Steele’s research only after BuzzFeed published the dossier, according to two associates who discussed the matter with her. have said they were unaware that Perkins Coie facilitated the research on their behalf, even though the law firm was using their money to pay for it. Officials from the Clinton campaign and the D.N.C. Wilson, a partner at Perkins Coie, called the complaint “patently baseless,” in part because, he said, the research was done “to support the provision of legal services, and payments made by vendors to sub-vendors are not required to be disclosed in circumstances like this.” Who else knew about the Fusion GPS research during the campaign? In a complaint filed with the election commission in October, the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit group that urges stricter enforcement of election laws, alleged that “at least some of those payments were earmarked for Fusion GPS, with the purpose of conducting opposition research on Donald Trump.” The complaint asserts that the failure to list the ultimate purpose of that money “undermined the vital public information role that reporting is intended to serve.” They do list a total of $12.4 million in payments to Perkins Coie, but that’s almost entirely for legal consulting, with only one payment - of $66,500 - for “research consulting” from the D.N.C. Their disclosure reports do not list any payments from the Clinton campaign or the D.N.C. of violating campaign finance laws by disguising the payments to Fusion GPS on mandatory disclosures to the Federal Election Commission. However, Republicans and campaign watchdogs have accused the Clinton campaign and the D.N.C. Is this sort of research common or legal?Ĭampaigns and party committees frequently pay companies to assemble what’s known in politics as opposition research - essentially damaging information about their opponents - and nothing is illegal about the practice. “Obviously, he was not at liberty to confirm Perkins Coie as the client at that point, and should perhaps have ‘no commented’ more artfully,” Ms. In October, the veteran Democratic consultant Anita Dunn, who is working with Perkins Coie, explained Mr. The lead Perkins Coie lawyer representing both the campaign and the D.N.C., Marc Elias, pushed back earlier this year when asked whether his firm was the client for the dossier, whether he possessed it before the election and whether he was involved in efforts to encourage media outlets to write about its contents. Yet some of the Democrats who funded the dossier have been wary of being associated with it. The firm’s website lists very few details - there is a two-paragraph description of what the firm does and a single email address.ĭemocrats argue that who paid for the research is irrelevant to the veracity of its claims, which they say should be thoroughly investigated. During election years, the firm is mostly focused on political opposition research - digging up dirt on a client’s opponent. The firm is paid to do research by a variety of clients, including political donors, corporations, hedge funds and law firms. Trump and Russian prostitutes, and real estate deals that were intended as bribes, among other claims about Mr. The memos also detail unsubstantiated accounts of encounters between Mr. The memos, compiled by a research firm called Fusion GPS, allege a multifaceted conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to help Mr. It is a 35-page collection of research memos written by Christopher Steele, a respected former British intelligence agent, primarily during the 2016 presidential campaign. The dossier of research into President Trump’s connections to Russia is the product of a research firm founded by a former journalist, Glenn R. 21 with more details about Fusion GPS, the company that compiled the dossier, and who paid for it. WASHINGTON - This article was updated on Dec.
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