Some highlights from the Fusion GPS transcript that Sen. Dianne Feinstein unilaterally dropped today:
- Seven references to “mafia” links.
- 20 references to Putin links.
- Trump repeatedly said he and his buildings were worth less than people and agencies imagined.
- The intelligence community seems to think Trump’s being blackmailed.
- The specific reason for the blackmail has to do with “Russians having cameras in all the luxury hotel rooms.”
LINK TO FULL TRANSCRIPT: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/3/9/3974a291-ddbe-4525-9ed1-22bab43c05ae/934A3562824CACA7BB4D915E97709D2F.simpson-transcript-redacted.pdf
EXCERPTS:
Page 69: WITNESS: “You know, Russian organized crime is very different from Italian organized crime. It’s much more sort of a hybrid kind of thing where they’re involved in politics and banking and there’s even a lot of connections between the mafia and the KGB or the FSB and cyber crime, things that the Italians sort of never figured out. Stock fraud in particular was the big thing in the U.S. In any event, all of that entered into my thinking when I saw that Donald Trump was in business with Felix Sater in the Trump Soho project and a number of other controversial condo projects.”
Pages 71-72: “One of the things we found out was that, you know, when it comes to paying taxes, Donald Trump claims to not have much stuff. At least the Trump organization. So they would make filings with various state and local authorities saying that their buildings weren’t worth much.”
Page 73: “So in the course of reading that litigation we would follow up on things that were interesting, such as a libel case against a journalist that he settled, which, in other words, he didn’t prevail in his attempts to prove that he was a billionaire.”
Page 77: “We were interested in the fact that the Trump family was selling merchandise under the Trump brand in the United States that was made in sweat shops in Asia and South America – or Latin America.”
Page 79: “Trump had made a number of trips to Russia and talked about doing a number of business deals but never did one, and that struck me as a little bit odd and calling for an explanation.”
Pages 151-152: “So I also knew – or I formed an opinion or impression that the Russians were interested in making friends with the Republicans and that Paul Manafort, you know, there was this previous episode involving Paul Manafort, John McCain. So all of that was in my head when this came in which, as I say, tended to support the credibility – the possibility that this information was credible.” - Russians were feeling out the Republican Party, and John McCain in particular, as far back as 2008.
Page 154-155: On Trump: “However, he and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin”
Page 173: On the genesis of contact between Steele and the FBI:
Q: And at no point in that time between July – the first week of July when he first met with the FBI and then mid to late September did you suggest to him that he should go back to the FBI?
A. Not that I recall. What I would – what I believe I may have said was have you heard anything from the FBI because by then it was obvious there was a crime in progress. So I just was curious whether he’d heard back.
Q. And when you say it was obvious that there was a crime in progress, what specifically are you referencing?
A. Espionage. They were hacking into the computers of Democrats and think tanks. That’s a computer crime.
Pages 175-6: Steele believed a “human source from inside the Trump organization” had already gone to FBI: “a voluntary source, someone who was concerned with the same concerns we had”
Page 179: “Sometime thereafter the FBI – I understand Chris severed his relationship with the FBI out of concern that he didn’t know what was happening inside the FBI and there was a concern that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people and that we didn’t really understand what was going on. So he stopped dealing with them.” - this after a few pages of concern that the FBI was too pro-Trump
Page 242: Fusion believed because of their research Carter Page was compromised, and he was being offered business deals for his cooperation
Page 279: Simpson said someone was already killed because of the information contained in the dossier.
Pages 287-288: Simpson calls Sarah Huckabee Sanders a liar for the fourth time about Fusion GPS being a solely democratic tool, confirms they also investigated Obama during his campaign for senator.
Page 296: “We learned that Felix Sater had some connections with these people, and it’s been more recently in the media that he’s helping the government of Kazakhstan to recover this money. There’s been media reports that the money went into the Trump Soho or it went into the company that built the Trump Soho. I can’t remember the name”
Pages 299-300: On the value of Trump’s golf courses:
Q: You mentioned as well, you brought up Trump golf courses. What in particular were you looking into with regard to Donald Trump’s golf courses?
A. The original inquiry was into the value of the courses, whether he had to borrow money to buy them, whether they were encumbered with debt, how much money they brought in, what valuations he put on them, and property tax filings.
Q. And in general can you share what findings and conclusions you reached?
A: With regard to?
Q: To the work on the golf properties.
A. A number of them don’t make any money. His valuations of the properties are questionable.
EDIT: I rearranged them so they’re in order by page number.
