Senators quizzed FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday over whether the political research firm behind the Trump dossier is part of Russia’s intelligence apparatus.
The connection between the firm, Fusion GPS, and a former Russian counterintelligence agent named Rinat Akhmetshin is one of the stranger wrinkles in the ongoing Trump-Russia saga.
The link has received little media attention since it was revealed by The Daily Caller in January, just after the dossier was published by BuzzFeed. But as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley has noted, Fusion’s affiliation with Akhmetshin raises questions about whether the research firm’s dossier work can be trusted.
Fusion GPS was hired in June by an ally of Hillary Clinton’s to research Trump’s ties to Russia. The firm, founded by a former reporter named Glenn Simpson, hired ex-British spy Christopher Steele to dig up dirt on the Republican candidate. Steele would go on to compile 17 memos full of salacious and largely unfounded claims about Trump and several of his campaign advisers.
