Fusion GPS, the smear firm behind the Trump dossier, had also conducted opposition research into another GOP candidate — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) — according to a newly released transcript.
Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, in an interview with the House intelligence committee on November 14, admitted to doing work on Cruz in addition to Trump, while it was being paid by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative media outlet backed by billionaire and hedge fund manager Paul Singer.
Simpson was asked during the interview by investigators if he or Fusion GPS had been retained to conduct research on any other 2016 presidential candidate.
“That question, in the way you phrased it, has refreshed by memory, and I was — I remember we did work on Ted Cruz. And I think it was part of the Beacon matter,” he said. He could not remember if they had looked into other candidates.
Singer backed Republican establishment candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), in the 2016 presidential election. Cruz, who came in second in the Republican primaries, was, like Trump, a non-establishment Republican candidate.
The Washington Free Beacon’s editor-in-chief, Matthew Continetti, is a former editor at the neo-conservative Weekly Standard, whose founder and current editor-at-large is Never-Trumper Bill Kristol. Continetti is also Kristol’s son-in-law.
Washington Free Beacon retained Fusion GPS sometime in late 2016 and stopped funding opposition research against Trump until spring 2017 when he clinched the Republican nomination.
Around that same time, Marc Elias, a lawyer for the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, retained Fusion GPS, to continue the anti-Trump research and look into Trump’s ties to Russia.
That research later became known as the “pee dossier,” for its inclusion of a salacious and unverified story from anonymous sources that Trump paid prostitutes to perform “Golden Showers” during a 2013 Moscow trip.
Singer and the Washington Free Beacon deny any involvement in the Trump dossier, which alleged that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians during the election and was reportedly used to obtain a spy warrant on a Trump campaign adviser.
The transcript of Simpson’s interview was released after the House intelligence committee unanimously decided to release it.
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