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Former Sen. Feinstein staffer hired FUSION GPS and it somehow never came up during Senate investigation

Former Sen. Feinstein staffer hired FUSION GPS and it somehow never came up during Senate investigation

A newly declassified congressional report shows that a former staffer to Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, had ties to Fusion GPS and British ex-spy Christopher Steele, both subjects of Feinstein's committee's investigation. Feinstein never disclosed these connections publicly.

The former staffer, Daniel Jones, previously served as Feinstein's senior intelligence staffer. Jones currently leads a "research and investigatory advisory" that hired Fusion GPS and Steele after the 2016 election to push the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, as The Federalist's Sean Davis reports:

According to the report, Jones, who runs an investigative outfit called the Penn Quarter Group (PQG), told the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in March of 2017 that he had retained the services of Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to “continue exposing Russian interference” in the 2016 election. Steele is the former British spy who authored the infamous unverified dossier of allegations against President Donald Trump.

Although Jones’ name is redacted in the report, the biographical details plus previous reporting on the matter make clear that he is the individual referenced. The report also revealed that Jones told federal investigators that he had raised $50 million from “7 to 10 wealthy donors located primarily in New York and California.”

As The Federalist first reported in February, Jones previously worked as a senior intelligence staffer for Feinstein, who currently serves as the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is currently investigating Fusion GPS. In that capacity, she violated committee precedent by unilaterally releasing a transcript of the testimony of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson without disclosing that a top former staffer of hers was directing the firm’s efforts during the Judiciary committee’s investigation.

The congressional report stated that Jones “planned to share the information he obtained with policymakers on Capitol Hill and with the press, and also offered to provide PQG’s entire holdings to the FBI.” That information was gleaned from an FBI interview document called an FD-302, which was prepared on March 28, 2017. Feinstein’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment about her interactions with Jones during the course of her committee’s investigation of Fusion GPS prior to the publication of this article.

This smells like a massive, undisclosed conflict of interest, which prompts the following questions from The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel:

To be clear, we have a Democratic senator, Feinstein, who is investigating the firm that paid for the Russian dossier filled with bogus accusations against President Donald Trump and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, who knows that her former staffer hired and is giving orders to the firm she's investigating, and Feinstein doesn't tell the American people?


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