Donald Trump
The firm that made the dubious conclusion that pro-life investigators had “manipulated” undercover videos that caught Planned Parenthood executives discussing the sale of baby parts is the one that hired the former British spy who authored the debunked salacious dossier on Donald Trump published by BuzzFeed.
Washington D.C.-based Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, who runs the U.K.-based intelligence firm Orbis Business, the New York Times reported Thursday.
Steele, 52, was identified Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal as the author of the memo. The Times cited a source saying the money to hire him came from a wealthy Republican donor who wanted to compile a dossier about Trump’s past scandals and weaknesses.
A father of three and a widower, Steele was seen Wednesday driving away from his gated home in Surrey, southeast of London, the Daily Mail of London reported.
A neighbor told the London Telegraph, “He asked me to look after his cat as he would be gone for a few days.”
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A security source said he may now be abroad in a safe house.
“He is terrified for his safety.”
Steele served Britain’s MI6, the counterpart of the CIA, for nearly two decades in Moscow. Security sources say, according to the Daily Mail, he once worked with murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who fled to Britain before he was poisoned in 2006.
Yesterday, in his first news conference since the election, Trump excoriated BuzzFeed and CNN for reporting the dossier, which he ridiculed as fake news.
Trump said the report “should never have been written and never have been released” before praising other news outlets and saying his estimation of them had gone up a notch.
The Times said the Fusion GPS project was dropped after Trump became the Republican nominee. But allies of Hillary Clinton were interested in the information.
The Daily Caller said Fusion GPS is not listed in any campaign finance reports, and it’s unclear which Democratic groups hired the firm.
Steele turned over the dossier to the British government. Last month, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., gave it to FBI Director James Comey, who said he couldn’t verify the information but thought it should be examined.
Shoddy and underhanded
The Weekly Standard noted Fusion GPS has “an institutional reputation for doing shoddy and underhanded political work, and nearly all of it has been at the behest of Democrats looking to attack Republicans.”
During the 2012 presidential campaign, Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel reported Fusion GPS’s efforts to dig up dirt on donors to Mitt Romney and socially conservative causes.
Fusion GPS was hired by Planned Parenthood to put a positive spin on a series of undercover videos showing the sale of baby parts, the Daily Caller reported.
The firm concluded the videos show evidence of “manipulation.” But there was no such evidence, other than of routine editing.
Steele runs Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd with another former MI6 operative, Christopher Burrows.
The Daily Mail said Steele made more than $1.2 million after working with the FBI to uncover corruption at FIFA, the international body governing soccer. The probe led to the resignation of senior FIFA officials, including president Sepp Blatter.
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