One of the things you’re going to read today about the bombshell Washington Post scoop on how team Hillary and the DNC funded the research into the now infamous Trump dossier is that it was originally funded by a rival GOP campaign. For example:
OK, people, let's cut the shit. Trump dossier was commissioned by the team of a *Republican* candidate (not hard to guess which one either).
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) October 25, 2017
However, here’s Byron York with a must-read 10-tweet thread explaining what’s really going on.
Dems will try to say this is “old news”:
On dossier, much 'That's old news!' and 'A non-story!' reax from Dems/left today. To be expected… 1/10 https://t.co/8oQAESx3x2
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 25, 2017
And that the dossier was originally funded by a rival GOP campaign:
Plus, many saying 'But dossier started with Republicans!' Some who plainly know little about story still feel very strongly… 2/10
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 25, 2017
But that’s not exactly how it went down. The original oppo research had nothing to do with Russia:
Just to summarize: CW is that FusionGPS anti-Trump work started in fall 2015, funded by Republican donor–but it wasn't about Russia. 3/10
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 25, 2017
It was about Trump’s business interests:
In this scenario, GOP-funded FusionGPS work focused on Trump biz, casinos, Atlantic City, etc. Went nowhere… 4/10 https://t.co/xWTRmFIjI9
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 25, 2017
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And it never even got used:
Plus-here's weird thing-appears dossier compiler never offered FusionGPS work to rival GOP campaigns who had chance to stop Trump. 5/10
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 25, 2017
Campaign chiefs for Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Kasich all say they never knew of FusionGPS work. Odd, to say the least. 6/10 https://t.co/PB6qsy6etE
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 25, 2017
It was after this that Dems stepped in to fund the oppo research and the focus shifted to Russia:
In any event, Dems began funding FusionGPS work and after that, following news reports, it shifted to Russia. 7/10 https://t.co/3jUVOvdqkZ
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 25, 2017
It was an “all-Dem operation”:
So FusionGPS Russia project, known today as Trump dossier, was all-Dem operation. 8/10 https://t.co/kIYEtpxLvJ
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 25, 2017
And we owe Rep. Devin Nunes for helping unearth this info:
Now, Nunes/House subpoena, which shook loose HRC/DNC link, may also shake loose identity of original donor to FusionGPS non-Russia work 9/10
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 25, 2017
Now it’s time for the FBI to explain why they offered to fund Steele’s research in October 2016:
But big Trump dossier question shifts to FBI. 10/10 https://t.co/KO1kvws0np
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 25, 2017
Byron writes:
But the importance of the Democrats’ involvement in the dossier is that it could be one step on the road to a bigger story. What did the FBI do with the dossier material? Did judges make surveillance decisions in the Trump-Russia investigation based in whole or in part on the dossier? To what degree is the “salacious and unverified” dossier the source of what we think we know about allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign?
Ding. Ding. Ding.
***
Related:
The new hotness from Joy Reid: That dossier was just opposition research, no biggie https://t.co/jiZS993YDH
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 25, 2017
Leave Hillary alone! Matthew Dowd says to focus on who holds power, not be partisan https://t.co/upw4kR0xwV
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 25, 2017
OK: The Resistance reacts to WaPo's Trump dossier bombshell by piling on … NYT reporter https://t.co/j0P7q9LCCW
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 25, 2017
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