U.S. under Trump Series: Reports surface accusing Hillary Clinton and DNC of funding infamous ‘Trump dossier’

A report has surfaced in the Washington Post suggesting that Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Democratic National Committee (DNC) paid for the infamous ‘Trump Dossier’, which has been the backbone of Russia collusion allegation against the current administration. On Saturday, President Trump tweeted, “Officials behind the now discredited "Dossier" plead the Fifth. Justice Department and/or FBI should immediately release who paid for it.”

The document known as the ‘Trump Dossier’ was the first document that signalled at possible collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign in 2016 election. This helped launch an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and possibly helped in ‘wiretapping’ Trump campaign officials. Currently, former FBI director Robert Mueller is investigating the allegation of collusion.

Here is the part of the Washington Post report, “Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.

After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the company in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by an unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS’s research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.”

Here is the link to the full report, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html?utm_term=.f9330b4aca97

After the release, DNC immediately tried to distance themselves from the report but stopped short of denying involvement, instead, the blame was pushed to the ‘old’ DNC. DNC spokeswoman said “Tom Perez (Chairman) and the new leadership of the DNC were not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organization. But let’s be clear, there is a serious federal investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, and the American public deserves to know what happened.”