There are more bombshells to drop in the investigation of 2016 opposition research against Trump

Kimberley Strassel:
The confirmation this week that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid an opposition-research firm for a “dossier” on Donald Trump is bombshell news. More bombshells are to come.

The Fusion GPS saga isn’t over. The Clinton-DNC funding is but a first glimpse into the shady election doings concealed within that oppo-research firm’s walls. We now know where Fusion got some of its cash, but the next question is how the firm used it. With whom did it work beyond former British spy Christopher Steele ? Whom did it pay? Who else was paying it?

The answers are in Fusion’s bank records. Fusion has doggedly refused to divulge the names of its clients for months now, despite extraordinary pressure. So why did the firm suddenly insist that middleman law firm Perkins Coie release Fusion from confidentiality agreements, and spill the beans on who hired it?

Because there’s something Fusion cares about keeping secret even more than the Clinton-DNC news—and that something is in those bank records. The release of the client names was a last-ditch effort to appease the House Intelligence Committee, which issued subpoenas to Fusion’s bank and was close to obtaining records until Fusion filed suit last week. The release was also likely aimed at currying favor with the court, given Fusion’s otherwise weak legal case. The judge could rule as early as Friday morning.

If the House wins, don’t be surprised if those records include money connected to Russians. In the past Fusion has worked with Russians, including lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who happened to show up last year in Donald Trump Jr.’s office.

FBI bombshells are also yet to come. The bureau has stonewalled congressional subpoenas for documents related to the dossier, but that became harder with the DNC-Clinton news. On Thursday Speaker Paul Ryan announced the FBI had finally pledged to turn over its dossier file next week.
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There is much more.

Both Fusion and the FBI have been acting like they have something to hide.  Strassel points out that Obama officials have been trying to distance themselves from the dossier in recent months.  There appear to be good reasons for that. 

There is also the curious statements by Hillary Clinton and DNC head Debbie Wasserman-Schultz that they knew nothing about the payment through their own law firm.  I find that difficult to believe, but even if true someone in that organization had to approve a check that was in the millions to Fusion GPS even if the payment was by the law firm, who approved of the payment to the law firm?

Also, why was there no FEC filing on this expenditure?  Was the law firm used as a means of evading an embarrassing disclosure?

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