Congressional Republicans and conservative pundits have waged a campaign against special prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation by saying it was triggered by a phony dossier fabricated by Trump's political enemies, but the firm behind the dossier has published an op-ed in the New York Times to set the record straight.
The dossier did not trigger the FBI's investigation, members of Fusion GPS say, it merely confirmed what the FBI already knew.
Furthermore, they say a source who came forward before the dossier was even written came from inside Trump's campaign.
As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp.
The intelligence committees have known for months that credible allegations of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia were pouring in from independent sources during the campaign. Yet lawmakers in the thrall of the president continue to wage a cynical campaign to portray us as the unwitting victims of Kremlin disinformation.
This backs up a report from last week that claimed patient zero for the investigation was George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos reportedly ran his mouth to Australian diplomats who alerted American authorities.
WASHINGTON — During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.
Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role.
Papadopoulos has been indicted and, from what we know, it seems highly likely he's been under surveillance and possibly cooperating with the FBI for a very long time.
Is Papadopoulos the source from inside Trump's campaign referred to by Fushion GPS? Maybe, but I feel like any one of the people close to Trump could have been an informant. There's no loyalty among thieves.
It seems clear that what we know about the investigation is barely a speck of what Robert Mueller knows.