- by WorldTribune Staff, January 12, 2018
The author of the bogus Trump dossier was basically a “Boy Scout” who “doesn’t sell baloney,” the co-founder of Fusion GPS told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Ex-British spy Christopher Steele “was, you know, a person who delivered quality work in very appropriate ways,” Glenn Simpson said according to a partially redacted transcript of his testimony that was released this week by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat.
“I hope you won’t be insulted, but he’s basically a Boy Scout,” said Simpson, who paid Steele for the dossier with money from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
“You know, he worked for the government for a very long time. He lives a very modest, quiet life, and, you know, this is his specialty. We got along very well because my specialty is public information.”
Simpson continued: “Quality is a really important issue in the business intelligence industry. There’s a lot of poor quality work and a lot of people make a lot of promises about what they can do and who they know and what they can find out and then there’s just a lot of people who operate in sort of improper questionable ways. Chris was, you know, a person who delivered quality work in very appropriate ways.”
Investigative journalist Bob Woodward said shortly after the dossier’s publication by BuzzFeed that Steele had produced a “garbage document.”
Rep. Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNN earlier this month: “There may very well be errors in the dossier. It is not finished intelligence. It is a collection of information that would not pass muster with the CIA or the FBI. But there are still very many open questions about some of the allegations in that dossier.”
Former FBI Director James Comey referred to the dossier as “salacious and unverified material.”
An analysis of the dossier by The Washington Times shows that Steele “made eight specific collusion charges” against Trump associates and Russian entrepreneurs. Congressional sources say none has been confirmed.
Still, Simpson backed Steele and the dossier.
“Chris, as I say, has a sterling reputation as a person who doesn’t exaggerate, doesn’t make things up, doesn’t sell baloney,” said Simpson. “In my business, I mean, there are a lot of people who make stuff up and sell baloney.”
The dossier has spurred seven libel lawsuits by three people and a group of Russian bankers targeted by Steele for wrongdoing. They have sued BuzzFeed, Fusion, Yahoo News and Steele.
In his Senate testimony, Simpson claimed he never ordered Steele to investigate collusion, but rather asked him to simply look at Trump-Russia business ties.
But in a London libel case, Steele said he was expressly told to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Steele, his court filing says, “was engaged by Fusion to prepare a series of confidential memoranda based on the intelligence concerning Russian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential process and links between Russia and Donald Trump.”
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