the way
they operate with the political -- the sort of legitimate business structures. So yo u
don't find too many Italian mafia guys who are major shareholders in big media
companies, but you definitely can find Russian mafia guys who are big
shareh,olders in international media companies.
So the only way that -- well , the thing that comes to mind, of course, is the
real estate deals. And, you know, it did come to our attention during this, you
know, first round or this first part of the project that there were a lot of real estate
deals where you couldn't really tell who was buying the property. A nd sometimes
properties would be bought and sold, and they would be bought fo r one price and
sold for a loss shortly thereafter, and it didn't really make sense to us.
And we had done a lot of work for previous investigations on people buying
UNCLASSIFIED , COMMITTEE . SENS ITIVE

38
condos in order to get visas under the EB-5 program. So we were very familiar
with a pattern of corruption and illicit finance related to purchasing of condos.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you find evidence of that with respect to Mr. Trump?
MR. SIMPSON: I think a lot of what we found is subsequently - there
have been similar articles published. "Evidence," I think, is a strong word. I th ink
we saw patterns of buying and selling that we thought were suggestive of money
laundering.
I t.hink what I was saying to Mr. Gowdy about sort of, you know, because we
are not law enforcement, we don't have compulsory power, and we also don't
have, you know -- we're not lawyers, or prosecutors, or even special -- even secret
agents.
Generally, we find p~tterns of things, and then if it seems like it's potentially
a law enforcement matter then we would turn it over to law enforcement. Or, you
know, if it's enough to write a story, we would give it to a journalist.
MR. SCHIFF: And, in this case, what facts came to your attention that
concerned you that the buying and selling of properties - the buying and selling of
Trump properties might indicate money laundering?
MR. SIMPSON: There was -- well, for one thing, there was various
criminals were buying the properties. So there was a gangster -- a Russian
gangster living in Trump Tower.
MR. SCHIFF: Who was that?
MR. SIMPSON: His gangster name is Taiwanchik. I couldn 't spell
his actual name. But, you know, I mean, these are the kind of th ings that prompted
us to hire Mr. Steele. We had a gangster named Taiwanchik living in Trump Tower
who had been under-- I'm sorry, he was --1 think he was running
UNCLASSIFIED , COMMITTEE SENS ITIVE

39
a -- his associates were living in Trump Tower, ·and he was running a high-stakes
gambling ring out of Trump Tower, while he himself was a fugitive for having
rigged the skating competition at the Salt Lake Olympics and a bunch of other
sporting events engaged in rigging.
And when Mr. Trump went to the Miss Universe pageant in 2013,
Taiwanchik was there in the VIP section with Mr. Trump and lots of other Kremlin
biggies. So that kind of thing raised questions with us.
Generally speaking, the patterns of activity that we thought might be
suggestive of money laundering were, you know, fast turnover deals and deals
where there seemed to have been efforts to disguise the identity of the buyer.
MR. SCHIFF: And during what time period did you see indications of fast
turnover transactions or transactions made in the name of people who were not
the actual purchasers?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, I mean, there were sort of periods - what we saw
was that beginning in the early 2000s, when he began to do business with Bayrock
and to do some of these other deals, that these were the problematic deals that he
entered into. So it was essentially the previous decade of business deals, 2005
onward.
MR. SCHIFF: And up until what point? Do you recall? Or continuing to
the present?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, I mean, some of the things that we have -- that we
looked at that we thought were very concerning are existing investments in
projects, and specifically a project in Panama, the one in Toronto. Those both got
a lot of fraud associated with them, a lot of fraud allegations, a lot of activity that I
would say smacks ·of fraud, and a lot of Russian mafia figures listed as buyers who

40
may or may not have actually put money into it.
And so there's a couple of - so a couple of the big condo tower deals
offshore, outside the United States, I think both of those are in bankruptcy now,
Mr. Trump is no longer associated with them.
The other one that is -- was concerning to us was - is the golf courses in
Scotland and Ireland.
MR. SCHIFF: And did you see Russian money involved with those as
well?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, we had -- you know, we saw what Eric Trump said
about Russian money being available for his golf -- for the golf course projects,
making remarks about having unlimited sums available. And, you know , because
Mr. Trump's companies are generally not publicly traded and don't do a lot of
public disclosure, we can only look -- have a limited look into the financing of those
projects.
But because the Irish courses and the Scottish courses are under U.K., you
know, Anglo corporate law, they have -- they file financial statements. So we
were able to get the financial statements. And they don't, on their face, show
Russian involvement, but what they do show is enormous amounts of capital
flowing into these projects from unknown sources and - or at least on paper it
says it's from The Trump Organization, but it's hundreds of millions of dollars.
And these golf course are just, you know, they're sinks. They don't actually make
any money.
So, you know, if you're familiar with Donald. Trump's finances and the
litigation over whether he's really a billionaire, you know, there's good reason to
believe he doesn't have enough money to do this and that he would have had to

41
have outside financial support for these things.
Again, you know, because of what I do, it's sort of in this middle area where
we mostly are working off public records. A lot of what I do is analyze whether
things make sense and ~hether they can be explained. And that didn't make
sense to me, doesn't make sense to me to this day.

,
MR. SCHIFF: Now, you mentioned that unlike the Italian organized crime,
the Russian organized crime is more integrated into Russian Government,
Russian corporate life.
MR. SIMPSON: American Government, American corporate life.
MR. SCHIFF: American Government, American corporate life. If the
Russians were laundering money through Trump golf courses or Trump condos,
would the Russian Government be aware of this? Would they be either knowing
or active participants potentially in this?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, so wha~ is well known and well established in
criminology now is that the Russian mafia is essentially under the dominion of the
Russian Government and Russian Intelligence Services. And many of the
oligarchs are also mafia figures.
And the oligarchs, during this period of consolidation of power by Vladimir
Putin, when I was living in Brussels and doing all this work, was about him
essentially taking control over both the oligarchs and the mafia groups.
And so basically everyone in Russia works for Putin now. And that's true
of the diaspora as well. So the Russian mafia .in the United States is believed by
law enforcement criminologists to have -- to be under the influence of the Russian
security services. And this is convenient for the security services because it gives
them a level of deniability.

42
So I'm sorry for the long answer, but essentially, if people who seem to be
associated with the Russian mafia are buying Trump properties or arranging for
other people to buy Trump properties, it does raise a question about whether
they're doing it on behalf of the government.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, whether they're doing it on behalf of the government
or they're doing it - whether they're doing it on behalf of the government, it would
be your expert opinion that it would be known to the government if it's on --
MR. SIMPSON: Certainly.
MR. SCHIFF: -- any substantial scale?
MR. SIMPSON: Certainly, yes.
MR. SCHIFF: Might that provide the Russian Government leverage
vis-a-vis now-President Trump?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: So if, as the President's son boasted some years ago, they
were getting lots of financing from Russia and that financing were illicit, that would
be known to the Kremlin.
MR. SIMPSON: I think-- I mean , yes, I think that's true. I think we had
more specific reporting than that from Chris, and I think it's credible .
MR. SCHIFF: Now, the work that was produced during that first phase
with the Free Beacon, what form did that take? Would you be providing, say, like
30-day reports to the Free Beacon, if you're able to answer? And maybe you can
say more generically what form that would take .
We've seen the form of Christopher Steele's reporting, although we don't
know what form that would have been presented to your client. But what form
generally would this information take?

43
MR. SIMPSON: So our typical practice is you hire me for a flat fee, you
don't tell me what to do, and I give you a report in 30 days. And you say, "I'm
interested in this guy. I think he's a crook." And I say, "Okay, give me 30 days
and X amount of money, and I'll give you a report."
If an engagement continues past 30 days, we tend to break out specific
issues. So once you've done a survey, which is what that initial thing is generally
called, then you know, "Oh, well, this guy has a long history of gambling problems,
and we're going to do a separate on his history of gambling problems." It's a little
like a white paper.
MR. SCHIFF: You've described the -- and, again, just focusing on the first
phase information you found about property purchases that were concerning with
potential Russian money, you've talked about the ties to Felix Sater - were there
any other Russian links that you found during the first phase?
MR. SIMPSON: I'm sorry for the pause. This issue came up in various
guises, and I'm trying to think of some specifics. And offhand I just -- I mean,
there were things like - there were all kinds of random things.
There were, for instance, one of the - you know, we bought all of Trump's
books and all the books about Trump, and I remem~er there were things about
trips to Russia, and that was a big thing .
And there was, prior to the 2013 Miss Universe fair, there.was an earlier
Trump vodka marketing project in Russia that later became something that we
were very interested in. It's difficult in my mind to get the chronology right, so, you
know, a lot of these things were coming up in the spring, which is, you know, a
period when we were ending the first part and starting the second.
MR SCHIFF: And what did you find notable about the Trump vodka

44
issue?
MR. SIMPSON: That it seemed like there was an orchestrated effort by
someone to help Trump out with - to help him market, you know, these branded
products in Russia, and that it was -- it was just very mysterious. And then we
later found some of the people who came up after the first Steele memo were
involved in some of those efforts.
And so it seemed to be -- it seemed like it was part of the origin or the
middle point of this relationship. It was a little further back, where it was a little
less heavy.
MR. SCHIFF: And What was the period of - did Trump go to Russia on
this vodka promotion or his family members?
MR. SIMPSON: l don't think he was there. I think his representatives
were there. I don't believe there's a record of him be ing there himself.
MR. SCHIFF: And what were the contacts that later emerged in the Steele
work?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, one of the guys who organized this trip was a guy
who's currently known as Sergi Millian. And he's been in the press a good bit, I
think, although not recently. And, you know, he came up in connection with that,
and then he came up in connection with Chris' work as one of the people around
Trump who had a Russian background , and unexplained, you know, a lot of
unexplained things.
So when we looked at him, we found that he ran a sort of shadowy kind of

trade group called the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, which
is -- Russians are known to use chambers of commerce and trade groups as
fronts for intelligence operations.

45
. And this guy, his name - his real name or his original n_ame that he came to
the United States wasn't Sergi Millian. It was Siarhei Kukuts, and that's a pretty
different name. And he changed his name when he got to Atlanta.
And when we looked at him some more, we found two different resumes for
him. In one resume he said he was from Belarus and he went to Minsk State;
and then in another he was from Moscow and went to Moscow State. In one he
said he worked for the Belarussian Foreign Ministry; in the other, he said he
worked for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
He was a linguist, also an interesting thing about his background. And as
time went on, yeah, we found other things about him. We found a picture of him
with Donald Trump. He boasted to people that he had sold hundreds of millions
of dollars in Trump condos, Trump real estate to Russians, that he was some kind
of exclusive agent for Trump in Russia and that he organized this trade fair.
·And then, you know, as further time went on, we fourid he was connected to
Michael Cohen, the President's lawyer. And eventually, after boasting about a lot
of this stuff on camera, on tape, to the TV network, he backed away from all of it
suddenly when the Russia controversy began to get hot.
And Michael Cohen was very adamant that he didn't actually have a
connection to Sergi, even though he was one of only like 100 people who followed
Sergi on Twitter. And they -- we had Twitter messages back and forth between
the two of them just - we just pulled them off of Twitter.
And then, I guess, la.st but not least, he, you know - as we became more
and more interested in his background and the press started to write stories about
him, it came out that he was associated with this Russian friendship entity called
Rossotrudnichestvo, and that he was involved in organizing a junket to Moscow for

46
some American businessmen that was the subject of an FBI investigation,
because it was a suspected recruiting operation . And the FBI had questioned
people who were involved in this trip about whether they were recruited by the
Russians when they went to Moscow.
So it was that kind of thing.
MR. SCHIFF: To your knowledge, was Mr. Millian one of the sources for
Christopher Steele in the dossier?
MR. SIMPSON: I'm not in a position to get into the identity of the sources
for the dossier for security reasons, primarily.
MR. SCHIFF: And what other concerns were raised or issues were raised
about Mr. Trump's connections to Russia, either in the first phase or the second
phase of your work, separate and apart from Mr. Steele's so-called dossier?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, eventually, partly through Sergi Millian, partly
through other things we learned, we gradually began to understand more about
·Michael Cohen, the President's lawyer, and his background, and that he had a lot
of connections to the former Soviet Union, and that he seemed to have
associations with organized crime figures in New York and Florida, Russian
organized crime figures. And -
MR. SCHIFF: And which figures were those?
MR. SIMPSON: I was afraid you were going to ask me that. I can't
remember a lot of the names. There was Simon Garber, the taxi king . And I guess
another guy's name is Evgeny Freidman, who are people he was in
the taxi business with .
There was some other transactions that are in some litigation in Florida
over a mysterious missing payment that some of the people in that dispute had
UNCLASSIFIED , COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

47
been identified as organized crime figures. Those are the ones that come to
mind.
So Mr. Cohen had a very different image for much of the campaign as
a - simply a sort of pugnacious New York lawyer, and we gradually began to see
that he was, you know -- people told us he spoke Russian. And his father-in-law
is from Ukraine. He seems to have a lot of business dealings over there and, in
fact, has a conviction for a money laundering-related crime.
All these things caused a good bit of concern . I guess the big one, the
other big one, was the Agalarovs, who seemed to be, you know, the central figures
in the Trump-Russia relationship. And so we spent a lot of time looking at them .
I, as sort of an amateur student of Russian oligarchs and criminals, I hadn't
come across them before. So I thought -- I at first didn't think they were that
interesting. But as we've, you know, learned more about them, it's become more
troubling .
You know, I now -- I know now that they've been -- the Agalarovs started
operating in the United States around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union and
are associated with people who are connected to previous episodes of money
laundering that are serious, the Bank of New York scandal.
And they themselves -- we found a case in tax court involving the Agalarovs
that describes a lot of activity from that period and a criminal investigation of the
Agalarovs from that period.
MR. SCHIFF: What period was that?
MR. SIMPSON: Early '90s. And I just know from my reading on this stuff
that a lot of agents of influence from Russia came to the United States in that
period to launder money, and that, you know, we now know that the Russian
UNCLASSIFIED, ·COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

48
Intelligence Services never really closed up shop, and that they continue to insert
people in the United States and run operations in the United States.
And so all of that is pretty troubling . I'd say - I could generalize and say
that, you know, as we've got deeper and deeper into understanding, you know,
Donald Trump's business career and his history, it gradually reached a point
where it seemed like most of the people around Trump had a connection to
Russian organized crime or Russia in one way or another.
I could probably think of more if I think on it, but those are the big ones.
MR. SCHIFF: And knowing what you do about the Agalarovs, what do you
think is the significance of the fact that the -- that Aras Agalarov was responsible,
at least according to these public emails, for setting up the meeting at Trump
Tower?
MR. SIMPSON: I think it's a reasonable interpretation that that was a
Russian Government-directed operation of some sort, based on what I know now.
MR. SCHIFF: When you continued this work-- and let me just ask you, in
terms of Free Beacon, you mentioned what your retainer was with Perkins Coie.
What was your retainer with Free Beacon?
MR. SIMPSON: I think it was the same.
MR. SCHIFF: So 50,000 a month?
MR. SIMPSON: I mean, I don't literally remember.
MR. SCHIFF: But it was in the same ballpark?
MR. SIMPSON: We generally have a rate, a flat rate.
MR. SCHIFF: We know of your work vis-a-vis Christopher Steele. Did
your work for Perkins Coie continue with these Russian lines of inquiry. quite
separate and apart from what Christopher Steele was doing?

49
MR. SIMPSON: Yes. I mean, because we've not had liberty to talk about
all these things, there's been a lot of misconception about this whole process. So,
you know, it's a much broader project where we're not just looking at Russia and
we're not just doing Russia stuff with Chris. We're doing our own Russia work.
So, you know, in addition to things like finding someone who can look into a
Mexican, you know, suit factory to see how they treat their workers, we are
scanning Russian newspapers or newspapers all around the world for information
about these subjects. I have staff who prepare white papers on various subjects.
So without, you know, being too specific about it, in terms of the work
product, you know, Chris' memos - I mean, I guess it would be helpful to explain.
So Chris' memos are raw _field memoranda. They're from interviews with his
source network. I didn't tell him what to write, you know, I didn't edit them.
They're what came into me from him. And they're, you know, to my knowledge,
the only drafts.
So ordinarily I would take material like that, that I got from a subcontractor
in the field, and I would incorporate it into a more polished memorandum. And,
you know, my style is a more journalistic style, so I'm not going to just give you
what Tom, Joe, and Harry said. I'm going to say, here is what people said, and
here is what we thin!< that really means, what's really going on. It's a very
analytical product. And, you know, that's to sort of guide the client's ability to
make decisions.
And in this case, the material that came in from Chris was of such a kind of
disturbing and serious nature, I didn't want to do that.
F ive minutes.
MR. SIMPSON: So, because, you know, I'm an amateur student of a lot of

so
UNCLASS IFIED, COMMITTEE SENS ITIVE
this stuff, not a pro. And the line of reporting that was coming in from him was,
you know, extraordinary and not something that I usually would be doing as a
research person based in Washington, D.C. So I segregated that, and I never
incorporated it into anything else.
MR. SCHIFF: You mentioned the limitations on your ability to follow the
money in terms of the potential money laundering involving Russian figures in The
Trump Organization.
Two questions. One is, did you also look at the Kushner business
operation? Did you find any facts that caused concern in terms of potential
money laundering through the Kushner properties or organization?
And second, we do have the subpoena power that you don't. It is within
the scope of our investigation to determine whether this was one of the Russian
active mea·sures, the use of financial means to entangle Mr. Trump. How would
you go about using that? What institutions would you look at to be able to confirm
or reject those allegations?
MR. SIMPSON: On the first question, 1-- we looked at the Kushner project
in Jersey City. Kushner was another case of someone who I sort of misjudged. I
didn't think he was going to be very interesting and very important, partly because
he was so young .
But in any event, we did look at some Kushner stuff and specifically focused
on the project in Jersey City, I think partly because Trump had a position in that
project, and discovered that it was -- one of the central mysteries of Donald Trump
is that, you know, beginning in the m id-2000s he was not a cred itworthy
businessman.
And so he - you know, so if you're analyzing, you know, someone wh o
UNCLASSI FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

51
says they're a billionaire but can't get a bank loan, you know, there's this whole
issue of where is the credit coming from. And so, you know, we were always
trying to figure out where - how he was financing various things .
So anyway, we looked at this Jersey City project, and it was going to be
financed by selling visas to foreign citizens who were seeking green cards from
the United States. And I knew from previous investigations that that program
. was - there were a lot of irregularities in that program, and that, .in fact, the
government, the U.S. Government had conducted previous investigations into
whether foreign intelligence figures were using the EB-5 program to get people
into the United States.
So in any event, we looked at all of that. And I don't believe we
concluded -- we found any specific events of fraud, but it all had took on the
appearance of a controversial thing, which later became true. And , in fact, it did
become very controversial that they were using EB-5 to fund that project.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you look at the other -- the Manhattan Tower project of
Kushner's?
MR. SIMPSON: No. No,·we never did.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you ever obtain, with respect to the money laundering
allegations, any of the President's tax returns?
MR. SIMPSON: No. But we did -
: One minute.
MR. SIMPSON: We did look at other ways of finding out what his practices
were with regards to taxes, and we found some great, interesting documents in
Las Vegas, I believe, and various other locations where he would - I think gave
much more realistic assessments of the income and values of his properties.

52
And I suppose he would say he was lowballing them to save on taxes, but I
think he was actually probably telling more truthful statements about the financial
condition of a lot of his properties, which was extremely poor.
So there are interesting real estate tax records among the few tax records
you can get publicly.
MR. SCHIFF: We'll yield back to the majority.
MR. ROONEY: Does the gentleman need a break?
MR. SIMPSON: I'd love to take a break.
[Recess.]
MR. ROONEY: We are going to get called to votes probably here in the
next 10 to 20 minutes, so I'm going to try to do a little bit of a lightning round, if I
could.
But I just want to - you know, generally speaking, with the stories that you
were telling Mr. Schiff, you know, it's interesting that it seems like -- and correct me
if I'm wrong --it seems like--they're fascinating, by the way. I mean, the story
about him financing Doonbeg in Ireland through money that we can't really
trace but has sort of the fingerprints of Russian mobsters.
I mean, I just -- it's almost like we need a plus one. And I'm not saying
you're wrong. I'm just saying it seems like with all this stuff that there's, you know,
not the sort of, as what Trey was talking about, allegation versus fact, that, you
know, with all those things that we talked - that you talked to Adam about, we
never really got to the fact part.
Is that true? Or do you feel like with your investigation that you made the
conclusion that you think that those things are true - or not that you think that they
are, but they are true?

53
MR. SIMPSON: I think it's a great question. The - you know, I mean,
essentially we ended up spending almost a year on this project. And, you know, it
was a private -- because it's all private work in the sense of nongovernmental,
without any legal process to compel production of information, we can only reach a
certain point.
And at the time that we -- you know, that Chris decided to take this to the
FBI, I wasn't convinced of the facts of anything in terms of - I wasn't convinced
that there was a specific crime that occurred.
I thought it was a possible crime of progress and that there was possibly
very serious crimes, but, you know, I'm an ex-journalist, so I'm not really in a
position to prove that anyone's engaged in a crime.
I mean, you know, sometimes you do find proof of criminal activity in an
investigation, but more often than not you find things that are suggestive or raise
questions. And -
MR. ROONEY: Right. That's exactly my point, is that ifwe knew that
Donald Trump was working with the Russian mafia to fund Doonbeg in
Ireland, then there's no way he would be President. So, I mean, that's why it's so
fascinating.
And, again, it might have been, but when you also add the caveat "but we
didn't" -- there wasn't actually Russian names on the ledger or whatever, like that
final step. And so, you know, I'll equate that to the election as well with your
opposition research and with the dossier and everything else.
Do you feel like, you know, we -- with what you found or what Mr. Steele
found that 'we got to the point where we could concluslvely say as fact that the
Russian Government and the Trump campaign were colluding with each other to

54
beat Hillary Clinton? Can we make that final step there? Or is that a lot of
circumstantial evidence that, you know, one could form an opinion to but never
gets beyond the -
MR. SIMPSON: I'm -- I mean, as far as I'm concerned, where we are now,
as opposed to back then -- back then we had what appeared to be credible
allegations of some sort of a pattern of surreptitious contacts between the Trump
campaign and Russian people either working for the government or acting on
behalf of the Russian Government. As Chris wrote, it was, you know, I think a
wide-ranging conspiracy, was the way he put it.
I think that the evidence that has developed over the last year, since
President Trump took office, is that there is a well-established pattern of
surreptitious contacts that occurred last year that supports the broad allegation of
some sort of an undisclosed political or financial relationship between The Trump
Organization and people in Russia.
I'm certainly not prepared to say and never wanted to be the person who
had to determine whether that's a criminal conspiracy.
MR. ROONEY: Do you with these investigations, like, you know, the
campaign came and went, the Steele dossier is here, the subject matter, but to
answer those questions, do you ever continue or did you in th is case continue to
investigate just to see if you could find the answers to those unresolved
questions?
I guess my question is, did you keep investigating even though you weren't
being paid anymore?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, J think it's in the record that, you know, Chris
continued to supply information to us after the election . And, obviously, in the

55
period immediately after the election we were - I don 't know if you could say we
were working on it, but we were certainly unemployed. And obviously this was
the central issue in my life at that time. Unfortunately, it sort of still is.
But anyway, so there was --
MR. ROONEY: Well, if you ever make any conclusions on any of those,
you probably -- anyway. Go ahead.
MR. SIMPSON : I mean -
MR. ROONEY: Let me go to some specific ones, because we are in a
shorter -- are we 15 minutes?
Okay. This is our lightning round .
You may have already answered this with Mr. Gowdy, but did you know
who Mr. Steele's sources were in Russia?
MR. SIMPSON : I knew generally where they're positioning. In other
words, we would discuss generally where that person sat in relation to a senior
government official or, you know, what other position they held. So --
MR. ROONEY: Did you generally consider them credible, if you knew
them?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, you can't --1 mean, I can't evaluate the credibility of
someone on the other side of the --
MR. ROONEY: So you just trusted Mr. Steele's vouch?
MR. SIMPSON: I have ·great trust in Mr. Steele's professional ability to find
sources with credible information.
MR. ROONEY: Did you know how he paid these sources?
MR. SIMPSON : Y e ah . You know, essentially, my - - what I was doing
was corroborating the information they were providing -- or trying to -- or

56
determining whether it was credible. So that was a lot of the work that we did
there.
I think you asked about paying of sources. I think that's something that's
erroneous that's been in the press.
MR. ROONEY: How so?
MR. SIMPSON: To my knowledge, Chris does not pay sources for
information .
MR. ROONEY: So they give it up for free?
MR. SIMPSON : When you're running a source network, essentially what
you are doing is paying subcontractors to --
MR. ROONEY: Right.
MR. SIMPSON : -- circulate and gather information in conversations. And,
again, this is not my specialty, which is why I hired him, but essentially it's hiring
peof:5le to go talk to their contacts.
And I think as a member of the Intelligence Committee that maybe you're
familiar with this, but they don't - you know, when you have subcontractors in the
field doing inteNiews, meeting people in bars, talking shop, they don't say, "I 've
been hired to go out and ask questions and see what people say," but that's
essentially what happens.
So what 1 think the misconception is, is that, you know, Chris has got
people -- or Chris calls people up and says, "I'll give you $5 ,000 if you tell me
what's going on with the Trump operation." And that didn't happen.
MR. ROONEY: Are you sure?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, I've asked Chris about it, and he said it
doesn't -- didn't happen.

57
· MR. ROONEY: Okay. Do you or ~nyone else independently verify or
corroborate any information in the dossier? This is sort of a repeat of a question I
just asked, but we're talking about verification here.
MR. SIMPSON: Yes. Well, numerous things in the dossier have been
verified . You know, I don't have access to the intelligence or law enforcement
information that I see made reference to, but, you know, things like, you know, the
Russian Government has been investigating Hillary Clinton and has a lot of
information about her and is -- and the Trump people are interested in getting that
information. I mean, that turned out to be true.
It was also true, you know -- I mean, if you just think back to the chronology
of this, when the original memos came in saying that the Kremlin was mounting a
specific operation to get Donald Trump elected President, that was not what the
Intelligence Community was saying .
The Intelligence Community was saying they are just seeking to disrupt our
election and our political process, and that this is sort of kind of just a generally
nihilistic, you know, trouble-making operation. And, you know, Chris turned out to
be right, it was specifically designed to elect Donald Trump President.
MR. ROONEY: Do you - did you find anything to -- that you verified as
false in the dossier, since or during?
MR. SIMPSON: I have not seen anything -
MR. ROONEY: So everything in that dossier, as far as you're concerned,
is true or could be true?
MR. SIMPSON : I didn't say that. What I said was it was credible at the
time it came in. We were able to corroborate various things that supported its
credibility.

58
MR. ROONEY: Well, do you know now if anythlng's false?
MR. SIMPSON: I did answer that. No, I don't know if anything is false.
MR. ROONEY: Okay. What media --
- : Five minutes.
MR. ROONEY: What media outlet did Steele brief regarding the dossier?
Media outlets.

59
[4:18 p.m.]
MR. SIMPSON: I think what we've said before and what I'm in a position
to say is that we talked generally about the findings of this to a select group of
news organizations.
MR. ROONEY: Which ones?
MR. SIMPSON: Major media.
MR. ROONEY: Anything specific?
MR. SIMPSON: I --
MR. ROONEY: Okay. Did you direct Steele to brief the media outlets,
and why?
MR. SIMPSON: Yeah. We did it together. Initially, _the reason was that
we were -- everyone assumed that Hillary Clinton was going to win the election,
and when we initially briefed the media, that was our assumption.
And I have a sort of different longstanding interest, which is Russian
influence in the United States and foreign interference in elections. And, I mean,
this may sound hard to believe, but I wanted people to know about what we had
found, because I thought it was important. And so a lot of the people that we
briefed weren't campaign reporters, they were national security reporters.
And, you know, I started out doing work on this issue of foreign interference
in American elections at The Wall Street Journal in the '90s, and I wrote a series of
articles about a Chinese government operation to help elect Bill Clinton. And so
it's been something that I've been very interested in and concerned about for a
very long time.
MR. ROONEY: Did you learn that Steele had briefed the FBI on the
dossier materials?

60
MR. SIMPSON: I eventually learned that, yes. I'm sorry, let me correct
that. He told me -- well, I can walk you through the sequence.
MR. ROONEY: Just when did he tell you?
MR. SIMPSON: He originally said: I think we should go -- this information
is national security information. I think we should report it to the FBI. That was
in July or late June, shortly after the first memo.
MR. ROONEY: Sixteen?
MR. SIMPSON: Sixteen. He said: I'm a former intelligence officer, and
we're your closest ally. You know, I have obligations, professional obligations. If
there's a national security emergency or possible national security issue, I should
report it.
MR. ROONEY: So this was before he actually did it?
MR. SIMPSON : Yes.
MR. ROONEY: Okay.
MR. SIMPSON: And I - so I didn't say okay. I just said: Let me think
about it, I'm not sure what I should do here.
MR. ROONEY: So did you give him any direction?
MR. LEVY: He wasn't finished .
MR. ROONEY: I'm sorry.
MR. SIMPSON: It's a quick story. So he said he needed -- that we
needed to do this or he needed to do this. And I didn't - couldn't think -- first of
all, he didn't volunteer that he had a relationship that he could do it. He just
raised the issue. And at some point he did say -- I said: Well, I wouldn't know
who to talk to and I don't know -- I just didn't know - feel qualified to do that. And
he said: I know people at the FB I and I can do it.

61
And I said : So you're telling me that you think this is serious enough that it
needs to be reported to law enforcement, and that you're confident enough in your
sources, it's your professional judgment and your professiqnal obligation, that'you
should report this to the FBI? And he said yes.
MR. ROONEY: It sounds like you weren't sure if it was serious enough.
MR. SIMPSON: Well, I mean, I don't- he's the spy and I'm the
ex-journalist. So basically, he's the one who is a security official by profession.
And I wasn't going to substitute my judgment for his, that's correct.
So he then went to report it to the FBI. And I didn't tell him to do it. I didn't
tell him not to do it. I assented in it.
One minute.
MR. ROONEY: Did you brief or meet with any other intelligence officials
regarding the dossier?
MR. MUSE: Could you repeat that question?
MR. ROONEY: Did you meet with intelligence officials regarding the
dossier?
MR. SIMPSON: No one from - that I - no.
MR. ROONEY: Are you aware on anyone meeting with the CIA regarding
the dossier?
MR. SIMPSON : No.
MR. ROONEY: Were Perkins Coie, Mark Elias, and the DNC or the Hillary
team aware that the dossier was being briefed to intelligence officials or the FBI?
Do you know that?
MR . SIMPSON ; I'm going to - I can't talk about communica tions with my
client, but I can give you what I think is a useful answer, which is that we did not.

62
At least I can tell you about generally what I -- what my -- what I did.
So Chris went and reported this to the Bureau. And he came back and
said: I reported this to the Bureau. And we did not ask permission from the
client to do that. The client didn't instruct us to do that. It was -- he was -- you
know, it was viewed as reporting a crime in progress, sort of a citizenship
obligation.
You know, at some point later on, you know, I think that, as the
· questions -- I'm not sure how to say this -- as the hack attack by the Russians on
the Democrats became a major issue in late -- later in the year, questions of
whether to engage with the FBI, you know, became more of a general issue.
MR. ROONEY: My time is up, but I will say tha_t I think that the Russian
scores in that Salt Lake Olympics were pretty low. Very suspicious. I didn't get
to ask you about that, but -- it's always the Russians. Like everybody's got a 1O
or a 9 and the Russians are like 5.
MR. SCHIFF: Before I pass it off to Mr. Quigley, you didn't have a chance
to answer one of the questions I posed at the end. That is, we do have the
subpoena power. If we are to get to the bottom of the issue of whether Russian
organized crime money was used in the flipping of these properties and the
purchase of the golf course and this is a lever over the President, what institutions
would you use that process with to get to the bottom of it?
MR. SIMPSON: I guess I would -- if I were issuing the subpoenas, I would,
you know. first need to identify the underlying -- the banks that had custody of that
information . That would be the banks that would service the brokers.
So the first thing that I would do would be to subpoena the brokers and the
people, the other people that were involved in the transactions, and the title

63
companies and the .other intermediaries that would have that kind of information.
Then I would go to the banks next. But I actually think some of the
intermediary entities in a lot of these transactions are going to be where a lot of the
information is.
MR. SCHIFF: And those intermediaries are going to be the real estate
brokers as well as the licensing companies?
MR. SIMPSON: Yeah.
MR. SCHIFF: And the title companies?
MR. SIMPSON: Yeah. And then you would - you know, ultimately you
would find - I mean, in the case of Florida, which is the one where we spent an
enormous amount of time on, you know, I wou Id subpoena the Diazers (ph). And I
would subpoena the company that was run by Elena Baron off, who was the true
person behind a lot of those deals. And she's an Uzbek immigrant, suspected
organized crime figure, who took the Trumps on various tours to Russia, brokered a
lot of those deals.
She died of cancer, but -- in 2015 -- but her husband and son still run that
company and I suspect they still have those records. And that would tell you a
lot.
And in general, l would look at Elena Baronoffs operation. She also had a lot
of curious involvement with a businessman in Sicily named Dino Papale, who we
think has organized crime ties as well, and has a lot of interesting relationships with
the Russians as well, and has hinted strongly that he organized secret meetings
between Donald Trump and the Russians in Sicily.
We spent a lot of time looking at that particular n e twork. And I think you
would ultimately get to the financial institutions by looking at the actual real estate

64
transactions.
MR. SCHIFF: And that particular family, were they involved in the flipping
of that house with the --

MR. SIMPSON: No. No, the Rybolovlev deal, I'm not sure I know that
much about the brokering of the Rybolovlev deal.
The other one that I would subpoena is the related group, and they were
the ones that were involved with the Trump Hollywood . And there was a lot of
interesting transactions involving the Trump Hollywood. And that was -- that's a
guy named Jorge Perez, who's a major developer who was in the picture with
Sergi Millian and Donald Trump that I was talking about previously.
MR. SCHIFF: And in terms of the Panama, Canada, and Scotland
transactions, any suggestions there?
MR. SIMPSON: So I think in the -- I'm trying to think of the creative way to
do this. I mean, as you may know, you know, most of these transactions are
cleared through New York. And the other sort of central place for information is
SWIFT in Brussels. But I would go for the clearing banks in New York that
cleared the transactions, you know.
And there's -- again, it's these sort of intermediary entities that have no real
interest in protecting the information, and all you have to do is ask for it and they
just sort of produce [t by rote. So we've done a lot of money laundering
investfgations where we go to the trust companies and the clearing entities.
And so, you know, all dollar transactions are generally cleared through New
York. So, you know, the main thing you have to do is identify the banks that were
used. So I don't know if the money was moved via Deutsche Bank or what the
other banks were. ln fact, I've never gotten around to trying to figure that out.
. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

65
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENS.ITIVE
MR. SCHIFF: Thank you.
Mr. Quigley.
MR. QUIGLEY: Good afternoon. Thanks for being here.
Let me give you an opportunity. You said that Mr. Steele was a perfect
hire. I think you used you trusted him a lot. Could you elaborate why you
thought he was such a perfect hire, why you trusted him so much? I know you
said you had talked to him, you had met with him. Did you have to do any other
due diligence or what did you know about him and his reputation before?
MR. SIMPSON: Sure. So basically the way the information biz works is,
you know, it's a tricky business. A lot of it is about talent spotting, finding people
that are reliable, produce reliable information. There's a lot of, I don't know if I'd
call it fraud, but there's a lot of BS where people tell you stuff that doesn't turn out
to be right.
And so, you know, it's sort of like, again, being a journalist, where you're
trying to figure out who your reliable sources are. So the more exotic the topic,
the harder it is to find someone who doesn't sell you BS.
And, you know, one of the problems with the business is that basically if
you contract with a guy to go find ~omething out or go look into a subject, he
doesn't -- he.rarely comes back and says: I got nothing for you, I wasn't able to
find anything out. They'll just-- if they can't find anything out, they'll just make it
up.
So sorry for the long answer. But, anyway, Chris was a reliable provider of
information that turned out to be reliable. And so -- so there was all that.
He was also -- he just had a very - he was--· 1 think I -- I think I might have
said somewhere else that he was a Boy Scout. And, you know, he's just a fairly

66
buttoned-down kind of guy who you could count on to do the work.
MR. QUIGLEY: When exactly did he start working under contract?
MR. SIMPSON: My recollection is that, you know, we began talking about
the -- I don't remember when we started talking about the engagement, but the
work started in June, I believe.
MR. QUIGLEY: Okay.
MR. SIMPSON: Possibly late May, but -
MR. QUIGLEY: And when would you have gotten the first batch of
information, or was it all at once? ·
MR. SIMPSON: The first memo is dated, I think, June 20th, somewhere
around there.
MR. QUIGLEY: Okay. And then how often did you get information and
what - was it varied quantities or ·--
MR. SIMPSON: Well, this was a very unusual situation, because right
around the time that the work started, it became public that the FBI suspected the
Russians of hacking the DNC. And so there was sort of an extraordinary
coincidence. It wasn't really a coincidence but, you know, our own interest in
Russia coincided with a lot otpublic disclosures that there was something going
on with Russia.
And so what was originally envisioned as an original -- as just a sort of a
survey, a first cut of what might be -- whether there might be something interesting
about Donald Trump and Russia quickly became more of an effort to help my
client manage a, you know, exceptional situation and understand what the heck
was going on.
So after the original reporting, I don't remember what I specifically said, but

67
it essentially was: I think we're going to need you for the foreseeable future, so
just keep, you know, talking to your sources and sending us memos whenever you
have information.
MR. QUIGLEY: And without'getting into the exact"communications, when
did you start alerting your client that this might have been a bigger deal than, as
you just described it than originally thought?
MR. SIMPSON: Yeah. I mean, I think that would call for a confidential
client communication. I think what I can say is - well, let me put it this way. I
think it's now public that, you know, the FBI had gone to the DNC prior to th is and
told them, you know, that they'd been hacked by the Russian Government.
And, you know, foreign intelligence services hacking American political
operations is not that unusual, actually, and there's a lot of foreign intelligence
services that play in American elections. And so that in itself isn't actually totally
alarming. The Chinese did it last time. Indians do it. But when it became --
Five minutes.
MR. SIMPSON: When the suggestion that they were going to weaponize
that information and that this was more than just an intel gathering operation, that
they were actually going to engage in active measures, that was when, you know,
it became a major issue. And I think by late June there was a lot of signs that that
was going to happen.
MR. QUIGLEY: The dossier was published. Other elements were
published . What wasn't published? Are there still documents? Is there still
information that was garnered by either Mr. Steele or others that the public isn't
aware of at th is point, on this point?
MR. SIMPSON : Well, to just put it on the record, we were not the ones

68
that gave this document to Buzzfeed, and I was not happy when this was
published. I was very upset. I thought it was a very dangerous thing and that
someone had violated my confidences, in any event.
I think the story is largely known and that there's very little that was left on
the cutting room table from that time. I think, you know, there's a little bit of, you
know, color, I would say. You know, this guy that we were talking about earlier,
Sergi Millian, isn't named in the dossier, but is someone who was important.
MR. QUIGLEY: But you also said that -- and correct me if I got this
wrong -- that you continued to get information after the election .
MR. SIMPSON: Yes , sir.
MR. QUIGLEY: You still say the same thing, that most of this is out there,
despite even getting information after the election?
MR. SIMPSON: I mean, I think that the story of the Russian operation
against the United States and the pattern of surreptitious contacts between The
Trump Organization and Russia, I don't think that's -- I don't think that's -- we're
even anywhere close to having the full story.

MR. QUIGLEY: But are there any documents you think that would be
helpful that were accumulated?
MR. SIMPSON: To the committee?
MR. QUIGLEY: Yes.
MR. SIMPSON: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think -- f think this tax court
case involving the Agalarovs is an important document. I think that there's -- I
guess going back to your subpoena question, I also -- you know, the Crocus
Group has a much longer history in the United States than people realize, and I
think there's all kind of good documents .

69
MR. QUIGLEY: But are there documents that you would have in your
possession --
MR. SIMPSON: Oh.
MR. QUIGLEY: -- that weren't public record that would be helpful?
MR. SIMPSON: I don't think from that period. Well, so the collection of
memoranda that are known as the dossier, I mean, that was basically it. I mean,
there wasn't --
MR. QUIGLEY: Now, you say you're familiar with peopl,e who do
intelligence work. I'm sure you're awarE:: that sometimes they talk about levels of
certainty they have, right? Like on any one issue, how many sources they have,
how confident they are.
In your conversations with Mr. Steele, did he express his level of certainty
on these matters?
MR. SIMPSON: So, I mean, l'm not intimately familiar with how the Brits
do it, but they seem to do it a little differently. Chris' standard presentation, I
mean, essentially, you know, because he's c;3 Russianist, his. standard presentation
starts with a little talk about disinformation.
Then he says, you know: I was the lead Russianist at Ml6 in the final
years of my career. And I was previously stationed in Moscow. And I speak
Russian. And I've done Russian intelligence/counterintelligence issues all my life.
And the central problem when you're a Russian intelligence expert is
disinformation, and that the Russians have, you know, a long history and an
advanced capability in disinformation.

And so, you know, before we go any further, I just want you to know that,
you know, this is my -- the fundamental problem with my profession. And it

70
should be assumed that in a·ny sort of intelligence gathering that you do there will
be some disinformation. And I'm trained to spot that and filter it out, but, you
know, you should understand that it's -- you know, no one's perfect.
And so we've essentially filtered out everything that we think is
disinformation and we're not going to present that to you here. We're going to
present to you things that we think come from credible sources, but we're not
going to warrant to you that what we - that this is -- that this is all true. And , you
know--
MR. QUIGLEY: He said it was raw data. Is that correct?
MR. SIMPSON: Yeah.
MR. QUIGLEY: In some an respect?
MR. SIMPSON: It's HUMINT, right? It's human source information.
One minute.
MR. SIMPSON : And humans sometimes lie, and more frequently they just
get it wrong.
MR. QUIGLEY: Did he ever, iri talking to you subsequent to the release of
the document, say that he thought he would alter any of it after the fact or
information he had gathered later?
MR. SIMPSON: I have - I have talked to him about that. And he
remains -- he continues to believe that it is largely not disinformation.
MR. QUIGLEY: I think that's our time . We have votes, right?
MR. ROONEY: We have to vote. Before we break, I just want to ask one
question , based on Adam's question, just so I don't forget, and then we'll come
back, if that's cool.
All those questions that Mr. Schiff asked about, you know, with the
UNCLASSIF I ED, COMMI TTEE SENSITIVE

71
subpoena power and where we would go if we wanted to find out about Scotland
and Panama and Toronto and Ireland, and you were talking about like the brokers
and I guess the banks in Switzerland and New York, my only question is, why
didn't you do that?
MR. SIMPSON: I don't have subpoena power.
MR. ROONEY: So there's no other way that you could -- there's no other
way that you could access that information other than just subpoena, having a
subpoena in those .countries?
MR. SIMPSON : Well, I mean, the way that I would do it if I was a U.S.,
you know, entity that had subpoena power is I would figure out --
MR. ROONEY: No, not us. Like you , as Fusion, an opposition research
guy, why couldn't you do it?
MR. SIMPSON: Because it's generally not legal. Financial privacy
protections.
I mean, so my specialty and the reason that I --
MR. ROONEY: That's fine. I just didn't know that. All right. Thank you .
: Are you okay to keep going? .
MR. LEVY: Yes. Let me just say one thing.
[Discussion off the record ..]
: Okay to continue?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes.
: Great, than ks. So I th ink we have it for 15, and we'll go.
We're still doing 15-minute rounds. Mr. Rooney took about 2 minutes asking his
ques tion, s o I've got about 13 left.
EXAMINATION
' UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

72
B Y -:
Q I just want to circle back to a couple things, Mr. Simpson.
When you say Christopher Steele provided you with raw data, you know,
we take that to mean that that's information that has not been analyzed through
the rest of, you know, the IC apparatus, for lack of a better term. Would you
agree that that's what raw data is and that's what he gave you?
A I think I was using it in a somewhat less technical way. But, you
know, but coJloquially speaking, I mean, it was just sort of intended to say: Yes ,
this is field -- information from the field that has been collected, and it has been
subjected to some level of sifting and analysis by Chris, because he's attempted to
filter out unreliable sources or disinformation.
And so it's not totally raw. I mean, it's been through one round of
harvesting.
Q So Mr. Steele communicated to you that he had done some analytical
wo rk on the data that he provided you?
A Yeah . l mean, he said he applied his professional skills to this to
figure out whether it was credible.
Q Right. It's not like he just wrote everyth ing down on a piece of paper
and then handed it to you. He did apply his professio_nal skills to it somewhat?
A Y eah . I mean, you can take that from reading the stuff that's been
published . I mean, he put some level of summarizing what -- you know,
essentially what he did was he talked to enough sources that you can summarize
what they collectively are telling you, and that's in. the writing of the memos.
Q And to follow up on Mr. Quigley's questioning, there was some
information -- you said the large bulk of it is published in the dossier that was
UNCLASS I FIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

73
published by BuzzFeed, but there was some information tha.t's not out there. Is
this some information that Mr. Steele provided you in relationship to the work you
had hired him to perform for you?
A What I was specifically referring to was there's discussions of identities
of sources that we had , and obviously that's not in there. And, you know, I can't
think of another specific thing that's n_ot in there, but there's like pieces of work that
we -- you know, things that didn't make it in there that he conveyed to me orally
that weren't that significant. I ca.n 't think of examples of them.
But I guess I was trying to be really careful to say that, you know, we
worked -- we did this project over a number of months and we had discussions of
things that didn't make it into the memos.
Q Is that recorded somewhere, all that other information -
A No.
Q -- at your company?
A No.
Q No. So it doesn't exist?
A It's -- right. It's -- I'm referring to mostly phone conversations and
meetings.
Q But you didn't record any notes or anything like that?
A I don't do that, no.
Q Okay. Just checking.
I just want to check back to your relationship with Perkins Coie. Did you,
Fusion, you, Mr. Simpson, or somebody at your behest approach Perkins Coie, or
did they approach you?
A I don't -- I don't have firsthand knowledge of that question. I think -- I

74
can tell you that the original discussions were not handled by me. They were
handled by my partner. So I don't think he's going to be in a position to talk about
it, but I don't even -- I mean, to the extent I know anything, it's just secondhand.
don't have a good memory of it.
Q Okay. And your partner being? Sorry.
A Peter Fritsch.
Q Okay. Thank you. And your relationship with Perkins Coie, remind
me, lasted about how many months?
A So this is -- so I'm the chief executive, and I generally interface with
clients, but we have a division of labor. I don't do the invoicing and I don't keep
the financial records. So it's very difficult for me to tell you things that I think you
have in your financial records anyway.
But if you're talking substantively, the Perkins Coie engagement ended with
the election. And whether there was money that came in the door from them after
that, overhang from the work, would be normal.
Q Did your relationship with Perkins Coie involve you doing any work on
any other candidates, Republican or Democrat?
A You mean under this engagement?
Q Yes.
A That's a great question. I don't recall . I don't think so. I think the
primaries were over and Trump was -- wasn't the official nominee, but he was the
obvious nominee.
Q Were there other engagements with Perkins Coie that are related
relevant to our matter that you did do research for other folks?
MR. LEVY: Can you repeat that question?

75
Sure. Were there - he mentioned that there may have been
other engagements. So I'm asking if there are any other engagements that are
relevant to our investigation in which they were tasked to do - he and Fusion were
tasked to do research on whomever.
MR. LEVY: Are you asking about other engagements with Perkins Coie?
Yes.
MR. LEVY: That are relevant to your investigation?
BY
a Correct.
A Well, I mean, of course, it's your power to say what's relevant and not
ours, but I don't think there was - we didn't do anything else in 2016 with them.
Q Okay.
A Sorry.
Q That's fine.
A I want to -- so just on this question of the finances, we were talking
about how much money we got from the various clients before, and I think - I think
it's in the records and I need to just - I'd just like to note that the Free Beacon, I
don't remember how much they paid us, but it doesn't -- I think it's not $50,000 a
month. I don't know what it was.
Q Okay. In speaking with them -
A And the same with Perkins. I'm sorry, but it's not my strong suit.
Q Okay. We'll rely on the record.
Switching over to your relationship with the Free Beacon, was it your
position , your relationship and your engagement with the Free Beacon , that you
were only to do - collect information and research against or on then-candidate

76
Trump or others as well in that process?
A My recollection was that from the beginning of the project it was
Donald Trump. And if at some point somebody -- so -- and that was my primary if
not sole focus for the entirety of the project. I can't speak for whether someone in
my company was asked about something else.
Q Okay. So it's possible the Free Beacon also asked your company to
conduct research on others that were running for President at the time?
A It's possible. I don't have knowledge of it.
Q Okay. Do you know who would , or would there be any records of it?
A You know, I guess we -- yeah. My partner would be the other person
that would get a request like that, but beyond that I don't really know.
Q Your partner again being Mr. --
A Peter Fritsch.
Q -- Fritsch. Are there any records of that? Would there be any
records of that, of documenting what you were hired to work on?
A I don't know.
Q Do you know who would know?
A My partner.
Q Peter Fritsch. Okay, thank you.
Switching gears a little bit, going over to you testified earlier that Mr. Steele
went to the FBI at a certain point in time, approximately late June 2016. Is that
correct?
A Yeah . I think what I said was he raised the issue of going to the FBI
with me after the first memo. And I didn't give him an answer or I didn't sign off
an that. And then he raised it again a few days later.

77
And by approximately early July, like 1st or 2nd, I had given my assent to
him doing it as a professional obligation or a citizenship obligation. And then
that's when he did it, sometime around the 4th of July.
Q So in early July, is it fair to say in early July that you knew that
Mr. Steele had taken some information to the FBI?
A I think he said he was going to, and then later he told me he did .
Q When did that occur, approximately?
A I think it was probably right after the 4th of July.
Q Okay. So not like a month later?
A No.
Q Okay. Did he tell you about any other communications he had with
the FBI in relation to this matter?
A Yes. The -- originally, he told me: I met with them and I informed
them of my concerns. And they said thank you and said they would get back to
us if they were going to follow up, if they needed to follow up.
And we were sort of almost immediately plunged into, you know, a very
intense situation with regard to the - the hacking attacks that were going on, and
so it didn't come up again for, you know, weeks if not months.
Q Do you know if he, Mr. Steele, informed the FBI about your
relationship, that is, the relationship he had with you and Fusion GPS?
A I don't -- my recollection is that he disclosed that he was doing this for
a private client, and that he would have disclosed something about who the private
client was.
I also don't thir:ik, though , that Chris at this time knew the identity of the
client. And so initially, at least, he would have been only able to say: . I have a

78
political client, a Democratic client or something like that, which is what I would
have told him. So I don't think he was in a position to disclose the identity of the
client to the FBI originally.
Q I don't mean the client. I mean you and Fusion GPS.
A I don't know. But probably, because he -
Q Do you know if he did?
A No, I don't. So there was a long period where we didn't hear from
them . And then later they got back in touch with Chris and asked for a second
meeting.
Q Did the FBI ever reach out to you or Fusion GPS in relation to the
matters that Mr. Steele informed them upon?
A No.
Q You've never heard from anyone in the U.S. Government in relation to

I
those matters, either the FBI or the Department of Justice?
A After the election . I mean, during the election, no.
Q What did you hear after and from whom and when ?
A I was asked to provide some information to the Justice Department.
Q By whom and when?
A It was by a prosecutor named Bruce Ohr, who was following up.
You know , l can't remember when . It was sometime after Thanksgiving , I think.
Q Thanksgiving of 2016?
A Yes.
Q Did Mr. Ohr reach out to you, or how did that shake out? Originally,
A I think Chris - it was someone that Chris Steele knows.
think -

79
Q I'm sorry. Chris Steele knows who?
A BruceOhr.
Q Okay.
A And I met Bruce too through organized crime conferences or
something like that. And Chris said he had been - Chris told me that he had
been talking to Bruce, that he had told Bruce about what happened, and that
Bruce wanted more information, and suggested that I speak with Bruce.
The context of this is that it was after the election. A very surprising thing
had happened, which is that Donald Trump had won. There was -- we were -- by
that time, we were enormously concerned about rapidly accumulating indications
that the Russian Government had mounted a massive attack on the American
election system and that, you know, Donald Trump or his associates might have
been involved.
And there was a lot of alarming things happening, including Donald Trump
saying things about Vladimir Putin that didn't really make any sense, weren't
ordinary things for a Republican to say, and, you know-- anyway. .
So we had alsC? by this time given this information to the FBI, and they had,
you know, told - indicated to Chris that they were investigating it, and then
told - apparently told The New York Times they weren't.
And so it was not clear to us whether anyone at a high level of government
"'{as aware of the information that Chris had gathered and provided to the FBI.
And, you know, so we were, frankly, you know, very scared for the country and for
ourselves and felt that if we could give it to someone else, we should, higher up.
And so Chris suggested I give some information to Bruce, give him the
background to all this. And we eventually met at a coffee shop, and I told him the

80
story.
My time is up. Thank you.
Over to you guys.
Off the record. We're going to take a 5-minute break.
[Recess.]
We can go back on the record.
I'm with the minority staff. I suspect my
colleague may also have questions. He's the for the
minority.
BY
Q I wanted to clarify first, if you recall, how many reports did you produce
for the Washington Free Beacon? I believe you did it on generally a monthly
basis. So --
A I think what -- I think what I said was that our practice when we begin
an engagement is to do reports on a monthly basis, ·and that, you know, it would
have been regular order in this case.
I don't recall specifically how many, and I can't really - I mean, it would
be - it would be -- right, it is covered by client confidentiality, but I also think it
would be guessing.
Q Okay.
A In general, what happens as an engagement unfolds is that after 2 or
3 months of producing monthly reports, again, we branch out into subject areas
and we start producing white papers. And so if an engagement lasts for 6
months, you can assume that there's a lot of subpapers on individual subjects.
Q So you were employed by the Free Beacon for 8 or 9 months, I

81
believe, based on your prior tes_timony. Does that sound about right?
A Yeah. So I think what I said was that we began the work in
September or October of 2015, and it began to wind down in the spring as the
primaries began to wind down. And the financial records, there's some lag time in
financial records, so I don't - I can't say what they show.
Q Do you keep copies of all the reports you provide to your clients?
A It depends on the case. Sometimes we - I mean, the work product is
the property of the client. So we frequently are asked to hand over all of our
copies or certify that they've been disposed of.
Q Mr. Simpson, you mentioned earlier that you did not incorporate what
has become known as the Steele dossier, that you did not incorporate that into
your reports, as is your normal practice. .ls that -- am I understanding correctly?
A Yes. Yes, that's what I said.
Q So did that -- those raw reports, I'll call it the Steele dossier, did that
product go to your client, Perkins Coie?
A I can't answer that, if it did.
Q Would you have provided - let me step back.
Is it fair to say that in the course of your Trump research for Perkins Coie,
that research included work separate from what Chris Steele conducted?
A A large amount of work.
Q Moving to a slightly different topic. In the course of your work for both
the Washington Free Beacon and Perkins Coie, what other individuals associated
with President Trump came up in your research who would have been a concern?
A There were a large number of other individuals that we looked at that
were seriously concerning. And we -- there were numerous Italian organized

82
crim·e figures that we identified that Donald Trump had relationships with and
clearly knew were criminals.
Q When you hired Mr. Steele, did you tell him what to look for in his
research?
A No. I -- generally speaking, you know, the challenge is to find
qualified, reliable people, and, you know, when I have those people, I tend to not
tell them what to do, much like I tend to push back on people who try to tell me
what to do.
Q Did you tell Mr. Steele what you expected him to find?
A No.
What I will say is I was quite shocked by what he came back with, and what
I -- the general mandate was to look into Donald Trump's business dealings in
Russia and to see if he could come up with a little bit more information about who
is doing business over there and why, you know, in the course of all these trips he
never seemed to be able to consummate a deal. So that was the general
assignment.
Q Did you ever task Mr. Steele with finding certain information related to
his business dealings or anything else?
A I think in the latter parts of the project there were things I specifically
asked about. The one that comes to mind is Michael Cohen. As I mentioned a
little earlier, I didn't understand Michael Cohen to be a significant figure in the
Donald Trump world for a long part of this project.

We eventually began to realize that he was a lot more than, you know, the
President's sort of pit bull personal attorney and that he was the person who -- I
mean, a number of things came up in the course of the year.

83
One of the things that we learned that caught my interest was we learned
from reporters that serious questions about Donald Trump's activities in Russia
and the former Soviet Union went to Michael Cohen, and that he was the only
person who had information on that subject or was in a position to answer those
questions.
So if you ask about Donald Trump's taxes, it goes to Allen Garten. And if
you ask about, you know, his position on something, it would go to Hope Hicks.
And none of these things - these things go - went to Michael Cohen.
: I just realized that Congressman Swalwell is in the room, so
I'm going to turn it over to him.
MR. SWALWELL: Thank yoLJ, Mr. Simpson.
And earlier you stated that you didn't think Jared Kushner was relevant
because of his age, and I had interrupted. I said, I take offense to that.
But just on Michael Cohen, and I'll turn it back over to our staff. Did you
ever research whether Michael Cohen had any aliases or other names that he
used? Did you ever find anything out about that?
MR. SIMPSON: A little bit. The possibility that he had two passports or
used a different fom1ulation of his name was something -- I can't remember - we
asked around about or thought about trying to get information on, but ultimately did
not.
MR. SWALWELL: Did you ever come across the name Michael Cohn,
C-o-h-n, with links, common addresses but different social security numbers?
MR. SIMPSON: I think my staff probably did come across stuff like that,
but we didn't make much of it. It looked like a typo.
MR. SWALWELL: When it came to Donald Trump Jr., did you have similar

84
concerns, as you've mentioned with Mr. Cohen and Mr. Kushner, as to his
contacts with Russians as it related to money or investments for the Trump
businesses?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes. · rm trying to remember. In general, we knew from
the open source work that we had done that Donald Trump Jr. was - had done a
lot of travel to Russia and was involved in a lot of these discussions, that he'd
done -- he'd gone to Kazakhstan for reasons that we didn't - we weren't sure of,
he'd gone to Latvia, and he'd been to Russia. And we eventually formed the view
that the Russians were very interested in him or that he'd had a lot of deals with
them.
I don't remember a lot of specifics beyond that.
MR . SWALWELL: What is your knowledge of Donald Trump, Donald J.
Trump , the father's travel to Russia? Can you tell us how many times you believe
he has traveled to Russia, in your research?
MR. SIMPSON: I believe that he's been to Russia a minimum of four or
.five times, and that he's been going to Russia since the late Soviet years.
And we -- we did spend a lot of time digging into the origins of his interest in
Russia and his fascination with Russia and it's an interesting tale . I mean,
it's -he -one of the few people who Donald Trump calls like a good friend is a
guy named Howard Lorber, who is a real estate investor.
And Lorber was one of the --one of the early -there was sort of a
swashbuckling crowd of American investors who moved into Russia in those early
years when it was really wild. And Lorber --l'm trying to remember the
names of the other ones, but there was a small group of people and Donald was
pretty tight with them.

85
And, again, that was one of the reasons the whole thing struck me as
mysterious, because it seemed like he had been there, you know, numerous times
and never come back with a deal. And, you know, there could be an innocent
explanation for that, which is that he could never find somebody that - you know,
an honest partner. In any event, I wanted to try to figure that out.
MR. SWALWELL: Does the name Bennett LeBow sound familiar to
you?
MR. SIMPSON: LeBow is an associate of Lorber's, and Liggett-Ducat was
his company. And they are the ones who, it appears, introduced Donald
Trump to Russia, from what we can tell.
MR. SWALWELL: To your knowledge, prior to the 2013 trip for Miss
Universe, when had he last gone to Russia?
MR. SIMPSON: There's reporting In the Steele memos about another trip
prior to that to St. Petersburg.
MR. SWALWELL: When do you believe that trip took place?
MR. SIMPSON: I would be guessing.
MR. SWALWELL: I'm going to yield back to the ranking member. And
Mr. Castro might have some questions.
MR. CASTRO: In all of your research and your review of Trump assets,
did you come across any reason to believe that any Kushner assets had been
used to pay off Trump debts or there was any mixing of the businesses by the two
families and companies?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, the Jersey City project was - I remember there was
some Trump involvement in the Jersey City project, which was kind of a Kushner
branded project. So there clearly was things that they were doing together.

86
What we heard from people familiar with the story was that the Kushner
family and their connections were a big attraction for Trump before the marriage
and that, you know -- I mean , I don't want to -- I'm trying to be polite about it, but, I
mean, there was a business element to the whole, you know, connection. And I
will hasten to add that I was not able --
: One minute.
MR. SIMPSON: -- to confirm any of this, and I didn't share this widely,
certainly not in any kind of formal way with anyone.
You know, the Kushners are ethnic Russian and they, we were told, had
relationships of their own with Russian capital. And, you know, the exact story I
think was that their relationships were with the Russian diaspora in the New York
area.
So more broadly speaking, during the ?Os, in the Refusenik era, there was
a lot of Russian Jewish immigration to the New York area. And a lot of those
people had -- well, I'll just say there was a lot of immigration, and that community
is very large, and a Jot of people became very successful and wealthy. And, as I
understand it, those are the connections that the Kushners have to outside capital.
MR. CASTRO: Thank you.
BY
Q Mr. Simpson, good afternoon. Thank you for being here. I'm -
- · a member of the majority staff.
Switching gears, could you please briefly describe for us Fusion's
engagement with the Baker Hostetler law firm In connection with the Prevezon
litigation in the Southern District of New York?
A Sure. Baker Hostetler is a big Midwestern Republican-oriented law
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87
firm that is one of my oldest clients. And I began working for Baker, I believe, in
1
2009 or 10, and I've done a number of cases with them. And I generally provide
litigation support, which Is research, gathering documents, figuring out who to
subpoena, and sometimes dealing with witnesses and media and other things.
I think the Prevezon matter was probably the fourth or fifth matter I've done
with them. They're very serious., sober, reputable attorneys, and I like working
with them.
And so they approached me originally in late 2013 with this matter. I didn't
know anything about Prevezon, didn't know anything. about most of this stuff.
Didn't know who Browder was, W illiam Browder was.
But, in any event, the original issue that was presented to me was not really
a Russia issue, it was a money - it was like a technical question about money
laundering, which was whether the government cou ld possibly prove that money
from some specific fraud in Russia went into these projects in New York, these
real estate projects.
And John Moscow, one of the partners there, who's an old contact of mine
from when he was a money laundering prosecutor and I was a money laundering
reporter, walked me through the technical aspects of the financial transactions.
And to my - I was skeptical, but he persuaded me that there were some
assumptions and leaps in logic that were made about the chain of entities and
banks that raised questions about whether they could really prove that this money
from over here went to this property over there.
So I was -- so that was - originally we were retained to help with the technical
aspects ·of it. And I think more broadly as it, you know, became -1

88
guess - well, sorry.
So I didn't agree to work on it at that time. I believe we discussed it. They
went away. Then they came back a few months later, which would have been
early 2014, when it had become more apparent to them that this was going to be a
significant piece of litigation, and said: We want to br\ng you on for litigation
support.
And, again, litigation support, I had done it for them before. Basically, you
know, use your journalistic skills to help us gather information, who to subpoena,
read documents, write analyses of evidence, all of that. And then, as you get into
the sort of more public phase of a court dispute, help them manage all the public
aspects as well.
So while I don't, you know, I don't run a PR firm, part of that is, you know,
the media aspects of litigation support. So I think - I think the original
engagement covered all of those things .
So in the early phase of this, the very first thing that we - I remember
having to do was help investigate the client.
So I didn't - we didn't know much about the client. Obviously, the lawyers
have responsibility to evaluate whether the client is engaged in anything improper,
and they certainly have to determine the sources of their funds.
And they represented to me that this was a minor player in Russia , and to
the -- I couldn't find much on them myself. There was -- you know, it's just a fairly
obscure real estate company.

89
[5:29 p.m.]
MR. SIMPSON: You know, I don't know the entire landscape of oligarchs
in Russia, but these guys are obviously not significant oligarchs in Russia. That's
what we could tell.
In any event, the first thing that a lawyer wants to know at !he beginning of
a case like this, and most cases, is whether their client's story is true. So that was
the first thing that we did was we interviewed the client. They interviewed the
client and got the client's story.
And the client's story was that these allegations that were in this Justice
Department forfeiture complaint originated with an organized crime figure in
Moscow, who had been blackmailing them and had been prosecuted, arrested and
prosecuted for blackmailing them.
So we had to investigate whether that story was true. So we, you know,
spent a long time looking at this guy. His name is Dimitry Barenovsky (ph). And
the story that Natalia Veselnitskaya provided to us was that he was a captain in the
Solntsevo brotherhood, which is the dominant mafia family in Moscow and known -
you know, it surfaces in parts of the Trump story, bizarrely, and was run by a guy
named Semien Mogilevich.
So Natalia is the one telling us the this story because she is the lawyer for
Prevezon and had apparently been involved in this extortion matter, and so she's
got all the information from the courts about this alleged shakedown. And she
was introducing me as some kind of former government lawyer who's the one who
hired Baker.
S o I worked for B a ke r , a nd s h e 's th e o ne wh o hire d B ake r. I didn't get t o
introduced to her originally. This was information she provided to Baker that they
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90
then provided to me.
In any event, we eventually were able to confirm that the story was basically
true, that this guy was a gangster, he was known to western law enforcement as a
gangster, and he, in fact, had been prosecuted and thrown in jail for this extortion
racket.
So then the question was, well, how did this story get from a convicted
gangster in Moscow into a Justice Department forfeiture complaint? And so the
lawyers, the Baker lawyers deposed a government agent, an ICE agent who did
the work, did the investigation, and he said he got it from this businessman named
William Browder.
And so then the question became, well, where did Browder get it from?
Did he get it from the gangster, or was it, you know, from some other source? So
we began to try to do various types of discovery to figure all that .out. So I may
have -- I don't know if I'm giving you too much here, but this is basically the origin
of this case.
So over the course of 2014, most of what I did was looking at this Russian
organized crime figure, looking at, you know, all the events around the extortion
case in Russia, and had to try to help them to figure out how all this information
somehow made its way into a Justice Department civil forfeiture complaint.
And eventually, that led us to Mr. Browder, who is a former American
citizen, who gave up his citizenship and moved - when he started making a lot of
money in Russia. and was living in the UK. And he didn't want to explain any of
this to us.
We originally wrote him a letter. The lawyers wrote him a letter saying, can
you tell us what's going on here, and he declined. And so then the lawyers asked

91
me to figure out how we could subpoena him. So I found that his hedge fund was
registered in Delaware and therefore had corporate presence in·the United States,
which meant that, theoretically, at least, he can be subpoenaed through his hedge
fund because he was listed as an officer in the records.
So we subpoenaed the hedge fund. We then retroactively filed new
documentation with the SEC, taking his name off the record, said it was all a
mistake. And he said you can't subpoena me. I'm not really an officer of that
hedge fund.
So we were, you know -- that was litigated for a while. And meanwhile, the
lawyers said, see if you can figure out another way to subpoena this guy. And his
position was that, you know, he was -- you kflOW, he had brought this case to the
Justice Department but he didn't want to be questioned about bringing this case to
the Justice Department, and that he was immune from being questioned about it
other than through the Hague process because he's a foreign citizen .
So, you know, we knew he was appearing in the med ia a lot, and then he
probably came to the U.S. to do media appearances and other events. And so
we began to look at that, and I just began doing what l would normally do, which is
to look at other things about this witness, what else do we need to know about this
witness, especially because they don't want to be open with us.
So eventually l discovered that he owned a mansion in Aspen, Colorado, or
at least he ·seemed to. He was connected to it by real estate records and OMV
records, but it was held through some shell companies.
Anyway, we were looking at that, and l don't remember the exact sequence
of events , but som eone. I think the lawyers or maybe me and my staff, discovered
that he w~s going to be in Aspen for an event. So we organized a service, a

92
subpoena service, which I supervised.
And we had a private investigator, a lawyer, and another, I think, Pl and,
you know, we organized to confront him in the parking lot of the Aspen Institute
and serve him a subpoena. And when we did that, he ran away, so jumped in his
limo and -- or his SUV and went back to his mansion. So dropped the subpoena
on the ground.
So that commenced a lot more litigation over whether we had adequately
served him a subpof::na, whether a subpoena in Colorado is valid for an action in
New York. And, you know, I was -- that was a lot of what l did.
His resistance to cooperating with the civil process, of course , made us
more curious about why he was, you know, determined to not cooperate with the
civil process, and to the point of changing lawyers, hiring ever-more expensive law
firms, and spending what must have been large sums ·Of money to not cooperate
with a civil subpoena. And so that made me curious about why he didn't want to
cooperate.
And I'll add parenthetically that when I was working as a reporter and living
in Brussels and investigating Russian corruption and organized crime, I had met
Mr. Browder and asked him for help investigating Vladimir Putin, and he had
lectured me on Putin not being corrupt and being a bit - someone who's very
helpful to -- the best thing that· had happened to Russia in a long time.
And at that time, Browder was making a lot of money in Russia. So
anyway, so in light of all of that, I became curious and it was part of my job to
investigate the activities of Mr. Browder in Russia and his hedge fund in Russia.
And so, you know, in 2014 and I think 2015, we spent a lot of time looking
into his hedge fund in Russia and how they made their money, who their clients

93
were, in addition to, you know, litigating all these other issues about whether we
had served him adequately.
We discovered, you know, many things about his activities iri Russia and
his general finances, his pattern of avoiding taxation, his use of offshore shell
companies and tax haven jurisdictions, particularly in Cypress and the BVI.
We identified a number of his clients. And, you know, we kept trying to
subpoena him. Eventually -- again, he kept saying I have no connection to the
U.S., I never go there, we kept finding more houses. We found a house in New
Jersey. All of this is in the court record, and it's all public information.
Ultimately, we found him in New York City, outside of The Daily Show, and
served him a third time . And this time we taped the whole thing, and he did the
same thing . He jumped out of the limo and he dropped the subpoena and he ran
away, so - but this time it was all on tape and we had already litigated all this.
And the judge was very familiar with this scenario.
And , you know, as all the other discovery was taking place, it became more
and more apparent that, you know, Bill Browder had taken this information and
given it to the government and th at, you know, he was the source of these
allegations. And so it became more and more important to understand why he
was making these allegations and, you know, whether he had any basis to do so.
We'll leave it there for now. Thank you.
MR. SCHIFF: Mr. Simpson, just to follow up, y ou mentioned that one of
the things that you found suspicious was that Mr. Trump would go to Russia or his
son wou ld go to Russia, and they seemed to have a great interest in Russia but
n eve r c a m e b ack with any d eals.
MR. SIMPSON: Yes.
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MR. SCHIFF: And what was your suspicion that they did come back with?
Are you suggesting that what they came back with was not a real estate deal but
rather -- or not a real estate deal in Russia but rather Russian money that would
be used in Trump properties?
MR. SIMPSON: No, I'm not suggesting that. I mean, you know, there is
my state of mind at the time and what I think now or what we eventually began to
think. I honestly didn't have any preconceived notions about what was going on.
I found it puzzling.
And, I guess, my initial thought was that he, you know -- I mean, the wrap
on Donald Trump is he says he's a great businessman, but he's really not a great
businessman. And he talks a good game and a lot of it is baloney. And so, you
know, I thought -- one of the things I thought was that he wants to do a deal in
Russia, but his lawyers won't let him because of the FCPA.
And that every time he gets close to closing a deal in Russia, it gets shot
down by his own lawyers because they think he's going to get prosecuted for
some sort of corruption offense. And that was my hypothesis, I would say, in the
early part of this.
What I later came to believe was that he was, in fact, developing different
kinds of business relationships with the Russians than, you know, the sort of
marquee thing that he always talked about, which was building a tower in Moscow,
and that. in fact, you know, he'd found other ways to profit from his relationship
with that.
The Miss Universe contest was a profitable venture for him, and I don't think
we have a ~ull accounting of, you know, how much he got paid and where the
money came from for putting that on in Russia. But we know that it was -- what

95
we've seen is that it was 10 million, and I think it came from the Agalarovs. · So
that was one.
There's the Trump vodka business that was earlier. And then ultimately,
you know, what we came to realize was that the money was actually coming out of
Russia and going into his propert(es in Florida and New York and Panama and
Toronto and these other places.
And what we, you know, gradually begun to understand, which, you know, I
suppose I should kick myself for not figuring out earlier, but I don't know that much
about the real estate business, which is I alluded to this earlier, so, you know, by
2003, 2004, Donald Trump was not able to get bank credit for - and If you're a
real estate developer and you can't get bank loans, you know, you've got a
problem.
And all these guys, they used leverage like, you know -- so there's
alternative systems of financing, and sometimes it's -- well, there's a variety of
alternative systems of financing. But in any case, you need alternative financing.
One of the things that we now know about how the condo projects were
financed is that you have to -- you can get credit if you can show that you've sold a
certain number of units.
So it turns out that, you know, one of the most important things to look at
is -- this is especially true of the early overseas developments, like Toronto and
Panama -- you can get credit if you can show that you sold a certain percentage of
your units.
And so the real trick is to get people who say they've bought those units,
and tha t's where the Russians are to be found, i s in some of those pre-sales, is
what they're called . And that's how, for instance, in Panama they got the credit
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96
of- they got a - Bear Steams to issue a bond by telling Bear Stearns that they'd
sold a bunch of units to a bunch of Russian gangsters.
And, of course, they didn't put that in the underwriting information, they just
said, we've sold a bunch of units and here's who bought them, and that's how they
got the credit. So that's sort of an example of the alternative financing.
Now, the other way that he got financing was by not being an equity partner
in the project, finding an equity partner and offering, you know, licensing or
marketing arrangement where, you know, he was the, you know, the brand.
But, you know, what I began to conclude was that the Trump brand is a
mixed brand and that, you know, he may have had other ways of lining up buyer
interests showing that he had buyer interest to his equity partners and telling them
we've got lots of Russians who are going to buy these properties, and that's why
we should do this project.
And I think the Trump Hollywood is an example and the Sunny Isles Beach
are some of the best domestic examples of that kind of interplay.
MR. SCHIFF: And tell me about the Trump Hollywood project. That was an
example of the latter or the former? Did they get the financing from what you could
tell because they got a bunch of Russians to presale, or did they go to a
bank and say these are our investors, or how did they go about that?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, eventually, I mean, they lost the project. It went
under. I, can't - I'm not - I'm sure we did look at who the creditors were, who the
lenders were . This is the project that Sergi Millian appears to have been involved
in, and there's a picture of Jorge Perez, Donald Trump , and Sergi Millian.
And he tells a story about meeting Donald Trump at the golf -- at a
racetrack, drinking a bottle of Crystal with him , seems -- he gave him some

97
Crystal. And that was in the early phases of the project. So it was clear that
Donald Trump -- so the equity partner was the related group.
It was clear that this Russian had been brought into this with Trump, and
what you can surmise from that is that he's there to say there ~ue buyers. We can
bring you buyers for this property. And that's what a developer needs to know is
that he's got buyer interest.
MR. SCHIFF: And how does it work? Let's say Sergi Millian or someone
else lines up the Russian buyers. The Russian buyers sign presale agreements.
Trump can then get financing for the res! of the proj~ct. Do the buyers go through
and buy the properties, or is that no longer necessary, once you've obtained the
bank financing you can actually sell them to real people?
MR. SIMPSON: So it's fraud if they don't. I mean, you have to warrant to
the lender that you've already sold X number of units. And there's supposed to
be contracts, downpayments, all of that sort of thing. So in the case of Panama
where the evidence is the most vivid, there's - the buyers were fake. I mean,
they were real people. They just never paid.
MR. SCHIFF: And you say the evidence is most vivid, is it -- did this come
out in Panama Papers? How do you know that this is the case?
MR. SIMPSON: This - it's in public records. I mean, I think there's media
interest in this, and there's going to probably be more stories about it. But I've
heard about it. It's been -- there's lawsuits that we found during the election by
some of the later buyers alleging that the earlier buyers, that it was a fraud, and
describes marketing events at Mar-a-Lago with Trump and various Russians
where, you know, it's clear that Trump is working with Russians to sell th ese
condos in Panama and some of the -- you know, the project, like all these projects,

98
eventually went belly up, and -- although I think it did get built.
Anyway, so these lawsuits were the original - were the source of the
original allegations. And I believe there are lawsuits in Toronto with similar
allegations and the guys connected to the Toronto project are Russian mafia too.
And, in fact, there's Toronto-based Russian mafia guys who are involved in the
Panama project.
And in any event, so the origin of the allegations is defrauded puyers. The
real chumps or the marks are the guys at the end of the process who come in
thinking that they're going to be moving into a building that's already got all this,
you know, financing and other tenants and it turns out that those people have
walked away.
MR. CASTRO: Could I ask a question, Adam?
MR. SCHIFF: Yes.
- - - - - -- - -- - -1MR.-CAS-i=RO;...._Ihei:e....was..repo.r:ting, I tbinkJ.o_the New York Times or in

the press about Jared Kushner and lvanka Trump being looked at by the
Manhattan DA, I think, because of the same principle that they were
essentially - the idea that they were fabricating the percentage of the units that
had been sold basically to hook in more buyers. Did you look at that project at
all?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, that was the Trump So Ho, and that project was
riddled with fraud, but I had not heard that allegation prior to those stories. But it
is, in fact -- I mean, that's a good observation. I had the same observation, which
was it does resemble the allegations from these other projects.
MR. SCHIFF: You mentioned earlier that not eve_

rything that Christopher
Steele found or came up with made it into the reports because there was certain

99
things that either couldn't be verified or might be the subject of Russian
disinformation._
Is there anything now, with the benefit of hindsight with the allegations that
have become public, that would cause you now to think, well, actually, what he
came up with that we excluded from the report may have been accurate after all?
MR. SIMPSON: No. Actually, I mean, I'm --what I think I was saying
when you were out of the room was it would - it's a microscopic kind of thing .
There's very little that we did that is actually in the dossier. You know, there
are -- I was trying to think of an example, and I had trouble coming up with one, of
something that we discarded because we didn't believe it.
MR. SCHIFF: And didn't you, during the course of your work, uncover any
information regarding a connection between Trump or those around him and
Wikileaks?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes. I mean, you've seen some of the public reporting .
W e gradually -- I mean, this would be separate from the Steele stuff, but, you
know, we gradually towards the end of the project became very interested in -- you
know, Roger Stone bragged about having his contact. We tried to figure out who
the contact was.
We started going into who Stone was and who his relationships were with,
and essentially the trail led to sort of international far right. And, you know, Brexit
happened, and Nigel Fa rage became someone that we were very interested in,
and I still think it's very interesting.
And so I have formed my own opinions that went through - th at there w as a
somewhat unacknowledged relationship between th e Trump people and th e UKIP

people and th at the path to Wikileaks ran through that. And I still think that
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today.
MR. SCHIFF: And when you talk about the connection between the Trump
campaign and the Brexit campaign, is that a line you're drawing through
Cambridge Analytica, or were there other lines you were drawing there?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, Bannon went over to the UK in or around 2011.
And originally, he was trying to set up a sort of British tea party, which was an
inopportune choice of
MR. SCHIFF: The anti tea party.
One minute.
MR. SIMPSON: And so, you know, some of it - so there's -- it really isn't, I
don't think, that Cambridge is the nucleus. I think that it's there's some Bannon
connections. I know there's - and there's some other Bannon Stone associates, a
guy named Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, who was - is an American who was
living over there and associating with UKIP and, I believe, is a significant figure in
this.
So I don't - l had had some run into Cambridge and Analytica previously,
and I would - there was a lot of skepticism about whether they really were capable
about doing anything or whether they were just selling snake oil, and that was
certainly my view when I first heard about them years earlier. So I don't view them
as nucleus. The Mercers, I think are significant.
MR. SCHIFF: And, I mean, were you able to find any factual links between
the Mercers and Assange orWikileaks or Farage?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, I mean, the things that we heard, which, you know, l
think could be sorted out by an official inquiry are that Nigel Farage made a number
of trips to New York and had a number of meetings - Nigel Farage and
UNCLASSIFIED,COMMITTEESENSITIVE
101
Air Bank had a number of trips to the U.S., and thql they sort of - that there's been
a misrepresentation of the length of that relationship and the extent of it.
There's -- I've been told and have not confimied that Nigel Farage had
additional trips to the Ecuadoran Embassy than the one that's been in the papers
and that he provided data to Julian Assange.

MR. SCHIFF: What kind of data?
Time is up.
MR. SCHIFF: Can we just get an answer to that.
MR. SIMPSON: A thumb drive.
MR. SCHIFF: Thumb drive. Thank you .
EXAMINATION
BY
Q Just a couple questions, Mr. Simpson.
Did the DNC or the Hillary Clinton campaign for presidency ever direct
Christopher Steele to discuss the contents of his dossier with the media that you're
aware of?
A I was the one that directed him to do that.
Q Okay. When did you direct Christopher Steele to discuss the
contents of his dossier with the media?
A I think that there was -- I believe it was late -- it was sometime in

September or October. I hesitate to be too specific because it's a little blurry.
Q Of 20167
A Yes, sir.
Q Did you do that of your own volition , or did you do that at the direction
of a client or another entity?

102
A I want to be as helpful I can without getting into client communications.
So I guess I would like to say generally, I mean - generally when
reporters - when we have to deal with the press, we would inform our clients that
we were doing -- you know, in any case if you're dealing with the press, it's
incumbent on you to, you know, make sure your client knows that.
Q Right So are you saying it's a particular client confidentiality that
prevents you from asking - answering who, if anyone, directed you to have
Christopher Steele go to the media with the dossier information?
MR. LEVY: First, I'm not sure you characterized his testimony correctly;
but second, he has been as helpful as he can be with this question without getting
into confidential client communications.
: No, I understand. ·J'm just trying to look for which
confidential client communication he's referring to, because certain clients have
provided disclosures and relief from that confidentiality agreement.
MR. LEVY: This client has not authorized Mr. Simpson to discuss
confidential client communications.
: Okay. So this client would not be then Perkins Coie?
MR. LEVY: Perkins Coie has not authorized Mr. Simpson to discuss client
communications.
This specific communication?
MR. LEVY: Any.
Any. So their statements in - that th e gene ral couns~I for
Perkin s Coie wrote releasing Fusion GPS from client confidentialities, are you
aware of that? Are you -
MR. LEVY: That letter releases Fusion GPS from no longer protecting the
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103
identity of the client. It does not release Fusion GPS from client communications .
I understand. So if Perkins Coie were to at some point in
the future provide such a disclaimer or a release, would you then be in a position
to answer that question?
MR. LEVY: We'd have to look at it and -- but if it released our client from
confidentiality, we'd take that under advisement and talk to their counsel and --
: Okay.
MR. LEVY: I want to make sure we're not waiving other privileges that
we've asserted in this investigation as well, including the First Amendment, but --
BY
Q And my last question for you, Mr. Simpson, is why did you go to direct
Mr. Steele to go to the media with the information in the Steele dossier?
A Sure. Well, so there were two instances of this or rounds of it, and I
think I was beginning to recount this earlier. In the -- in whatever the first round
was, I assume it was sometime in mid-September or early October, it was mainly
about telling the press, a few high-level members of the national security press,
and the, you know, top-level press that we had information that there was a
Russian intelligence operation that the Russians were engaged in, you k~ow, that
this was more than just hacking, and that there was a major effort to interfere with
the election, and that it allegedly involved the Trump qrganization.
And the reason for that, the motivation for that was mainly because I
thought that this was historic and that it was something the press needed to
investigate and know about and ask the Intelligence Community about because I
wanted to expose It.
But, you know, we were operating under the assumption at that time that

104
Hillary Clinton was going to win the election and so there was no urgency to it.
And there was an assumption on my part that nothing would be published about
any of this any time likely before the election, and l wanted to tell them about it
because that was when it was happening.
But I didn't, you know -- it was -- basically in a political campaign, you know ,
when you get past Labor Day people stop publishing stories that could be
perceived as a late hit or an October surprise or some kind of a stunt.
And so, you know, in a presidential campaign you're sort of winding down at
that point. You know, all of the information that you needed to gather for debates
or political ads or anything like that, it's all been gathered .
And so - anyway, so we wanted people to know. And we were also of the
view by that point -- we'd been doing the research for two-plus months -- we were
of the view that there was really something here, that this W?S really bad, and that
there was some serious allegations that it wasn't just Russians. It was Russians
working with Americans.
So that was round one. Then -- and indeed, no one ran off and wrote a big
story about how Russian - how a British spy is -- thinks that, you know, the
Russians are working with the Trump people.
Thete were , you know, a trickle of stories, you knqw, I guess more than a
trickle, but there were some very limited stories about people associated with
Trump having connections to the Russians . And I can remember specifically
there being stories about Carter Page and his trip to Moscow and the fact that that
was something that was of FBI interest, and that Carter Page stuff is something
that we covered with the media.
But anyway, so none of that made a dent in the sort of general coverage ,

105
and it didn't bother me because I wasn't expecting any of it to really make a dent.

106
[6:05 p.m.]
MR. SIMPSON: Come the end of October, some extraordinary things
started happening. The Russians -- WikiLeaks releases John Podesta's emails,
and then, you know, most extraordinary of all, James Corney sends a letter to
I
Congress saying he is reopening the Hillary Clinton email investigation. And that
was , I believe, around the 25th. And, you know, if you are me, you know, and you
have been in politics and campaigns and investigations, and this is your whole
world, and you have been doing it basically since you got out of college, you know,
one of the things that you -- that is really ingrained in you is the rules of
Washington -- and when I say rules, I mean like regulations of the Justice
Department about interfering with an election. It is not something that you are just
aware of as a technical requirement, it is something the people embrace, which is
that law enforcement shouldn't interfere in elections by announcing investigations
of people at the last minute.
And so we were shocked, and I felt - I mean, I guess I was angry. But in
any case, you know, the result of that was predictable, which is that, you know, it
began to influence the election. And, so, we tried to decide how to respond to
that. And when I say "we," I mean like me and my little, you know, company, and
Chris and, you know -- I didn't have any dealings with Mrs. Clinton or any of these
other people. They were dealing with -- that was their thing . But I was sitting on
this piece of knowledge, which was that, in fact, the FBI was investigating the·
Trump organization for possibly having illegal dealings with the Government of
Russia. And you can imagine if you are me or Chris Steele and we have been
sitting here working --
and they seemed to be very seriously running a

107
counterintelligence/espionage investigation of the Donald Trump organization, and
all of a sudden they announce that they are reopening Hillary case, you know,
you're kind of, what's going on here?
So at that point, I, of course, was really confused, and I would say Chris
was a little scared, because he didn't -- he thought that - he didn't really
understand what was going on with the FBI. In any event, at that point I felt like
the rules had just been thrown· out and that Corney had violated the sort of one of
the more sacrosanct policies, which is not announcing law enforcement activity in
the closing days of an election.
And so, we began talking to the press· again about -- we decided that if
James Corney wasn't going to tell people about this investigation that, you know,
he had violated the rules, and we would only be fair if the world knew that both
candidates were under FBI investigation.
BY
Q Which outlets in the press were you talking to?
A I am not going to answer that.
Q Okay. Do you know John Podesta?
A I have known John since he was working in the Clinton administration.
Q Had you met with Mr. Podesta in the fall in the election campaign
season?
A No.
Q So you never met with Mr. Podesta in September or October or
November of 2016?
A N o.
Q Had you had any communications with Mr. Podesta from, say, May

108
of 2016 through November of 2016 regarding the matters we are discussing
today?
A No. I don't think so.
Q So have you ever exchanged or has he ever requested, he being John
Podesta, information regarding the Steele dossier or its contents on behalf of the
Hillary Clinton campaign from you or your company, Fusion GPS?
MR. LEVY: Just to clarify your question, because it got fast, you are
talking about during that same time period , May to November 2016?
Q Let's go May through November 2016.
A No.
Q Any time before May that you ever communicated with Mr. Podesta
· about that information?
A No. I think the -- as I say, I knew John when I was covering the
Clinton scandals and he was in the White House working for Bill Clinton. And I
saw him now and then on the subway after that, and I didn't see him or talk to him,
or, to my recollection, have any other kind of communication with him in 2015 or
2016.
Q So to the best of your memory, you never met with him or had any
communications with him during those 2 years?
A That's right.
: Thank you.
Q So earlier a moment ago you were discussing how after Corney sent

109
this memo reopening the Clinton investigation, you said we had to decide how to
respond . Who is "we" in that statement?
A It's mainly a reference to myself and to Chris. You know, it was
mainly between Chris and myself.
Q Anyone else?
A You know, I am not going to get into client communications, but, you
know, I was still working for a client at that time.
Q Did you discuss with your client how to respond?
MR. LEVY: I think that is confidential.
MR. SIMPSON: I am not going to give you that.
BY
Q And you said that the response you decided on was to inform the
press that both candidates were under FBI investigation?
A Well, what I thought was appropriate was for -- to give the press
enough information so that they could go to the FBI and ask them if both
candidates were under investigation. So what we more specifically did was , you
know, we told them that, you know, we had given this information to the FBI and
that, you know, we thought the FBI was probably investigating, and that they
should ask the FBI if, in fact, they were investigating. And so they did. So the
FBI, it appears, told them they weren't investigating.
Q Did you testify earlier, it was your opinion as a Washington veteran
that you thought Mr. Corney's statement, or letter, might improperly or irregularly
influenced the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election?
A I am sorry, could you repeat that?
Q I believe you testified earlier, and I just wanted to confirm, that you
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE ·

110
thought Mr. Corney's letters to Congress and/or statements concerning the
reopening of the Clinton investigation might improperly have an influence on the
outcome of the 2016 election?
A It's my understanding that -- it was my feeling at the time he had
violated both the norms of our campaigns and Justice Department policy by
disclosing or announcing or taking those kinds of investigative steps within
2 weeks of Election Day.
Q And one of the reasons those norms were in place or you thought his
actions were improper, is that there was at least the very high potential for those
actions to influence the 2016 election. Isn't that right?
A Yes , it is.
Q So by deciding what you were going to do in response once the, as
. you said, the rule book had been thrown out the window, was it also your purpose
or intent to counterbalance Mr. Corney's actions by potentially influencing the
outcome of the election?
A Well, I guess I would put it a little differently. So, I mean, the first
thing that happened when this FBI stuff came out was that we were totally
shocked. And Chris was concerned that something was happening at the FBI
that we didn't understand, and that there may be some political maneuvering or
improper influence. And , so, we were very concerned that the information that we
had about the Russians trying to interfere in the election was going to be covered
up. And this was some really bad stuff. We were now in late October, and It was
clear that there was a massive attack on our election system by the Kremlin . And
that it was, you know, a crisis, and that, you know, so we felt that this needed to be
exposed.

111
And so it wasn't so much, you know, a case of, you know, tit for tat as that
we didn't really understand what's happening, anq it.was really bad stuff that was
happening, and if the press is going to be writing about all these investigations, we
should expose this stuff.
Q And was the purpose or intent of the exposure to potentially affect the
outcome of the election?
A It was to expose a sinister plot by Vladimir Putin, a hostile foreign
power, to attempt to alter the outcome of an American Presidential election. And
that was the goal. You know, and again, I mean , basically our behavior after the
election was of the same ba.sic character. At some point, it became about
blowing the whistle on this. And I would say that was the point at which it was a
lot bigger issue. And as an ex-journalist, I still have a little bit of that in my blood,
and I wanted to expose it for the sake of letting people know what's going on.
Q And did you discuss that plan to expose this information with Perkins
Coie, the Clinton campaign, or the ONG?
A I am going to _decline to answer that.
MR..SCHIFF: Mr. Simpson, I want to ask you a very open-ended question,
because a lot of the information has been very helpful, but l am concerned that we
may not know the right questions to ask you. So let me ask it in a very general
way. You know the parameters of our investigation. We are interested in any
contacts between then-candidate Trump, his family, his campaign, and the
Russians. We are particularly interested in any of the Russian active measures,
any leverage the Russians may exert over the President or his team.
You h a v e itemize d a number o f things , including Russian m o ney involved in
transactions with Trump properties, and suspicious activity potentially between the
UNCLASSIF IED, COMMITTEE SENS I TIVE

112
campaign, Nigel Farage and Assange-Wikileaks.Are there other issues that came
to your attention that are not contained in the Steele dossier that you
think we ought to be aware of that you either were able to substantiate in part, or
you were not able to fully investigate but you think that, in the exercise of due
diligence, that we really need to?
MR. SIMPSON: So I guess the first one that I think that we haven't
covered at all, would be the Center for the National Interest and the people
involved in the Center for the National Interest. And among other things - well,
importantly Dimitri Simes is known in the Russian expat community as a
suspected Russian agent. And I believe he is known to the FBI as a suspected
Russian agent. And I think that you could develop more information in that area
from talking to Russian intelligence defectors and people who come to this country
and have been given refuge from Russian intelligence.
There are a number of Russian defectors who, I think, maybe could speak
to that. I think there are some records around that might reflect some of that.
And I think that is -- given their fundamental role in creating the Trump foreign
policy, I think that is a really important area. I think talking to Russian intelligence
defectors in general about what they think was going on and what they've heard is
probably a useful thing to do.
I think that the origins of the Manafort-Stone-Trump relationship is an
interesting area. I have looked, spent a lot of time looking last year at Roger
Stone - you know. Roger Stone made a joke at one point about how Paul
Manafort had disappeared, and he was last seen like carting bags of cash onto
Yanukovich's plane or something like that. You know, Roger Stone has done
work in Ukraine. He did work in Ukraine around the same time as Manafort.

113
And I thf nk he has a little more knowledge of Manafort's Ukrainian activities.
And they both - Stone was a protege of a Republican political fellow named Arthur
Finkelstein, who hired him to work on the Nixon campaign. And Finkelstein was
one of the first consultants to really appreciate how to target voters in a way that
somewhat resembles the way the Trump campaign and the Russians did. And he
spent many years -- he worked -- Finkelstein worked with Stone and Manafort in
Ukraine in or around 2005, 2006, for the same cast of bad guys. And later went
off to Hungary to work for the pro-Russian prime minister there, Victor Orban, and
went into business over there. A~d there is a lot of allegations coming out of the
Hungarian expat community about all of that. And, so, I think that is an important
area. That is one of the -- you know, we've picked up that Hungary is inside the
EU, and it's essentially -- you know, Orban is essentially a Putin puppet and the
GRU has a big station there, and there is a lot of unexplained travel by various
people. And we have heard a lot of rumors about that, and a lot of allegations
since beginning of last year.
MR. SCHIFF: And I mean this is obviously a public transcript, we know
about Carter Page's travel there. Are there other individuals -
MR. SIMPSON: Well, it was our information that Gorka had been there
about three times. At least two of those he tried to keep low profile. I am told
J.D. Gordon did, but I don't know -- I just don't know whether that is reliable. I
guess this is transitioning into another area, if you are interested in looking at
things, is, you know, the European travel of certain people. And I would include
Jared and lvanka in that.
And there is a very puzzling sequence of events that we spent a lot of time
looking at -- first of all, I will just back up and say, you know, travel records . My

114
assumption is that, you know, the FBI or the Special Counsel, like one of their
methodological first steps would be to get all the travel records for all these
people, as they are relatively doable if you are in law enforcement. And I think
that would tell you a lot. But there is a specific sequence of event_
s that has
intrigued us for a long time, where Cohen and lvanka and Jared and Trump, and I
can't remember whether Manafort's in this mix too, are all in the Hamptons area in
August, and Dmitry Rybolovlev's plane is somewhere nearby, and flies to Nice.
And then most of these guys sort of come off -- fall off the radar and then, you
know, I think it's the 12th of August, Rybolovlev's plane lands in Dubrovnik, and
Jared and lvanka surface in Dubrovnik. And I don't know how they got there or
whether they got there on his plane.
But those are things I have been interested in for a long time . The plane,
you know, we have been told that Rybolovlev's boat was also nearby. There
were all these other yachts nearby and that, you know, there had been rumors of
meetings between Trump people and Russians on yachts off Dubrovnik.' And the
Rybolovlev jet then flies to Budapest from Dubrovnik. And I can't tell you whether
it's meaningful or not, but there are certainly things I was interested in and still find
unanswered and intriguing. I guess the same would -- again, I don't know what
Mr. Cohen has told you, but his public statements about his whereabouts I found
unsatisfying.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you find evidence that Mr. Cohen had been part of this
delegation?
MR. SIMPSON: Again, our abilities to do these things are pretty limited,
but we can be creative. And we found, you know, his daughter's lnstagram
account had her hop-scotching around this general southern Europe area during

115
some of this time. And I haven't refreshed my memory about all of this, but, you
k~ow, we got the impression that ~e was with her for some of the time. And then,
you know, given the specificity of the allegations in the second Prague memo
about their meeting in Prague, I have been - you know, given the gravity of the
allegation and the specificity of it, generally I have been waiting for -- I mean, I
would sit down -- if that allegation had been made about me, I would sit down with
my lawyer and we would reconstruct my whereabouts, and we would look through
credit card bills and airplane tickets and, you know, my phone records . And there
is many, many ways to account for your whereabouts in modern life if you want to.
And I haven't seen him put any of that stuff out. So I find that intriguing.
MR. SCHIFF: And what other issues do you recommend that we look at?
MR. SIMPSON : I think the history of the Agalarovs is important, and the
role that lrakly Kaveladze played in the Trump Tower meeting is important. And I
think that there is a lot to find out about Kaveladze. You know, I should add, as
we have said publicly, I was not aware of the Trump Tower meeting , and no one
told me about it before it, and no one told me about it after. But I have a little bit
of knowledge of Kave Iadze and a little bit of knowledge of the Agalarovs .
Kaveladze surfaced in a previous money laundering investigation. I think there is
more information about that money laundering investigation in the possession of
the government than just the GAO report, and that Kaveladze has been working
with the Agalarovs since the early '90s, and they have been involved in a lot of
money laundering , and that some of it goes back to suspected KGB money
laundering.
So, I think that i s a rich area. And I was as s hocke d as anyon e to see; y ou
know, these two matters intersect in the way they did. I nonetheless feel it's very

116
important to get to the bottom of what was going on there. So I think there is a lot
to look for there.
Three minutes, sir.
MR. SCHIFF: Any other areas that you haven't discussed already that
raise concerns for you that you were not able to finish in terms of your own
investigation?
MR MUSE: Since you have 3 minutes, why don't we take a little bit of a
break, and the·n we might be a little more efficient. Is that okay?
MR. SCHIFF: Sure.
[Recess.]
MR. SIMPSON : Okay. I did think of some things.
MR. MUSE: So we are back on the record?
MR. SCHIFF: Yes, back on the record.
MR. SIMPSON: So, you know, I could probably think of other things, but I
think one thing that is worth looking at is the relationships among people that are
not known to be related, whether the Agalarovs know the Arifs, whether some of
the other Russian oligarchs, whether they have social or business relationships,
including that Roman Abramovich. And I think this question of the travel histories
of Don Jr. and lvanka, and whether they had other meetings with Russians is an
area that is unexhausted. And specifically, the connections between the
lbramovich~ and lvanka and 'Jared is something that requires looking into, if it
hasn't been.
So those are kind of - I mean, as I look at a lot of these guys, I see, you
know, a Russian Central Asian organized crime nexus. So, I think the Arifs are in
that category, and the Agalarovs are in that category, and I think they know each

117
other. I think they go to each other's children's weddings. And I think those
weddings take place in Italy.
So that is important. l think there is a lot of activity we saw around the
island of St. Martin in the Caribbean, and a lot of Russian activity. President
Trump has a property there he has been quietly trying to sell. And there might
have been some meeting activity there. The Turkey-Russia connection I think is
deeper than is generally understood. I think that the Turkey-Russia -- I think that
the influence campaign that General Flynn got caught up In is reflective of that.
And I think it's not been excavated. And I think that Roger Stone may have
connections to that matter that are unexplored.
MR. SCHIFF: Why do you say that?
MR. SIMPSON: Things I heard from sources. I think Ted Malloch is an
important person in this whole picture. And he may have had some role in all
that. He is an interesting person who crosses over from Brexit, UKIP, Trump, and
the Turkey-Russia issue. And then the last thing I would add is, you know, we
haven't talked about Deutsche Bank at all. You know, I think they obviously know
a fair bit. But they are obviously within your subpoena power, and I am assuming
you probably already asked them to provide information.
You are out of time, sir.
MR. SCHIFF: Thank you.
BY
Q So this round l am going to attempt to keep my questions short, and
would ask tliat you might be brief with your answers. I appreciate how fulsome
you· have been in response to our questions, but want to be respectful of
everybody's times. So if we could get through some things quickly, and as

118
necessary we can elaborate. Can you just briefly describe how you met individual
Natalia Veselnitskaya or came to know her?
A Sure. I think this is largely included in the ·previous answer, but I was
retained by Baker Hostetler, and didn't know of her existence until they told me
there was a lawyer for the Prevezon company, a Russian lawyer. And eventually,
they mentioned her a few times, and eventually they mentioned her name. And at
some point, you know, they introduced me to her.
Q Do you recall when that was?
A I don't. I assume it was sometime in mid-2014.
Q And I assume that you have seen reporting, or otherwise know that
she attended what has become known as the Trump Tower meeting on June 9,
2016?
A Yes.
Q And that she presented material to Trump associates regarding Bill
Browder and the Magnitsky Act. Are you aware of that?
A I am aware of that.
MR. LEVY: Are you aware of the report?
BY
Q Are you aware that she presented material relating to Bill Browder and
the Magnitsky Act during that meeting?
A I have read that. To be clear, I didn't know about this meeting before
it happened, and I didn't know about it after it happened. And I found out about it,
I think, you know, within a day of it being disclosed in the New York Times.
Someone called me and said you heard about this meeting? And I said no. So
anyway, that was the first I had heard about it. That was in the spring of this year.

119
I, of course, have read that information some of the -- one of the subjects was
Browder. And I have been asked about it by another committee, and so I am
familiar with that.
Q Is the information that she provided during that meeting, did it
incorporate information that you or Fusion GPS had come up with as part of your
work on the President investigation?
MR. LEVY: He has already told you he wasn't at the meeting and wasn't
told about the meeting before or afterwards, so I don't know how he could answer
that question.
Mr. Levy, I understand that he has testified he doesn't know
about the meeting before or afterwards, but that does not preclude his knowledge
of what Ms. Veselnltskaya potentially presented from press reports or from talking
to others after the fact. If he has no knowledge of what she presented or how it
relates to his work, I am happy to - he is welcome to testify to that effect.
A I have no knowledge of what transpired at that meeting. No one has

ever told me what happened there. But I will say, you know, the Prevezon case
was about the issues that she reportedly talked about. So that is all I can tell you.
Q Have you seen the reporting, and particularly, the talking points or
materials on this topic, recently published by The New York Times?
MR. LEVY: You want to show a document to him?
MR. SIMPSON: Is there a specific report that you are referring to?
mean they have done a lot of reporting on this. So I don't know how to answer
your question.
BY
Q So there was a specific report within the past month or so stating that

120
the material or the talking points that Veselnitskaya presented during this Trump
Tower meeting had been socialized in some way with the Kremlin. And attached
to that report was a set of documents purporting to be --
A Oh--
Q - the talking points.
MR. LEVY: There is a lot floating around on the Internet, and The New
York Times has published a number of stories on this subject. And I just would
ask, out of fairness to the witness, if there is a specific article or publication to
which you are referring, if you could just produce it and show it to the witness so
there is no confusion for the record.
MR. GLABE: I am asking if he knows about the specific material. If he
doesn't know about it, we can refresh his memory later. But I am just asking
whether he knows about this specific material.
MR. LEVY: I appreciate that. I just think that the question itself is not
sufficiently precise, particularly if there is an actual newspaper story that we could
show him.
All right. We will do that on the next round.
Q When was the last time that you saw Ms. Veselnitskaya in person prior
to her meeting at Trump Tower on the afternoon of June 9th, 2016?
A We were at a hearing at the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Yor_k City.
And I attended the hearing along with the rest of the Baker legal team. She was
there.
Q And so we includes her?
A She was -- yes.

UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE 121
Q Do you recall what time the hearing was?
A No. I believe it was in the morning.
Q And this is the morning of June 9th?
A I think it was - according to what what's been reported in the papers, if
the Trump Tower meeting was on June 9th, yes, it was the same day. And yeah,
it was a sort of obligatory event for me. I was part of the litigation team and, you
know, former Attorney General Mukasey was argu ing for the Prevezon side, and
so we were all there.
Q And what conversations did you have, if any, with Ms. Veselnitskaya
while you were attending this hearing?
A Mrs. Veselnitskaya did not speak much English. And so my
conversations with her, every time I met her, were pretty limited. And I don't
remember having any conversation other than pleasantries.
Q And following the hearing, where did you go after that?
A I had one other event that I know of was I was trying to help the law
firm find a PR firm to handle tria l PR. And I met with Weber Schandwick I think, is
the PR firm. These .trips to New York sort of blur in my mind : I may have had
another meeting with another PR firm as well. I just don't remember. But in any
case, the only thing I remember,is one meeting with a PR firm at a hotel
somewhere, and then it was my son's high school graduation. It was an event for
my son's high school graduation , so I went to the train station and came home.
Q On June 9th?
A That's my recollection .
Q So were you anywhere with Ms. Vese lnlt skaya that day after the court
hearing?

122
A Not that I recall.
Q And do you recall the next time you saw her after the afternoon of
June 9th?
A It was a day or two later. I think it was -- I mean if June 9th was a
Friday, I probably -- maybe Saturday or Sunday, there was a social dinner that
was organized by the partner for whom I had worked during my relationship with
Baker Hostetler, Mark Cymrot, and it was at a restaurant called Barcelona, and
there was a variety of people there. There we re some people from journalism
and books, and my wife and I, and Ms. Veselnitskaya was there with Rinat
Akhmetshin and a couple other people.
Q And this is in -- where is this?
A This is in Washington .
Q Okay. So a couple days after the weekend of --
A It may have been a day after or two. I believe it was the same
weekend.
Q And did you have any conversations with Ms. Vese lnitskaya, either
directly or through an interpreter at this dinner?
A Nothing r specifically recall. I recall that they were at the other end of
the table from me. But you know, we had drinks before, and I might have said
something to her. I just -- it wouldn't stick in my mind.
Q But it's your testimony that you didn't ta!k to her about th e, what's
become known as the Trump Tower meeting before it occurred?
A Neither before nor after.
Q And you didn't, in fact, find out about that meeting until 2017?
A That's correct. That is my testimony.

123
Q And .remind me of the date of the first Steele memo.
A Somewhere around June 20, 2016. Something like that.
Q So by June 9th, this project that you were doing for - Mr. Steele had
been engaged in your research on behalf of Perkins Coie?
A I think so. But, I mean, I had been investigating Trump for like
8 months.
Q I mean, we have talked a lot about coincidences and interesting
connections, but, I mean, it's quite something that you would have been
investigating Trump for 8 months, and one of your colleagues from this other
litigation who you were with shortly before and after the meeting had , in fact, met
with Trump Jr. and other high ranking Trump associates on a related topic in the
same time period.
MR. LEVY: Is there a question?
Q You mentioned briefings that you set up with Christopher Steele in
September and October of 2016. In addition to kind of events that you did
together, did you or anyone at Fusion independently discuss the dossier with
journalists? Or the materials that became known as the dossier or are contained
in the memorandum?
A I understand the question . You know, it informed my discussions with
reporters beginning, I think, in probably July. And I don't remember -- I don't
remember specifics from the early part other than at the Democratic Convention
they had Just released -- Wikileaks had released all the Debbie Wasserman
Schultz material. And so 1t was plain from public evidence that there was a hack

124
attack afoot. And based on things that the FBI had reportedly told the DNC,
which were in The Washington Post, that it was the Russians, and that they were
weaponizing the hack. They were not engaged in surveillance, they were
engaged in an active measure. And so the question of what the Russians were
up to was on everyone's lips, especially the investigative reporters that I deal with.
And so I definitely -- it definitely informed my discussions with people .
Q Consistent with your -- the custom and practices you described earlier,
did you preclear these meeting engagements with your client?
A I didn't say that. I am not sure what you are referring to in terms of
my previous statements. I think I have been fairly careful to not get into what I did
and didn't say to my client. But what I think what I said, what I can say generally
is that if I am talking to the press about a piece of research I am doing, you know, I
would want to be - I would want my client -- my client would be aware of that.
But I am also a professional, and, so, I don't need to clear every reporter
conversation I have beforehand, or even report it afterwards with a client.
Q In addition to these press engagements both with Chris Steele and
those that you did independently, did you, Mr. Steele, or anyone at Fusion brief
any lawmakers or congressional staff regarding the dossier material or Steele's
findings during this period?
A I don 't think so. No, I don1 t remember doing that.
We will yield back to you guys.
MR. SCHIFF: No more questions at this time. I defer to Ms. Speier.
MS. SPEIER: Thank you, Mr. Simpson, for being here, and for your
attitude. I would like to kind of focus on some of the real estate. At one point I
think earlier you referred to that mansion in Florida as a derelict estate. Is that the

125
word you used?
MR. SIMPSON: I don't remember the exact words, but it had fallen into
disrepair.
MS. SPEIER: So, it was purchased by Mr. Trump for $41 million and sold
to Mr. Rybolovlev for $95 million. And since there had been few improvements
made by then-developer Mr. .Trump, what is your opinion, I guess, as to why that
big hike in the sale price?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, I originally dismissed this transaction as a runoff, .o r
not relevant, because of my imperfect and incomplete understanding of the whole
timeline. And I had never heard of Dmitry Rybolovlev. So it seemed like an
absurd acquisition. But the explanation for why he overspent was that he was
hiding money from ·his wife . And the depiction of him as a sort of reckless big
spender was pretty thoroughly developed in the press.
So, I mean this guy was spending money like a drunken sailor on all kinds
of things, and people were ripping him off in art deals. So that was my original
take on this. Also, when we first heard about it, it didn't fit with my timeline of
when Trump seemed to have gotten deeply involved with the Russians.
Later, as I understood more, I began to realize that it actually was in the
sort of first trimester of the Trump-Russia relationship , in that it actually fit in pretty
well with some of the early things that had happened. I also began to learn more
about Dmitry Rybolovlev. And that changed my view.
In particular, I didn't know in the early period that he was closely linked to
Igor Sechin, and that, in fact, he was accused of essentially destroying an entire
c ity environme nta lly w ith his potas h min ing operations, and w a s criminally
accused, and managed to get out of it and walk out of Russia with billions of
UNCLAS SIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

126
dollars with the apparent assistance of Sechin and Sechin's people. And
subsequently, received a report from a Russian emigre who is familiar with these
events that that was -- there were political or corruption aspects to that.
So, as my understanding of what I think has been happening developed, I
began to think, again, about all of this, and I am now very suspicious that he was·
deliberately overpaying. And, I mean, what we have seen over the last couple of
years that, as sort of cynical and conspiracy minded as I am, I am still shocked by
all kinds of things that have happened here, including the Trump Tower meeting .
And what we have seen is that a number of oligarchs have left Russia in recent
years who seem to still be doing the bidding of the Kremlin. And to some extent,
they like to have an image as someone who is on the outs with the Kremlin, but
when you look closely, they are not. And you know, when we looked at
Rybolovlev's plane travel, you could see that he was going to Moscow all the time,
and that all his legal problems went away, and that there was questions about
whether he really did get ripped off in these art deals or whether he just said he
got ripped off as a way of accounting for all the money that's missing. So I am
now of the view that that transaction is suspicious.
MS. SPEIER: And the additional $50-plus million that Donald Trump
received was for what purpose?
MR. SIMPSON: l don't know. I mean -- you mean the profit from that?
MS. SPEIER: Right.
MR. SIMPSON: Trump just claimed it was one of his great business deals.
He just claimed he talked him into paying double, which was odd, because the
market was going south at that point.
MS. SPEIER: You indicated that beyond the dossier and the Christopher

127
Steele research, that you conducted your own research on Russia. And I think
you have shared with us some of that. Is there other elements of your Russian
research that would be helpful to us?
MR. SIMPSON: One of the things, you know, that we worked on, I just
saw a story coming in here sort of about financial transfers from Russia through
Russian, you know, diplomatic entities, and how that was something that, you
know, there have been SARs on. And you know, we investigated-~ so there was
in one of the early memos, might even have been the first one, said "Money is
being distributed in the United States through the auspices of pension payments."
And you know, they are basically getting the mor:iey into the country and handing it
out using fake pension payments. And this is like one of those things that I ran
down as a way of evaluating the credibility of the dossier or of this memo. And so
the question is, Well, do the Russians hand out lots of money in the United States
through pension payments? And the answer is they do. And it's actually kind of
interesting. I mean there is a ton, or many thousands of Russian ernigres
who - you know, it was a communist country, so everyone worked for the
government, so the government has liabilities, pension liabilities in the U.S. that
are big.
And furthermore, there has been investigations by the Social Security
Administration about those payments and about whether some Russian emigres
are getting Social Security from both countries. And those are just ordinary fraud
investigations whether the recipients are engaged in a form of welfare fraud. But
in the course of all that, it lays out some of the operation of how this money
moves. And that all depicted to me a perfect way of moving money in the United
States that was largely untraceable, and protected by diplomatic privileges.

128
So even in a sanctions environment, you can move this money in under
color of pensions. So all of that was to me, and is, very interesting. And then we
identified a woman in Florida, a lawyer whose name escapes me, who used to
work for Gazprom, and seemed to have connections to Michael Cohen, who said
she was a - had a legal, you know, some legal role with the Russian Embassy in
Washington helping to distribute Russian pension payments. And, so, all that
was interesting and curious, and I wish I had been able to follow up on it more.
Othe_r work that we did in the dossier that I think was really useful and is
worth following up on, so we did a similar thing when we got the Carter Page
information, which was, you know, gee, we will never-- I will never find a way to
confirm whether he talked to Igor Sechin, but what was he doing in Moscow at this
school meeting? And was he on the schedule in advance? Couldn't find much
indication that this had been long announced in advance. Seemed to be hastily
arranged. Who is behind this school? Who are the· oligarchs? That was
interesting. There are some oligarchs that are involved in the school that show up
in other aspects of th is.
And, you know, eventually after the election, because I was somewhat
consumed with these matters, I began - I began, you know, I guess to back it up a
little bit, when I left the Wall Street Journal, one of the reasons why I left the Wall
Street Journal was because I wanted to write more stories about Russian
influence in Washington, D.C., on both the Democrats and the Republicans. And
I had written up a couple cases, the Curt Weldon case, some other cases, and I
had talked to some sources, and everyone said the Russians are back, and they
are buying influence in Washington left and right, and it's scary and crazy, and
they are trying to bribe all these Congressmen. And so I wrote a bunch of stories

129
about it. And eventually the Journal lost interest in that subject. And I was
frustrated . And with the change of ownership --
Anyway, that was where I left my journalism career. So hadn't paid much
attention to it. And now, all of a sudden, all these issues that were at the end of
my journalism career came back, and I became somewhat consumed with them
again, and I began reading court cases involving Russian espionage in the United
States.
I went over the Anna Chapman case, the case of the 1O illegals. And an
interesting aspect of that case is that one of the people who was targeted was
Hillary Clinton's -- one of her big donors was -- seemed to be the Russians' target
in that case. And another aspect of the case Wa$ a guy who was trying to get a
job at the New America Foundation. And it suggested that there was, you know,
a pretty elaborate attempt by the Russians to infiltrate our softer target institutions.
You know, instead of, you know, breaking into the CIA, you are breaking
into, you know, places where, you know, an open society leaves open.
So anyway, in the course of reading up on my espionage cases, I found a
case involving a guy named Buryakov, Evgeny or Eugene, who worked for, I think,
it was Sberbank and he was arrested as an illegal Russian intelligence agent.
And then in the prosecution, they identified people that he was trying to recruit.
And one of the guys fit the description of Carter Page. And so eventually, you
know, a reporter asked Carter Page, Hey, is this you , and he said yes. And so,
you know, I mean in terms of like things that have turned out to be accurate about
the dossier, I mean like, okay, so tr)is guy seems like a zero, but, in fact, you know,
in espionage tradecraft, you know, you are not going to target, you know,
someone with a good job and a stable family and a long work history, because

130
they are going to tell you to get lost. But you are going to target someone who is
greedy, lonely, ambitious. And he fit the picture.
And it turned out that he, in fact, had been a long-time target of Russian
I
intelligence and under investigation by U.S. counterintelligence. So, you know,
that's a long way of saying I think there are other espionage and sanctions cases
that shed light on the bigger operation.
MS. SPEIER: All right. Let me move onto another property, the Soho
property. What do you know about Tamir Sapir?
MR. SIMPSON: I used to know a lot. I don't remem.ber. I think he is of
Central Asian background. I believe he is deceased now. And I believe he is - I
guess there is some inter-marriage. l can't remember how it is. But I remember
something about weddings and them being socially connected. That's about all I
remember. I am sort of thinking back to one of the other questions that
Congressman Schiff asked about, things to look at. And it's kind of an
uncomfortable - I don't know really how to put it, but there is a lot of - Putin
seems to be very interested in the Jewish Diaspora. And there seems to be,
especially, the sort of Orthodox or ultra religious or conservative, and there is a
definitely something interesting to all that. Chabad, in particular, is a subject that
is curious and interesting.
And Putin essentially took over the Russian Jewish community and the
leadership of the Russian Jewish community. And appears, for reasons I can't
fully explain to be -- this appears to be a very interesting route for the Russians.
And again, I think there are many routes for the Russians. They use trade
groups, they use ethnic association groups, and at least -- and they use religious
groups.

UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITI'EE SENSITIVE 131
The Orthodox church is also an ann of the Russian State now. And when I
used to do terrorism reporting, the Mossad guys used to tell me about how the
Russians were laundering money through the Orthodox church in Israel, and that it
was intelligence operations. So -
MS. SPEIER: So the extent to which they are funding persons within let's
say the Russian Orthodox church or funding the church , is the expectation then
that those who are here in the United States, members of the Russian Orthodox
church are doing something on behalf of Russia?
MR. SIMPSON : Well, I think -- I mean the thing that I have looked at is
more in Europe, but It's using the Orthodox church as a cover to move money and
for operational cover reasons, to give people, agel"!ts jobs. A lot of the senior
people in the church are ex-KGB, or maybe still KGB . And so -
MS. SPEIER: And very religious, I guess.
MR. SIMPSON: These are actually quite well documented. The other
thing is the history of Russian espionage, a lot of the stuff they have been doing
lately is really out of the old playbook. So from my background, as I don't have
sort of any great investigative powers, so I read a lot. And a lot of what you read
in the history of Soviet espionage is what you have been seeing lately. In any
case, oh, and the class ic one of course is Kompromat. So, you know, that
obviously is something that harkens back.
Q How about Mr. Mashkevich?
One minute, ma'am.
MR. SIMPSON : He is interesting. He is another Central Asian organized
crime figure who is extremely well known to international law enforcement,
involved in a lot of money laundering activities, a lot of kleptocracy, comes out of

132
the mining industry, and is big in Kazakhstan, a member of the trio, as they are
called. And I believe that Moskovich (ph) also has connections to the Sapirs and
the Arifs.
MS. SPEIER: He was one of the financial backers evidently of Bayrock.
MR. SIMPSON: . Yes, that's right.
MS. SPEIER: And somehow, then associated with Trump Soho, or not?
MR. SIMPSON : Yes, absolutely. I think that that whole thing is -- there is
a lot left there. I don't know if you have ever asked lvanka Trump what she was
doing in Kazakhstan, but she was there. So was Don Jr.• I believe. She talks
about it in her book. She doesn't say what she was doing there, you but she says
she was there. I think she mentions eating a cow stomach.
. We are at time, ma'am.
Q So Mr. Simpson, I just handed you a New York Times article entitled
Talking Points Brought to Trump Tower Meeting Were Shared With Kremlin from
The New York Times. Do you recall reading or otherwise being familiar with this
article?
A So I read the article at the time. I didn't realize that this was
appended to the article. Is this from the article?
Q So in addition to the article, I have handed you a two-page memo that
according to the article was a document provided by the office of Mr. Chaika, the
Russian prosecutor, to an American Congressman in approximately April of 2016,
paragraphs of which were also incorporated in the talking points that Ms.
Veselnitskaya brought to the Trump Tower meeting .
And particularly, with respect to this memo, if you have a chance to look it

133
over, does it reflect or incorporate research that Fusion did? Does that two-page
memo reflect or incorporate research that Fusion did in the Prevezon litigation?
A I don't know for sure. Actually, someone sent me a memo that I think
was in Russian, and it wasn't this one. Yeah, like last week. Sorry. It was
linked to a news article. Right. So, I have not studied this closely. And I
certainly had no role in putting this together. And I didn't -- wasn't at the meeting,
and I wasn't aware of what transpired at the meeting, including what was
discussed.
Q So let's sort of take a -- I understand that's your testimony. So take it
one at a time . Have you seen this -- do you recall seeing this memo before?
A I actually don't. Someone sent me one that was different, but - so
there was an article in Foreign Policy recently where they said we've got the
memo . And I remember looking at it, and I don't remember it being this one.
And I did read this article. I am familiar with some of the information in here.
Q Is it the same -- well, J believe you have already testified that your
research connected to the Prevezon case involved Mr. Browder. Did it also
involve researching the Ziff Brothers?
A Yes.
Q And did you share information in that connection with Ms.
Veselnitskaya?
A Well, I would write memoranda for Baker Hofstetler. And yeah, l think
I -- it ultimately -- ultimately would go to Ms. Veselnitskaya, in the litigation.
Q Were you aware that she was sharing information on these topics with
the Russian prosecutor general's office?
A I don't know. I can tell you what I - what happened, which was that

134
as Mr. Browder became a more central figure in the Prevezon litigation, and the
question of whether he was, in fact, evading his taxes in Russia became an issue,
we began to try to understand the Hermitage Fund and how it worked, and
whether it paid taxes and who its clients were and its structure. So I conducted
some research on these dozens of shell companies that were associated with the
Hermitage Fund based in Cyprus.
Q Was one of those Giggs Enterprises Limited?
A I think so .
Q Zhoda Limited?
A Yep.
Q Peninsular Heights Limited?
A I think so.
Q And so once you conducted that research, it made its way, you
understood, to Ms. Veselnitskaya. Did you understand at the time that it was
potentially making its way from her to the upper ranks of the Kremlin?
A No.
Q But it is fair to say, however, that the negative viewpoints expressed in
this memo regarding Mr. Browder and Mr. Magnitsky are consistent with the
~remlin's own viewpoints on these matters?
A They are consistent with the Kremlin's. They are not consistent with
mine. Obviously, the Kremlin has very strong feelings on these things. I do not.
I obviously think that Sergey Magnitsky was killed in prison by neglect, if not
worse. And I think that William Browder's position that he holds now on Vladimir
Putin is very similar to mine. And so --
Q Have you shared that opinion with Ms. Veselnitskaya?

135
A That's a funny question. But I don't -- actually, my wife has shared
those opinions with Ms. Veselnitskaya. I can't remember whether I said those
things. In any event, I do remember doing this research. I thought it was good
research. It was research for the lawsuit. I didn't think it was important research.
I thought it was well done. We were able to figure out from a pretty big paper
chase who the clients ofthis hedge fund were. And in fact, they potentially do
have tax liability in Russia if the Hermitage Fund was cheating on their taxes in
Russia. So that was the point of the research.
Q But does it disturb or trouble you at all that this research was
incorporated, used somehow, found its way in part to what you described earlier
as a part of a Russian Government-directed operation?
A I prepared this research in connection with an American lawsuit for an
American law firm.
Q I understand.
A It all happens to be accurate. And so, you know, if someone used
this research that they, you know, commissioned through a law firm for a
legitimate legal purpose, took it and repurposed it in some other way, I can't say as
I am upset by that. I mean, I must say in my business, right, I am in the
information business, so when people commission research from you, it becomes
their property when you are finished with the research, when you give it to them.
So if they decide to go and use it for something else, I mean, that's just beyond my
control. So I will add that, you know, as someone who is not a fan of Vladimir
Putin, I don't take any great -- I certainly am not happy to do anything that anyone
would think was helping Vladimir Putin. And to the extent that this has subjected
me to an unfair accusation that I was engaged in some kind of Kremlin operation, I

136
find that very regrettable.
Q You mentioned, I believe earlier, that in addition to Ms. Veselnitskaya,
Mr. Akhmetshin was also at the dinner a couple days after this meeting?
A That's my recollection.

137
BY
Q And had you met Mr. Akhmetshin before?
A I have known Mr. Akhmetshin since I was a reporter at the Wall Street
Journal.
Q And other than this dinner, have you, Mr. Akhmetshin, and Ms.
Veselnitskaya ever had any meetings together?
A I don't know whether the three of us have met together specifically.
think there have been other meetings or maybe lunches or something
that -- where we have all been present. At the time of the most of this case, she
was just a lawyer from Russia. Sol don't have a very clear memory of all the
meetings and lunches and things.
Q Did you understand her to be acting on behalf of the Russian
Govem~ent or to have had a past relationship with the Russian Government?
A I certainly didn't understand her to be acting on behalf of the Russian

Government. And it was my impression that she was not a heavy hitter in
Moscow or with the Kremlin. Sh e seemed to be ambitious, but she didn't seem to
be, you know, carrying the Kremlin stripes. I just remember she was introduced
to me as someone who had previously been a government lawyer, and described
to me by the Baker lawyers as actually a very good lawyer who seemed to really
have a strong command of facts. And in my dealings with her, that turned out to
be true. I mean she was able to produce a lot of records on these criminal cases
that we were interested in.
Q Did Mr. Akhmetshin work with you on the Prevezon litigation?
A I mean we both worked on the same case, and I had occasion to deal

138
with him. But he was brought in at a much later date. For most of the case it
was just litigation, and he had no role.
Q Have you worked with him on other matters?
A I don't -- I mean we have never done business together.
Q So you have never paid him or --
A Not that I can think of.
Q Who besides yourself -- who at Fusion besides yourself worked on
both the Prevezon project for Baker Hofstetler and the dossier research for
Perkins Coie?
A I mean I am not sure anyone fits that precise description. It is a small
company, so there may have been some people who had some kind of tangential
connection to both matters. I just want to add that we have had a lot of
harassment and security concerns, particularly very lately.
And so if you want to - I am not sure liow to navigate this. I will try to
answer your questions, but I am also a little concerned about some of my staff are
younger. Some of them have young children. So I am a little uncomfortable
getting into too much of that kind of thing .
Q Okay. Were there individuals besides yourself who either worked for
Fusion or on behalf of Fusion worked on both the Prevezon project and the
research for Perkins Coie?
A I mean there is one in particular who did some work on both cases as
a subcontractor. I actually think within my staff there is not much overlap. We
have a long-standing relationship with a subcontractor named Ed Baumgartner
who has a degree in Russian from Vassar, I think. And I don't know if you would
call him a linguist, he is not a translator, but he works for us on Russian things
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE S ENS ITIVE

139
involving the Russian language.
So I don't read or speak Russian. So we retained Ed to -- originally in the
Prevezon case to do some inteNiews in Moscow, I think, and retrieve some
records from Russia. And other Russian language-related tasks as part of the
litigation and discovery process.
Q So Mr. Baumgartner went to Russia on your behalf in the Prevezon
matter?
A With the lawyers, yes.
Q And he worked on the Perkins Coie matter as well?
A Eventually. So by the spring of 2016 the Prevezon thing was on hold,
and basically focused on this appellate hearing, which didn't involve a lot of Russia
stuff. And then it basically everything got stayed until the decision was -- anyway,
in any event, I don't recall Edward working on - I recall him working on Prevezon
and not on the other matter. There came a time when the Prevezon matter was
A nd I
less active and we had a need for more work on the other matter. _
specifically remember assigning him to do work in the summer or fall of 2016 on
Michael Cohen's business connections to Russia and Ukraine and his
father-in-law's background in Russia. And so he worked on both._ And I think
Edward might have also worked on some Manafort stuff, although I am less clear
on that.
Q Did he travel to Russia on your or Fusion's behalf in connection with
the Trump research?
A Did he travel -- no. Not that I know of.
MR. SCHIFF: Ms. Speier?
MS. SPEIER: There has been many reports on the Bank of Cyprus and

140
the use by Russian oligarchs of that bank to launder money through it and the role
Wilbur Ross played in that. Do you have any information on that?
MR. SIMPSON : Not really. I mean Rybolovlev was also, you know, a
figure at the Bank of Cyprus. And some Paul Manafort shell company accounts
wound up I think at the Bank of Cyprus. So there is definitely some overlap. But
I couldn't tell you whether - I don't have an opinion on whether it's significant.
MS. SPEIER: Okay. There was a report that - you referenced earlie r
about how Donald Trump worked with the Italian Mafia in the 90s I think, and then
in the 2000s it appears he was working with the Russian Mafia. That was what
you testified to earlier today.
MR. SIMPSON: That's correct.
MS. SPEIER: At Trump Tower in New York City, the New York Police
arrested 29 suspects who were allegedly running gambling rings and money
laundering out of two condos, one of which occupied an entire floor in Trump
Tower. One of the bosses that I think you mentioned earlier, Tokhtakhovno was the
only target that slipped away, and then was seen later with Donald Trump in a VIP
section of the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. Do you know anything
more about that Mafia organization operating out of Trump Tower?
MR. SIMPSON: I mean I am trying to summon it from my memory. We
spent a lot of time looking at this. I mean there was another guy - I don't
remember anything that I think is notable that would be useful for you .
MS. SPEIER: The investment in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in
Toronto. It appears that Mr. Trump's original partner was Leib Waldman, who was a
fugitive who fled to Toronto from the United States after pleading guilty to
bankruptcy fraud and embezzlement in 1995. The Ritz Carlton , which had


141
originally been named as the hotel operator, then abandoned the project after
Wald man's status was revealed.
Mr. Trump's other partners included a man who illegally converted a New
York factory to loss only to have the city order all his ~enants evicted to protect
them from hazardous conditions. Another partner owned a nursing home
company which was cut off from Federal funds due to concerns that the residents'
safety was at risks .. Alex Schnaider, a Russian-born Canadian national, became
the principal developer. Schnaider had no ·previous hotel or condo development
experience.His most apparent qualification seemed to be that he had made a lot of
money quickly.
Financing came from an Austrian bank with no apparent experience in
Canadian dev~lopment, and which had been accused of acting as a conduit for
Russian money laundering . Schnaider made misleading statements about the
project, and ultimately the project failed and went through bankruptcy. The new
buyer removed Mr. Trump's name from the project. What do you know about that?
A Schnaider (ph) is probably the most interesting of those characters. His
father-in-law is a very important figure in the history of the KGB-Mafia alliance .. He
is named Boris Birshtein. Boris is connected to Mr. Moskovich. And all these
people know each other. And they are all connected in one way or another to the
Russian Mafia, and some of them are connected to the intelligence services.
These guys in particular, I believe, if I am remembering things correctly, have
connections to the Solntsevo Brotherhood, which is the dominant Mafia family.
And Beerstein was the manager of the KGB's offshore funds after the
collapse of the Soviet Union, and is well known in European law enforcement for
UNCLASS IFIED , COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

142
his activities. And he is known to Belgian law enforcement, French, and crosses
paths with Moskovich on a lot of this stuff. So we are talking about the same
crowd. Raiffeisen Bank was during that period the main service bank for the top
level Russian corruption and organized crime activity.
So I wrote a lot about Raiffeisen ·in those days because they were
laundering the money from the Mafia gas trading scheme that Putin was running
between Ukraine and Russia. And when the Mogilevich Dmytro Firtash network
was setting up their finance role and corporate operations to siphon
money off the gas trade, they did it with Raiffeisen. And they came up in
several other cases, and they were the go to bank for top level Russian dirty stuff.
In regard to all that, and again going back to your earlier question, I think
that there is a lot of information to be had from Canadian law enforcement and
from Belgian law enforcement about some of these characters. I think you they
know pretty well who these guys are, and they have been looking at them for a
long time.
MS. SPEIER: Okay. What is the interest of Russia with the National Rifle
Association?
MR. SIMPSON: I think that most of what we have found is pretty much out
there now. You know, it's been said by others, but, you know, what eventually - it
appears the Russians, you know, infiltrated the NRA And there is more than one
explanation for why. But I would say broadly speaking, it appears that the
Russian operation was designed to infiltrate conservative organizations. And they
targeted various conservative organizations, religious and otherwise, and they
seem to have made a very concerted effort to get in with the NRA.
And so there is a Russian banker-slash-Duma member-slash-Mafia leader

143
named Alexander Torshin who is a life member of the NRA. And we spent a lot of
time investigating Mr. Torshin . And he is well known to Spanish law enforcement
for money laundering activity, and you have probably seen the press articles. And I
think the Spanish files on him should be available to you.And he, as you know,
was supposed to have a meeting with President Trump after the inauguration. And
somebody noticed that there had been some stories about him that weren't pretty
good.
So he is one of the more important figures, but, you know, another woman
with whom he was working, Maria Butina, also was a big Trump fan in Russia, and
then suddenly showed up here and started hanging around the Trump transition
after the election and rented an apartment and enrolled herself at AU , which I
assume gets you a visa.
MS. SPEIER: She rented an apartment where?
MR. SIMPSON: AU Park in Tenleytown. Went to American University
and rented an apartment up there. I think she is suspicious. I guess the last
thing I will say on this is that we just started seeing this stuff when all the other
Russia stuff started bubbling up. And the thing I found, you know, the most
absurd about this is that, you know, Vladimir Putin is not in favor of universal gun
ownership for Russian s. And so it's all a big charade, basically.
MS. SPEIER: You said there were other conservative groups. Are there
other conservative groups in the United States that they have infiltrated to your
knowledge?
MR. SIMPSON : I think there's been -we have done some research on
so me religi ous groups having relationships w ith the Russians, having, developing ,
and pursuing relationships with various religious groups. The names of them

144
escape my mind . But there has been a lot of that. And then there has been the
independence movements, California independence, Texas independence. You
know, it's a big operation.
Five minutes, ma'am:
MS. SPEIER: You said that Mr. Steele provided you information after the
election as well. So it wasn't in the dossier?
MR. SIMPSON: It actually was in what's known as the dossier. It's just it
came in after the election and we weren't being paid for it. And that's been a
subject of litigation. Some of that stuff led to a lawsuit. But in any event, you
know, yes. So in the period immediately after the election, Chris had a source
network and, you know, some of the sources continued providing information for a
little while. It's just, you know, when you set something up it kind of takes a while
to taper off. So we received some new alarming stuff about this Prague meeting
that came in after the election.
MS. SPEIER: And it appears that one of the sources was mysteriously
killed?
MR. SIMPSON: That's not my information . I mean there was a series of
episodes where people were arrested or died mysteriously that came shortly after
the disclosure of the existence of this information. And I do believe there was a
bit of an old fashioned purge.
And I think that - but to my knowledge, it wasn't anyone that helped us.
think it was more likely people who were taking the opportunity to settle scores or
were falsely accused, as often, you know, just like in the old days, and/or were
sources of the U.S. Intelligence Community, not us.
MS. SPEIER: In researching Donald Trump's finances, and the fact that

145
he was, you know, financially underwater, it seems in the mid-2000s, how much of
his income was coming purely from naming rights? Have you ever tried to figure
that out?
MR. SIMPSON: No. Of course, you know, getting reliable information
about his finances was pretty hard. But I think it was -- I mean I think that sort of
non-equity revenues was a big part of it. I also think that, you know, a lot of his
income comes from trusts and things that his father set up, and that he doesn't
actually make that much money, you know, in terms of profits from his own
activities. He still funds much of his -- from, you know, assets that were acquired
by his father.
MS. SPEIER: Ivana Trump, did she have any involvement in any of this?
MR. SIMPSON: .Not to my knowledge. But we have looked at the Czech
issue, and, you know, lvanka and Don Jr. speak a little bit of Czech, spent
summers in the Czech countryside. And we examined, you know, whether that
had any connection to the allegations of a Prague meeting. But other than that, I
mean we have looked at -- her continuing involvement with the whole Trump
organization is something we thought was interesting and looked at. But beyond
that, I don't remember.
One minute.
MR. SCHIFF: I have a few more questions. But I will hand back.
BY
Q I am pleased to report I believe this will be our last round.
So I believe it is your testimony that you continued to receive information
from Mr. Steele, but were not -- after the election, but were no longer being paid
for that. Is that correct?

146
A Yes. I think what I was specifically talking about was the -- I think it's
the last memo or one or two, whatever is at the very end of the collection known
as the dossier was not paid for and not part of any engagement.
Q Now, I infer from your sort of recollection of all these issues, as well as
from your use of the present tense, that you remain active in researching these
issues. Is that correct?
A Well, I remain interested in all of these issues. What I do in terms of
my other work is not something I am in a position to talk about.
Q So after you are no longer being paid by Perkins Coie and then there
is a time where you received information but weren't being paid, did you then
resume engagements with respect to the issues?
A I am not going to get into any of my current work, but, you know, I still
run my company and we still have, you know, lots of business.
Q Does any of that business relate to the issues that we discussed
today?
A I am not going to answer that.
Q As I am sure you are aware , what's become known as the dossier was
published on January 10th of 2017, I believe, by Buzzfeed. I believe Jt was your

testimony earlier that you did not - or Fusion did not provide the dossier to
Buzzfeed. ls that correct?
A That's correct.
Q Do you know who did provide the dossier to Buzzfeed?
A No. I have my suspicions , but they are just guesses .
Q I am suspecting Mr. Levy is not going to entertain -- allow us to
enterta in those guesses.
UNCLASS IFIED, COMMITTEE SENS ITIVE

147
MR. LEVY: I am not the witness, but generally speaking it's not good to
speculate.
MR. SIMPSON: I think what I would like to say, to be clear to everybody,
is that we treated this information with a great deal of care. And we did that for a
lot of different reasons, but among other things, because we thought this was a
real national security issue, and because we thought that if it was just put out there
in the way it was put out that people could get hurt and that people literally risked
their lives to tell us some of this stuff, and that there was a lot of security issues
around it. So I was very upset when it was published.
BY
Q Prior to the publication on January 10th, how many journalists wou ld
you estimate that you talked to either with Mr. Steele or separately related to this
information?
A I mean again I would be guessing .
Q In this case I ai:n asking for an estimate based on your best
recollection.
A I am not going to guess, but I will say that again, the depiction of this
document as having been peddled around town , it wasn't peddled around town by
me. And if someone was peddling it, it was without my knowledge and against
my wishes. And to the extent that we discussed some of the information in the
dossier, I would say It was, you know, a relatively small number of reporters.
Q Would you estimate it as more or less than 1O?
A I mean it's really hard for me to guess, but you know, it's a low number
lik e that.
Q You mentioned that you fel t this information had sort of national

148
security significance. You mentioned how Mr. Steele proceeded with respect to
this information. Did you at any time approach the FBI directly regardi~g this
information or your findings?
MR. LEVY: By the way, he has testified for over -- nearly 6 hours, so he
said a lot more than that, but you can answer the question.
MR. SIMPSON: I didn't approach the FBI.
BY
Q Are you aware of anyone who did on Fusion's or. Perkins Coie's
behalf?
A Beyond Chris Steele?
Q Yes, beyond Chris Steele.
A No.
Q So we appreciate the opportunity to get your voluntary testimony
today. We also have sought document production. Are you prepared to
voluntarily provide documents that are responsive to the subpoena? Or I am
sorry, to our request?
MR. 'LEVY: You have our response to the subpoena for documents. You
also have knowledge that some of our position is now the subject of pending
litigation about which we will have a h·earing tomorrow.
: No. Well, let me clarify. We issued a voluntary request,

followed by a subpoena. The subpoena has now been lifted. Mr. Simpson is
testifying here voluntarily. Having lifted the subpoena, we are now back to the
voluntary phase of your testimony. So the question is with respect to the request
to Fusion -- or to Mr. Simpson, is he prepared to voluntarily provide documents
relevant to this committee's investigation?

149
MR. LEVY: We have to stand on the same privileges that we already
have. We will take the request back and evaluate it.
So is your answer no, see our letter of October 16th, or you

will consider the request?
MR. LEVY: It is please look at our letter from October 16, and we will take
it back.
But I am a bit confused , because your letter of October 16
also stated numero1,1s reasons why Mr. Simpson and his colleagues were not
prepared to testify voluntarily. He has now testified voluntarily and been quite, as
you pointed out, quite fulsome and extensive In his remarks, which we appreciate.
So to the extent that the Jetter of October 16th is no longer so rt of current
with respect to his testimony since he has now provided testimony voluntarily, how
is it that the arguments in that Jetter are relevant or attain with respect to the
document production?
MR. LEVY: I don't know that we need to go through this back and forth,
quite frankly, but we are very pleased that the committee was able to reach the
agreement that we had asked for on October 3rd that Mr. Nunes rejected in a day.
It's the same agreement that we reached with the two other committees
investigating the same subject matter area. We are glad that we have gotten to
this point.
Obviously, the agreement that we reached came th rough some careful
discussion between both the majority and the minority members of this committee
and counsel for Mr. Simpson. We appreciate that the subpoena has now been
lifted. But the privileges are the privileges . They are legal claims. We have
asserted them. They are in the letter.

150
So is it your position that the privileges asserted in the letter
preclude any production of any documents so that we can advise our members
accordingly?
MR. LEVY: As I said, I think it would be helpful if we took the request
back, discussed it among ourselves.· Now that the subpoena has been lrfted it's a
new day. That said, we are not waiving any of the privileges that we have
asserted in the letter.
Understood.
And also pursuant t o - line of questioning, will Mr.
Simpson provide his work email address to this committee?
MR. LEVY: Off the record. Meaning not on the transcript, but we can give
it to you .
Right. That's fine. If you as his counsel can just send it to
the committee.
MR. LEVY: We can do that.
- : Thank you.
MR. LEVY: And if he could do so without waiving any objections or
privileges.
- : Understood. Thank you very much. One moment. Sorry,
just two more lines of questioning, Mr. Simpson.
BY
Q Mr. Simpson, did you or Fusion GPS ever conduct any sort of
research during the 2016 Presidential election cycle on then-candidate Hillary

Clinton?

151
A I guess it depends on how you define the cycle.
Q I will help you. From January 1, 2015 through the election.
A I don't specifically remember, but what I can say is that the Clinton
Foundation and related issues has come up in my work a lot. And I can't
remember when the last time was. So it's hard to be categorical.
Q I guess I can narrow it down a little more for you. Were you tasked by
anyone or sought out by any company, agency, individual to conduct
research - without naming those individuals -- to conduct the research on
then-candidate Hillary Clinton?
A Yeah. I think we agreed to talk to you about these two matters that
you rightly are interested in. And I have tried to be as helpful as possible. So
that would be not something that I am prepared to talk about. I will say that I have
gotten journalistic inquiries about this subject, and I have tried to be helpful to
reporters about this subject.
Obviously, at some point, you know, that became a conflict of interest. But
it is something that I just know a fair bit about because of all the work that we have
done over the years.
Q All right. Just so I am clear, I think our agreement, and Mr. Levy can
correct me if I am wrong, we are investigating the 2016 election campaign cycle,
irrespective of party. So that's why my question was directed in that fashion.
MR. LEVY: Let me just take a 1 a-second break to confer with Mr.
Simpson.
Sure. Go ahead.
MR. SCHIFF: And I want to specify too that while the scope of our
investigation is into the Russian active measures campaign, as well as

152
connections between the Trump campaign -- or either campaign and the
Russians, some things that are beyond the scope of that are not what we are
asking about.
MR. SIMPSON: No one hired me to investigate Hillary Clinton in 2015 or
2016. What did happen is that issues about Hillary Clinton came up in other
investigations. and I can't remember the specifics, and I just remember they came
up. A lot of times when we have a client come to us because of some business
matter that is connected to politics or policy in Washington, the question of
whether there was improper influence is part of the research. And I remember
issues about policy, foreign policy coming up in other cases where it looked
like -- and in fact there was --
1am a little tired, but I think the question of whether people exerted
influence through the Clinton Foundation was part of some business investigation
that we were doing. She didn't come up in Prevezon, the nuclear stuff. The
nuclear stuff had come up over the years, and it's something I know little about.
BY-:
Q Lastly, you brought up the Clinton Foundation. Is there any of the
work conducted by you or Fusion GPS relevant to the Clinton Foundation related
to our investigation, the parameters we have described? Can you shed some
light on that?
A No. I mean I would tell you if it did. Not that I can think of.
Q Sorry. And last question. Did you similarly along the lines of the
Democratic side, were you hired, without naming the entities, were you retained,
you or Fusion GPS, to conduct or find research on any of the other 16 Republican

153
candidates in the field?
MR. LEVY: I am sorry, can you repeat that question?
B ~:
Q Sure. Were you or Fusion GPS retained, without naming or
identifying the clients, to conduct research on any of the other 16 Republican
candidates in the 2016 election cycle?
A That question , in the way you phrased it, has refreshed my memory,
and I was -- I remember we did work on Ted Cruz. And I think it was part of the
Beacon matter. And it was a long while ago in this whole thing. And I just didn't
remember it, but now I remember we looked af some Cruz-related stuff.
Q Any of the other candidates, of the other 16 candidates?
A I don't remember. But it was, you know, it was a while ago. I just
don't recall.
Q Fair enough. lf you do remember, would you just let your counsel
know so he could provide the appropriate documentation to us?
A Sure.
Thanks very much. Scott, do you have anything? Over to
you .
Thank you.
MR. SCHIFF: I just have a few more questions. I think we are almost at
the end. First of all, before I forget, thank you for your testimony today and all of
your cooperation. It has been I think very helpful to all of us.
On the document issue, we are not in the loop for the most part on the
litigation. That's being handled by the majority without much not only Input, but
knowledge of the minority.

154
Mr. Schiff?
MR. SCHIFF: Yeah .
I apologize for interrupting, but I just want to clarify, happy to
discuss that issue, but I just want to clarify in reference to the earlier comments
that Mr. Levy made that when I was asking about documents, I was asking about
our document request to Fusion and to Mr. Simpson separate and apart from any
document request for banking records or anything else.
MR. SCHIFF: Yeah. You know, as I was saying, we are not that privy to
what the litigation is over, what documents, what the scope of that is. And I don't
know how, therefore, that bleeds over into the document request here. If there
are documents within the scope of what we have been asking about that you are
able to provide, we would encourage you to do it.
But again, because I don't understand the litigation, I can't speak to how
that may influence what the court may decide your obligation, your privileges are
vis-a-vis other documents. So I can't speak to that.
So a few final questions. I want to make sure I understand this correctly.
Your firm is retained by Prevezon for assistance in the litigation. Is that right? I
am sorry, by Baker Hostetler. Is that right?
MR. SIMPSON: Correct.
MR. SCHIFF: Baker Hostetler represents Prevezon .
MR. SIMPSON : Correct.
MR. SCHIFF: Veselnitskaya is a Russian attorney for Prevezon .

MR. SIMPSON : Correct.
MR. SCHIFF: It sounds like former Attorney General Mukasey also was an
attorney on behalf of Prevezon.
UNCL.~SSIFIED 1 COMMITTEE SENSITIVE

155
MR. SIMPSON: He was an appellate attorney.
MR. SCHIFF: So you didn't work directly for Veselnitskaya. You worked
for Baker Hofstetler.
MR. SIMPSON: That's right. I have a long-standing relationship with
Baker Hofstetler, covering a variety of cases. Only this one has anything to do
with Russia.
MR. SCHIFF: So the work that you compiled you compiled for Baker
Hofstetler for use in the Prevezon case.
MR. SIMPSON: That's correct.
MR. SCHIFF: What Ms. Veselnitskaya may have done with any
information produced in that litigation, would she have shared that information with
you?
MR. SIMPSON: Generally speaking, no. But she did say to me at one
point that she thought the Ziff Brothers information was important. And l didn't
really understand what she was talking about. It didn't seem that important to me.
MR. SCHIFF: Are you aware of any connections that Veselnitskaya may
or may not have with Russian intelligence?
MR. SIMPSON: No.
MR. SCHIFF: It was reported in the emails setting up the Trump Jr.,
Trump Tower meeting that this had been arranged by Mr. Agalarov, Aras
Agalarov, and Emin as well. There was a reference to information obtained from
Mr. Chaika, I think he was referred to as the crown prosecutor. Are you aware of
any relationship between Ms. Veselnitskaya and Mr. Chaika?
MR. SIMPSON: I have read about that in the newspaper. I don't believe
she ever told me that she had a relationship with him. I mean first of all, we do

156
everything through translators, and so we wouldn't have very fulsome exchanges.
But I believe that she may have alluded at times to giving information to the
government for purposes of tax law enforcement.
And to the extent that she made references to, you know -- it was in
connection with -- at least I understood it to be in connection with some kind of a
tax enforcement action to recover taxes, unpaid taxes. And I can't remember
whether she mentioned having any relationship with the chief prosecutor.
MR. SCHIFF: But she did mention she had some relationship with the
government, at least as far as provid ing tax information was conce rned?
MR. SIMPSON: Right. She didn't say she was a government agent, she
didn't say she worked for the intelligence services, she didn't say any of that. All
she said was something about this information is good because it has to do with
the unpald taxes .
MR. SCHIFF: So if she was doing work for the intelligence agencies, she
wouldn't confide that in you?
MR. SIMPSON: No, that's true.
MR. SCHIFF: And would it be your practice to discuss with one client work
you are doing for another client?
MR. SIMPSON: No.
MR. SCHIFF: So the work you were employing Mr. Steele to do would not
be something you would have shared with Ms. Veselnitskaya?
MR. SIMPSON: I didn't share it with most of my employees. Yes, to
answer you, generally speaking we compartmentalize things, both like a law firm
would, and in running an intelligence operation you would too.
So if we are - so we don't tell one subcontractor what another

157
subcontractor is doing. We d~rn't tell our subs who our clients are. And we
certainly don't tell one client.what we are doing with another client.
MR. SCHIFF: And Ms. Veselnitskaya never fed you .information that made
it into the materials that you were providing your Perkins Coie client?
MR. SIMPSON: No. In fact, the only information I even remember get
getting from ·Ms. Veselnitskaya was the criminal case extortion case files in 2014.
And they didn't even come to me, they went to Baker Hofstetler, and they went
into the, you know, e-discovery program. And I just had access to the translated
version.
MR. SCHIFF: The reason I ask this question is, and you probably have
seen this, there is a conspiracy theory that the Russians were, eith~r through Ms.
Veselnitskaya or else ways, feeding you misinformation to go into the dossier to
spur an FBI investigation as part of a Russian active measures campaign. Is
there any truth to that theory that you can see?
MR. SIMPSON: There is no truth to that theory to my mind. I would
certainly agree with the observation that for these matters to have intersected in
the way they did is, you know, remarkable. And it caught me totally by surprise,
and I have spent a lot of time thinking about wha·t it means, if it means anything.
And as best as I can figure, the Russians were up to a lot of stuff, and I
knew only about some of it. And l am one of a relatively small number of people
who does a lot pf work in these areas. And so the fact that I ended up, you know,
having two connections to this stuff is not shocking to me because, as I say, the
sort of Russia field is not very big. So that part of ifs not that surprising. But it
still was a surprise the way these intersected.
MR. SCHIFF: Now, the CEO of Prevezon was who?

158
UNCLASSIFIED,COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
MR. SIMPSON: Denis Katsyv.
MR. SCHIFF: And would Mr. Katsyv be considered an oligarch?
MR. SIMPSON: No. At least he doesn't have a media profile as an
oligarch. And that was the thing that I scanned for when the case came in. You
know, are these guys -- can they get visas to the U.S.? Are they considered
connected with some Mafia outfit? Do they go to the Kremlin to meet with Putin?
And there was none of that.
So, you know, so it seemed okay to me. I wouldn't, you know -- they just
didn't have much of a profile. And so I figured if they were big oligarchs, and
especially bad oligarchs, that I would have heard of them .
MR. SCHIFF: And were you aware of any connection between Mr. Katsyv
and the Russian Government?
MR. SIMPSON : Well, his father was a -- at the time that I was retained, his
father was a minister in the Moscow city government. He was the transportation
minister. And he is later, he is now the deputy head of the state railroad, state
railroad company. And so that's a connection.
MR. SCHIFF: And did the father, to your knowledge, have any
connections with Mr. Chaika?
MR. SIMPSON: I have no idea.
MR. SCHIFF: Or did Mr. Katsyv have any connections to Mr.
Agalarov?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, what I have heard in recent months is that there is
some connection , or maybe even read it, I can't remember, but there is some
connection between Agalarov and Ms. Veselnitskaya. And I don't know what it is.
I don't even remember where I heard it.
UNCLASSIFIED , COMMITTEE SENS I TIVE

159
MR. SCHIFF: Well , the emails would demonstrate some link.
MR. SIMPSON: Well, right. There was some kind of a - she represented
him or something.
MR. SCHIFF: In the litigation, I think as you have described it, Mr.
Browder would have been a hostile witness or a hostile party to Prevezon's
interests. Is that fair to say?
MR. SIMPSON : Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: In that respect, the Kremlin's interests would be aligned with
Prevezon, not the -- who was the other party?
MR. SIMPSON : The U.S. Justice Department.
MR. SCHIFF: The U.S. Justice Department. So the Kremlin's interests
would have been aligned against U.S. Treasury or U.S. Justice Department and
with Prevezon.
MR. SIMPSON: Yes. And at the time this case got .underway, it seemed
pretty obscure. It was a civil money laundering case . But in retrospect, what I
think might have happened was that - so when the case started it wasn't about
William Browder. It was about a technical argument about whether you could
prove that money from something in Russia went into this real estate
development. And so it didn't have a political dimension to me particularly, it was
a technical argument. And that is how the case was introduced to me, and the
fight was going to be over what the bank records showed.
So it was a reasonably interesting case, but not very potentially
controversial. But as we went into discovery, you know, the discovery trail led to
Vladimir Putin's biggest critic_ . And, you know, at that point, because it b ecame
sort of a· focal point of the case where the allegations came from and whether they

160
could be supported, you know, I ended up doing work on Vladimir Putin's biggest
critic. And you know, that wasn't what I set out to do. And it made me
uncomfortable.
MR. SCHIFF: But it may have been within the understanding of either the
Kremlin or the Russian intelligence agencies that the party on the opposite side of
this, the party that had instigated this was their nemesis, Mr. Browder.
MR. SIMPSON: You know, if you want to spin it out far enough, it's
possible they knew that's where the trail would go. But we didn't -- at least the
other lawyers and I didn't know that was where this would head.
MR. SCHIFF: The reason I am asking this is you have Ms. Veselnitskaya
working on this litigation, which leads to Mr. Browder.
MR. SIMPSON: Uh-huh.
MR. SCHIFF: And therefore leads to the Magnitsky Act. You have Ms.
Veselnitskaya at this meeting at Trump Tower about the Magnitsky Act. You
have the Magnitsky Act being one of the highest priorities of the Kremlin to repeal.
Does that in your experience tell you something about Ms. Veselnitskaya's
importance to the Kremlin, relationship with the Kremlin? Is it suggestive in any
way that she may have had a bigger role than you knew at the time?
MR. SIMPSON: Well, I mean let me say, you know, I have certainly been
mulling whether my original view of her as a minor player was wrong . And I think
it would be natural to ask yourself that. But I will add that, I mean a couple of
things there. One, you know, this legislative issue wasn't about overturning the
Magnitsky Act, it was about the name of some global Magnitsky Act, which as I
understand it wasn't really even targeted at Russia. So, ·you know, it's unclear to
me what the real plan was if there was some Kremlin plan behind all of that.

161
So, you know, what I think happened was that when they saw that we were
finding stuff that tended to discredit Mr. Browder - so the Russians have been
trying to discredit Browder forever. And they churn out fake news on Browder.
They do fake movies accusing him of murder and all this other baloney. And my
view is that when we started producing actual information in court that was
embarrassing to him, and tended to raise questions about his activities in Russia,
that they opportunistically began to try to exploit that.
And that would fit with my view of Ms. Veselnitskaya as well, which is that
she viewed the success that we had in finding certain kinds of information as a
ticket to political advancement in Moscow. There is only one way up in Russia,
and that is do something that impresses Vladimir Putin. And so, you know, I
could be wrong, but we viewed her as a very ambitious but not particularly, you
know, someone with a lot of juice.

MR. SCHIFF: That sounds like a description of Carter Page.
MR. SIMPSON: But I could be wrong about all of this and I am prepared to
be wrong because these people are Russians. So knowing that I don't know who
everyone is when you are dealing with Russians, I avoid trying to - I avoid
situations where something could happen that I would be compromised.
So I always refuse to go to Russia . And I only did this case because it was
one of my oldest clients . And I still got sucked into som·ething that, you know, I
mean thank God I didn't know anything about the Trump Tower meeting or I would
really have some explaining to do.
MR. SCHIFF: One way for a young -- well, I don't know about young, but
one way for an ambitious lawyer to move up the ladder you said was to do
something to please Vladimir Putin. Establishing a relationship with a potential

162
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSI TIVE
future President of the United States and offering help against their opponent
would be one way of doing that, would it not?
MR. SIMPSON: That's in character with the Natalia that I know. She
seemed ambitious and opportunistic.
MR. SCHIFF: All right. Let me ask you a few last questions. Did you
come across in your research anything related to the allegation you may have
seen publicly that Erik Prince had a meeting in the Seychelles arranged by fore ign
parties? Did that allegation or any facts related to it come to your attention?
MR. SIMPSON: Not specifically that, but Erik Prince's role in the sort of .
back of a lot of this stuff has come to my attention. And one of the -- I guess I
would rather not say anything else. But I just t_hink that he seems to be connected
to some of the people who have been making accusations against me. And I
have questions about whether he is the one who is --
MR. SCHIFF: And in terms of your investigation, though, did you find any
facts related to his foreign travel or his relationships or any work that he was doing
on behalf of the Trump campaign?
MR. SIMPSON: Not that I can specifically remember.
MR. SCHIFF: It's been publicly reported that Don Jr. went to Paris, had a
meeting with a pro-Russian think tank. Was that a subject of your investigation as
well?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes. We did a lot of work on -- so Russia is a major
theater of operation - I am sorry, France is a major theater of operation for the
Russian services. And they have a lot of, you know, phony think tanks and other
operations there. And they were very active in the French Presidential election, and
they have been very -- there is a guy named Malofeev who sort of runs

163
those operations for the Russians in that area. And we looked at all that and
mapped all that and concluded that, you know, it was part of the operation.
But beyond that, I believe, you know, we were - we were told that Kushner
had also been to Paris, but I don't think we could ever confirm that. But we
looked at some of those people, and they were definitely Russian assets would be
my view.
MR. SCHIFF: Professor Mifsud come to your attention?
MR. SIMPSON: No. Professor Mifsud did not come to my attention.
Q How about Mr. Papadopoulos?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes.
MR. SCHIFF: And in what way?
MR. SIMPSON: As someone who was a clone of Carter Page and had
connections to the Russians.
MR. SCHIFF: Did you come across any facts related to Papadopoulos that
were beyond those that were contained in the infonnation?
MR. SIMPSON: I don't think so. We have been looking at him for a while,
but I was still surprised by what I saw there.
MR. SCHIFF: You mentioned a Florida woman, Russian origin, worked for
Gazprom, connected to the embassy, connected to Michael Cohen. If you are
able to refresh your recollection and provide her name to ·the committee, that
would be helpful.
MR. SIMPSON: Sure.
MR. SCHIFF: The kompromat which has become so much a focus of any
discussion of the dossier, are there any of the facts related to that, the salacious

164
video that were not a part of the dossier or other like allegations that came to your
attention?
MR. SIMPSON: No. I mean, you know, we were asked about other
allegations by reporters that didn't come from us, and I am not - we were asked
about earlier stories of earlier trips and whether other things had happened, and
similar things. Actually not similar things , more sort of less colorful. But anyway,
girls. And, you know, we didn't - I mean to be clear, we never set out to
investigate whether Donald Trump or anyone else was engaged in sexual activity
for the sort of practical reason that I just didn't think it was a useful subject to
investigate.
I investigate business stuff and financial crime and corruption and those
kind of things. That's my gig. So people came to us with stories that we never
pursued. And we were recently asked by some reporter did you write a memo in
2015 about - I had no idea what they were talking about. You know, we threw a
line in the water and Moby Dick came back, and we didn't know what to do with it
at first. So anyway.
MR. SCHIFF: And, you know, from your description of your relationship
with Mr. Steele, I take it that you sent him to find what he could find. You didn't
send him to go find evidence of candidate Trump entertaining women in whatever
way in a hotel.
MR. SIMPSON: No. But I think this underscores a really important point,
which is that so kompromat is a big deal for Chris Steele. It is not a big deal for
Glenn Simpson, because my professional world is financial crime and politics and
the other things. But he is in Russian intelligence. You know, that's his
specialty, and a lot of what you are worrying about.

165
So when he explains all this, .he has other cases where people have been
kompromatted. And it's something he has dealt with his entire adult life. So I
can't tell you he wasn't looking· for that, because it was probably something that
was among the things that he would have asked someone to check.
MR. SCHIFF: It is Russian tradecraft that he would have been familiar
with?
MR. SIMPSON: Correct. So when the information comes back that there
is kompromat but that there is also a conspiracy afoot, you know, each of us sees
our piece of the elephant, right? I am like, oh, my God, there is a conspiracy
afoot. And he is like, oh, my God, there is a kompromat problem.
So when he says we have got to go to the FBI, or he wants to go to the FBI,
he is specifically concerned about the kompromat issue and whether, you know, a
Republican -- whether a candidate for President of the United States, a nominee
has been kompromatted. And he feels that it's his duty to report that.
I assume because part of his old job was reporting politicians who had been
kompromatted, and that he thought it was, you know, de rigeur or something. But
my feeling was, you know, we should report the rest of this alleged crime. I mean
I was comfortable with him doing it.
MR. SCHIFF: We yield back.
: We are adjourned, sir.
MR. SCHIFF: Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 8:20 p.m .., the inteiview was concluded.}

Exhibit 10
',., '.
,·
. ··.·G-iRIMiEtlN>··.· •.·
··.··•·•·•··•••·CJ.:ci:111~1:sC.::••··
, .......·
INSIDE THE STEELE DOSSIER

AND THE FUSION GPS
INVESTIGATION OF
DONALD TRUMP
GLENN SIMPSON
and
PETER FRITSCH
RANDOM HOUSE
NEW YORK
Copyright© 2019 by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House,
an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
RANDOM HousE and the HousE colophon are
registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Hardback ISBN 978-0-593-13415-3
Ebook ISBN 978-0-593-13416-0
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
randomhousebooks.com
246897531
FIRST EDITION
284 I A NOTE ON SOURCES
court filings, documents released under the Freedom of Information

Act, and official government and congressional transcripts.
The nature of our engagement with the law firm Perkins Coie pre-
vents us from recounting our communications after we were retained.
We described one meeting with Marc Elias that occurred before we were
hired. Perkins has not released us from our obligations to keep our com-
munications confidential, nor have other clients.
Under pressure from Republicans in Congress, some of our clients
provided limited waivers to our confidentiality agreements so that vari-
ous committees could question us and examine some of our records.
We generally don't talk about our dealings with reporters because
those discussions are conducted on a confidential basis by mutual agree-
ment. We avoided disclosing the details of our dealings with individual
reporters unless those interactions had already come to light in congres-
sional investigations or other public accounts. In some cases, we recount
discussions with journalists with their express permission. There are
several instances, however, in which we believe news organizations and
individual reporters voided their confidentiality agreements with us by
publishing details of their off-the-record communications with Fusion.
Finally, we relied on many outstanding books on Donald Trump and
Russia under Vladimir Putin, which informed our understanding of
these subjects and helped us make our own observations about the
events of 2016 and beyond.

Fusion GPS - Opposition To Government's Motion To Compel - April 26, 2022

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Fusion GPS - Opposition To Government's Motion To Compel - April 26, 2022

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Case 1:21-cr-00582-CRC Document 103 Filed 04/26/22 Page 1 of 25

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

v. Criminal Case No. 21-582 (CRC)

NON-PARTY FUSION GPS’S OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT’S MOTION TO

compel in camera inspection of these documents by this Court.

attempted to show are relevant to the Indictment.

Corp., 257 F.R.D. 302, 307 (D.D.C. 2009).

CI-20-04003 (Pa. Ct. Comm. Pl. 2020).

expert investigative consultant, following a well-established path repeatedly endorsed and

the work that Fusion performed for Perkins in 2016.

privileged and confidential, and so no privilege has been waived.

and political broadcasting laws, rules, and regulations. Elias Decl. ¶ 5.

Fusion “weekly,” on average).

II. Fusion’s Response to the Government’s Grand Jury Subpoenas

On September 16, 2021, the Government indicted Defendant Michael Sussmann on a

on behalf of any client in conveying particular allegations concerning a Presidential candidate,

Fusion engagement letter since June 18, 2021.

Hosp. Corp., 257 F.R.D. at 307.

The work-product doctrine protects material prepared by an attorney’s “investigators and

privilege claims over the logged documents are valid.

A. Fusion’s Work is Protected by the Work-Product Doctrine Because Perkins

alleged links to Russia.

B. Fusion’s Work Was Performed in the Anticipation of Litigation.

internal communications and “material prepared by agents for the attorney”).

Government’s reliance on public, non-privileged actions by Fusion, such as communicating with

because of the prospect of litigation.” Deloitte LLP, 610 F.3d at 138.

matters, all of which is “critical to effective legal thinking”––particularly in representing political

even the less-stringent test for fact work product.

product protection should be denied.

“confidential communication between attorney and client, including by and to non-attorneys

296 F.2d at 922.

communications to nonetheless be protected by the attorney-client privilege: so long as “obtaining

client privilege applies. See KBR, 756 F.3d at 760.

client functions” performed by lawyers).

Grand Jury Subpoenas, 265 F. Supp. 2d at 326.

pursuant to attorney-client privilege.

III. There Has Been No Waiver

unsupported, and the Court should reject it.

point to a specific disclosure of privileged information in Crime in Progress; relying

indiscriminately on a 368-page book does not suffice to show a disclosure of privileged

“extrajudicial disclosure [in a book] of an attorney-client communication—one not subsequently

privilege as to the undisclosed portions of the communication”).

reporters, discloses any privileged information whatsoever.

Even if the Government has shown the disclosure of privileged information or

subject-matter waiver—by the clients. None of the alleged disclosures—communications by

and Steele’s U.K. testimony—involve any communication or waiver by any client.11 It is

protected work product or communications protected by the attorney-client privilege.

situations in which fairness requires a further disclosure of related, protected information.”

explanatory note) (emphasis added).

Sealed Case, 676 F.2d at 809.

IV. Ms. Seago’s Communications with Mr. Joffe are Privileged

The Government’s arguments regarding communications between Ms. Laura Seago, a

Executive-1.” Mot. at 19–20.

Fusion’s investigative work in anticipation of litigation and in support of Perkins’s provision of

would not protect these communications.

communications involving Mr. Joffe and/or Mr. Sussmann.

Government’s Motion to Compel.

/s/ Joshua A. Levy

Counsel for Non-Party Fusion GPS

a copy on all counsel of record.

/s/ Joshua A. Levy

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT