Daily Caller:
The Barack Obama presidential campaign hired Fusion GPS in 2012 to dig up dirt on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to a book released on Tuesday.
The Obama campaign hid its payments to Fusion GPS through its law firm, Perkins Coie. The arrangement is similar to the one that the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee used to pay Fusion for its investigation of then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016.
“In 2012, Fusion GPS was hired to do opposition research on Mitt Romney for Barack Obama’s reelection campaign,” reads “Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and Donald Trump’s Election.”
The book is written by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, two veteran reporters who met during the 2016 campaign with Steele and Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson.
“As had become standard practice in the shadowy world of ‘oppo’ research, the Obama campaign’s payments to Fusion GPS were never publicly disclosed; the money paid to the investigative firm was reported on campaign disclosure reports as legal bills to the campaign’s law firm, Perkins Coie,” the book reads.
The Obama for America committee paid Perkins Coie around $3 million during the 2012 election cycle, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission, A vast majority of the payments were earmarked for “Legal Services.”
Ah. Even after the most corrupt administration we have ever seen is gone, the “transparency” continues to come forth.
Fusion GPS is a commercial research intelligence firm. If you’re involved in multi-million dollar litigation, or are considering multi-million dollar dealings with a person, government, or corporate entity that could conceivably put you or your stockholders at financial risk, if you’re not an idiot, you’ll have professional background research done. Likewise, if you’re a political figure in an important political contest, you’ll have opposition research done. Your opponent’s campaign almost certainly do the same.
Fusion GPS provides such professional services. Apparently the Obama campaign had engaged them previously, considered their work to be valuable and reliable, and likely recommended them to Clinton. Possibly the Clintons had dealt with them first, and recommended them to Obama.
Hid? That’s pure conspiracy theory spin. Contractual arrangements involving expensive professional services are very commonly handled through a personal or corporate attorney or law firm.
I might be suspicious about an unusual effort to hide something if the intermediary attorney used a fictitious name for his client, paid out of his own pocket to conceal the source of the money, and left the signature line on the agreement or contract in question blank. That would look like guilty behavior. Can you think of any recent examples?
@Greg:
… that specializes in slander, lies and character assassination. Just the ticket for a liberal Democrat’s campaign.
Sorry. Laundered. Is that more accurate?
None that have anything to do with the government of the United States. Now, Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch used an alias and a private email account to carry out some DOJ business (so she could keep that correspondence away from the prying eyes of the government, you know) but that’s not what you were going for, was it?
They conduct investigations and report the information that’s collected. In this case they subcontracted Steele, who is an experienced investigator with many Russian contacts dating from his long career with MI6. He has a far better reputation than the man he was contracted to investigate.
Has it ever occurred to you that Clinton cited none of the reports Fusion GPS obtained during her campaign, despite the fact that the jackass your party promoted publicly slandered her with outright lies and unsubstantiated accusations every time he opened is mouth?
Steele somehow missed picking up on Trump’s adulterous fling with a prominent porn star, but that’s probably because they were busy looking into the Russian angle.
The man is a sleeze ball.
A Trump Trip to Las Vegas Adds Intrigue to the Steele Dossier
@Greg:
And they don’t care if it’s true or not. This is why it was criminal of the FBI to use this garbage as the grounds for their requests to spy on any US citizens. There can be no doubt that this was Obama-instigated to support Hillary and damage the Trump campaign; Obama does, in fact, have a history of using federal government power to inappropriately attack citizens for no other reason than political utility.
Yeah, he is under investigation and avoiding answering questions in Britain and the US. He proved himself to be another lying liberal with an agenda where the ends justifies the means, means which includes illegally leaking information to the media, who greedily gobbles it up without questioning the accuracy. Accuracy is not important is a Soviet-style political take down.
Yeah, what about that? Perhaps it simply didn’t happen and they didn’t think to make it up, as they made up so many other silly accusations.
Yeah, Steele. Obama. Comey. McCabe. Strzok. Mueller. Hillary.
Speaking of Hillary, you must be so proud to have defended and continue to defend such a skank that go an a world whining tour, invoking racism , misogyny and every other attempt to excuse away her failure on the basis of HERSELF. Such a proud moment, Hillary in India tearing down the United States because they rejected her corruption and hatred. She can’t even negotiate steps and she wanted to ransack the country to satisfy her own personal greed. Thank you, Mighty God Above, for protecting this nation from that… woman.