Fusion GPS Founder Refuses to Talk to Congress

Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, is under congressional subpoena to appear before the House Judiciary Committee next week for a behind-closed-door interview regarding his firm’s involvement in the 2016 election. But according to his lawyers, he’s not going to be there.

Fusion worked with the Democratic National Committee and British spy Christopher Steele to produce the infamous dossier that made all manner of ridiculous claims about Donald Trump’s relationship to the Kremlin. None of those claims have been proven in the ensuing years, and in fact, many of them have been actively disproven. This, along with the fact that this piece of opposition research was used by the FBI to justify federal warrants and an ongoing investigation into so-called “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia, leaves Simpson and many others with a lot of explaining to do.

Unfortunately, according to Simpson’s attorneys, he won’t be doing the explaining. In a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Simpson’s lawyers said that he would “invoke his constitutional rights not to testify” because the House inquiry “is not designed to discover the truth.”

“Consistent with the September 27, 2018 letter we sent to you, Mr. Simpson, whose testimony is a matter of public record, will not be participating in a confidential deposition before this Committee,” Simpson’s lawyers wrote. “He will instead invoke his constitutional rights not to testify under the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution.”

Simpson may be clamming up, but his attorneys had plenty to say on his behalf. As defensive as anyone might be who was caught trying to illegally influence the outcome of a U.S. presidential election, Simpson, through his lawyers, accused the House Committee of trying to help President Trump “discredit” the Russia investigation.

“The obvious — and at times explicitly stated — goal of this Committee is to discredit and otherwise damage witnesses to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, all as part of an effort to protect a President who has sought to placate and curry favor with a hostile foreign power and who demands that the Justice Department stop investigating him,” they wrote.

Uh-huh. We would love to hear one example of the House Judiciary Committee “explicitly” stating that their goal is to discredit and damage witnesses on behalf of the president. Pretty sure that would have made the front page of The New York Times, and we’ve been watching pretty closely.

The higher one’s horse, the harder one’s fall. Simpson sounds like a man with something to hide.