Guess who paid for (Con) Fusion?

The Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign helped pay for opposition research that resulted in the salacious intelligence dossier that contained allegations about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

According to the report, the firm paid to conduct the research was retained in April 2016 by Marc Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC. The firm, Fusion GPS, hired a former British spy with ties to the FBI to conduct the research. The spy Christopher Steele, eventually shared some of his findings with the FBI after the bureau began probing possible connections between Trump associates and the Russian government.

Lingering questions about who paid for the dossier have sparked a partisan battle as lawmakers investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any possible coordination with members of the Trump campaign.
House Democrats have said efforts to discredit Mr. Steele and the dossier are part of an effort to distract focus from the broader Russia probe.

But Republicans have said it’s important to find out who paid for the opposition research as well as how heavily the FBI relied on the information in it as agents pursued their own investigations.

Some have expressed concern that opposition research was used as the basis for a foreign surveillance order Reports indicate that Fusion GPS was commissioned by a third-party to conduct political opposition research on Mr. Trump in the fall of 2015, but that the party withdrew from the contract in the spring of 2016. The Post report indicates that’s when Mr. Elias got involved.

Read more at The Washington Times