Fusion GPS caught withholding bank records from House investigation

  The House Intelligence Committee had been seeking the financial records of the firm behind the Russian dossier, Fusion GPS, but the firm was unwilling to turn them over. Fusion GPS went so far as to seek an injunction to keep its financial records secret but at the end of October we learned the firm reached an agreement with the House Intelligence Committee and would turn over the documents.

  It looked like that part of the saga was over but now we are learning, according to this story, that Fusion GPS has been caught withholding 112 documents related to the request. Here is more:

Fusion and the House at first worked out a deal for relevant banks records. But House lawyers say they learned that Fusion withheld 112 transactions pertinent to the Russia probe.

The suspect transactions, House lawyers say, deal with two Russia issues. One is the dossier. The other is Fusion’s payments from another law firm, BakerHostetler. That money came from the Russian firm Prevezon Holdings which is lobbying Washington to repeal a law that brought stiff economic sanctions on President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

In that vein, the House committee wants copies of Fusion bank transfers with other law firms in addition to Perkins Coie and Hostetler.

“Fusion has established a pattern and practice of using law firms as intermediaries to mask the true beneficiaries of its research,” the House filing says.

  It looks like the withheld documents are related, in part, to payments Fusion GPS made to journalists–probably with Free Beacon.

Lawyers representing the House Intelligence Committee made the assertion in a bid to force Fusion to turn over additional bank transactions involving reporters, law firms and a media company.

 

“The committee seeks transactions related to three individual journalists,” stated the House general counsel court filing, “each of whom have reported on and/or been quoted in articles regarding topics related to the committee’s investigation.”

  Free Beacon hired Fusion GPS during the Republican primary to do opposition research on Donald Trump before being hired by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, at which point Fusion GPS began working with foreign agents to bring down Donald Trump. This was already known so why would Fusion GPS not turn over the documents with the others? The plot thickens…

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