![]() ![]() They said Steele may have lied to investigators about his contacts with reporters. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another member of the committee, last week sent a classified letter urging the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation of Steele. The split between Feinstein and Grassley has widened in recent weeks.įeinstein, who is running for reelection and facing a primary challenge fueled by concern from some liberals that she has not been aggressive enough in opposing Trump, has issued a flurry of news releases to announce her requests to current and former members of Trump’s campaign team for interviews and documents. “Her action undermines the integrity of the committee’s oversight work and jeopardizes its ability to secure candid voluntary testimony,” such as from Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. “It’s totally confounding,” said a Grassley spokesman, Taylor Foy. Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee chairman, criticized Feinstein’s decision to release the transcript, saying she did not consult him first. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press ) “So I just said, ‘If that’s your obligation, then you should fulfill your obligation.’ ” “He said he was professionally obligated to do it,” Simpson said. Simpson said Steele was concerned “whether or not there was blackmail going on, whether a political candidate was being blackmailed.” ![]() “It’s a national security issue,” Simpson recalled Steele saying. In mid-2016, Steele told Simpson that he was so concerned about the Russian operation that he would share his research with the FBI. They, in turn, claimed Russian officials had aided Trump for years, and had gathered compromising information on him during a 2013 visit to Moscow that they could use as blackmail. He said the research began as a general inquiry into Trump’s business background, a typical function of opposition researchers during presidential campaigns, and only later focused on questions about his relations with Russia.Įventually, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, a former British spy who had worked in Russia in the 1990s, to reach out to his sources there. ![]()
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