Today in the NY Times, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch of Fusion GPS hit back at congressional Republicans attacking them and selectively leaking their testimony to far right propaganda outlets. Who’s Fusion GPS? They are a political research firm who engaged former British spy Christopher Steele to research Trump’s business ties. The principals of this firm have become the punching bag of right wing media and congressional Republicans, and they’ve now had enough of it. In their op-ed today, Simpson and Fritsch are demanding that Congress release their testimony to the public.
In the piece, they talk about how they testified that Steele ran across multiple occasions of Trump’s ties to dubious Russian characters that likely involved money laundering. They also talk about how Congress has ignored their advice to subpoena Deutschbank records of Trump’s transactions, but the only bank records that have been subpoenaed are their own. Congress has done nothing to advance an investigation of Trump and have only sought to shoot the messenger, seek to discredit Fusion GPS.
They claim their testimony to Congress included details of Paul Manafort’s cozy relationship with the Russians and evidence they discovered of the Trump campaign’s coordination with Russian to get His Orangeness elected as president. The fact that the Republican controlled houses of Congress have not released this testimony is all you need to know about the content of those transcripts.
Republicans have been actively covering up the reality of Trump’s collusion with the Russians and clear corruption. Clearly they are putting party and self-interest before the needs of the American people, and their actions have destabilized our own government and damaged our reputation worldwide.
Congress must release these transcripts immediately. Our democracy, or what’s left of it, hangs in the balance.
