by the United States Senate Judiciary Committee

“ I would have to say I think so, but when you're a subcontractor to a law firm, you know, you're sort of in a lane and, you know, my lane was research, discovery, William Browder's business practices, his activities in Russia, his history of avoiding taxes.
So people — other people, you know, in a big case come and go and it's not really my position to ask, you know, who hired them and why. Generally if I'm introduced to somebody they'll explain, you know, why there were other lawyers who worked for Prevezon who were part of the case. ”

“ This form of reporting was, in fact, the form that the rest of the project took, which was, you know — I've done other kinds of research in Russia, but something this sensitive I don't think I've ever been involved in. So in an ordinary case you would try to gather public records and you would conduct yourself in a much more open fashion.
You know, Russia is a dangerous place, it's a kleptocracy and a police state, but it's also a giant bureaucracy and in some ways it's a much more open society, much more open than the Soviet Union ever was. ”

“ I know a lot about how campaigns work and how, you know, Washington works generally. So we do things like policy disputes, one industry versus another, one company versus another. We don't do a lot of campaign consulting, but every four years for the last couple of cycles we've done some presidential work.
Generally speaking, the way our business is structured most campaigns don't have the budget for the kind of services that we provide. So we only would do things where people have the resources to pay for a serious piece of research. ”

“ So if there's sanctions on Russia and the Russians can't move money in the United States for most things, this would, in fact, be an ideal mechanism for moving money into the United States for whatever purpose, for some kind of illicit purpose. ”

“ So most of what I do as a research person is we try to avoid getting into situations where one's etiology or political views would cloud your work because it's a known hazard, but, you know, I reached an opinion about Donald Trump and his suitability to be president of the United States and I was concerned about whether he was the best person for the job. ”

“ In most cases that I can think of we don't have one subcontractor working on more than one matter, but to the extent that would happen, we don't really — when you're dealing with subcontractors you're giving them generally very specific assignments, find out what you can about this company or this businessman or this court case, whatever, and a lot of that you never get into who the client is. ”

“ Q. With regard to the political or campaign work that you do, the same principles you've talked about in terms of how the relationship is structured, how the research is done, do those same principles apply to that political or campaign research as well?
A. Yes. There's a limited number of examples because we don't do a lot of it, but, again, my specialty is really sort of financial investigations and business practices. In the last — you know, in a current example we have a businessman who had a far-flung business empire all around the world. ”

“ How do you handle the fact that you have work for more than one client in terms of protecting confidentiality in general and ensuring — well, first of all, I presume that you take steps so that work for one client is not shared with another client? ”

“ I originally met William Browder back when I was a journalist at the Wall Street Journal when I was doing stories about corruption in Russia. I think the first time I met him he lectured me about — I was working on a story about Vladimir Putin corruption and he lectured me about how have Vladimir Putin was not corrupt and how he was the best thing that ever happened to Russia. There are numerous documents that he published himself, interviews he gave singing the praises of Vladimir Putin. At that time I was already investigating corruption in Putin's Russia. ”

“ It's coming from Chris Steele who's a guy that I've worked with for, you know, about eight or nine years and Chris, as I say, has a Sterling reputation as a person who doesn't exaggerate, doesn't make things up, doesn't sell baloney. In my business, I mean, there are a lot of people who make stuff up and sell baloney. So the one thing that you get good at if you do this for a while is finding reliable sources, finding reliable people who have a record of giving it to you straight and not making stuff up and not making mistakes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ MR. SIMPSON: It's hard to generalize. I run a business, it's a research business. Reporters know we have clients who pay us to do research. So, you know, I don't remember any specific queries about whether we were being paid or not, but I think most journalists would assume that someone had paid us to do research. ”

“ He was not the only subcontractor that we engaged. Other parts of the world required other people. For example, 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. So we needed someone else for that. So there were other things. We were not totally focused on Russia at that time, but we were at a point where we were — you know, we'd done a lot of reading and research and we were drilling down on specific areas. ”

“ So the first thing, you know, in any case really is to sort of try and figure out whether your own client's story can be supported or whether it's not true, and the lawyers — you know, we work with a lot of prominent law firms and in many cases the first thing the lawyers need to know is whether their client's story is real, whether it can be supported, you know, because in any new case you don't know whether your own client is telling you the truth. ”

“ There's no need for a subcontractor to know who a client is unless it's for, you know, KYC, know your customer kind of due diligence purposes. Sometimes we identify clients to prevent conflicts. So unless there's a reason like that or because they need to meet with the client, you know, we generally wouldn't tell them who the client is.
Q. So you had mentioned a few minutes ago that you had done some political or campaign research in the course of the 2016 presidential election and you clarified that that was work related to then Candidate and now President Trump. ”

“ Your clients are frequently trying to make a decision about how they want to proceed, whether they want to — you know, if someone thinks they've been defrauded, you can file a lawsuit, you can go to the police. You would decide that based on what you find out about the, you know, evidence of a fraud. So that's generally the way we do it.
Q. To the best of your knowledge, has Fusion GPS ever had an arrangement with a client in which the company was specifically tasked with getting government agencies to initiate an investigation? ”

“ MR. SIMPSON: Yes.
MR. DAVIS: So that the court reporter can take down a clear record, we'll do our best to limit the number of people directing questions at you during any given hour to those whose turn it is. It's also important that we don't talk over one another or interrupt each other to the extent we can help it. That goes for everybody present at today's interview.
We encourage witnesses who appear before the committee to freely consult with counsel if they should choose. You are appearing here today with counsel. ”

“ Q. A January 11, 2017 New York Times article described your firm, Fusion GPS, as a firm that "Most often works for business clients, but in presidential elections the firm is sometimes hired by candidates, party organizations, or donors to do political oppo work, short for opposition research on the side."
Is that an accurate description of the firm?
A. In a shorthand way, yeah. I mean, it's consistent with the description I think I gave you. We don't do a lot of campaign work, but, you know, every few years we do. And most of our clients are not trying to win an election. ”

“ I remember sort of not being able to kind of explain to people that's exactly why he would end up as someone who they would try to co-opt. Of course, you know, when we talk about things in the dossier that are confirmed, this is one of the things that I think really stands out as notable, which is that Chris identified Carter Page as someone who had — seemed to be in the middle of the campaign, between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, and he later turned out to be an espionage suspect who was, in fact, someone that the FBI had been investigating for years. ”

“ The reason we do it that way, you know, A, we are professionals and we feel like it's not helpful to have someone dictating how you do things, but, B, if you predetermine the result that you're looking for you tend to miss things. So it's better — you know, it's pure versus applied science, right? You're looking to understand how things work before you understand what you might need to address a particular problem.
What happens after you've done open-ended research is then, of course, you try to apply it to the specific issues at hand. ”

“ Q. Does part of Fusion GPS's business involve attempting to have media outlets publish articles that further the interests of your clients?
A. Yeah, you could — I mean, generally speaking, we are — generally we tend to respond to inquiries more than try to push things, but, you know, we work with the press frequently.
Q. And has Fusion GPS ever provided information to journalists in order to encourage them to publish articles or air stories that further your client's interests? ”

“ Another thing we say about our work is it's custom information, it's a customized product. You tell us what your problem is and we customize a research solution. In general when people come to us and they tell us what their challenge is, we stipulate that they retain us for 30 days, they agree to pay our fee, they don't tell us what to do, they don't tell us, you know, what result to get. ”

“ I mean, the basis for the request was he 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.
You know, in the background of all international business is questions about corruption. The Trump organization had branched out all over the world in like the four to eight years prior to 2016. So in any kind of investigation you would naturally want to know whether there was some issue with improper business relationships. ”

“ I do my job well and I get rehired when I give them the right information, when I give them accurate information. So if Donald Trump turned out to be a great businessman, that's what I would have to tell people. ”

“ So Chris asked me do you know David Kramer, and I said yes, I've known David Kramer for a long time. David Kramer is part of a small group of people that I'm sort of loosely affiliated with. We've all worked on Russia and are very concerned about kleptocracy and human rights and the police state that Russia has become, in particular the efforts of the Russians to corrupt and mess with our political system.So we shared this concern going back to when I was at the Wall Street Journal and that's how I met David. ”

“ MR. FOSTER: Could you just tell us generally who else other than your client was aware of the Trump research project as it was going on. So excluding your client and excluding your subcontractors, who else knew that you were doing it?
MR. SIMPSON: Journalists.
MR. FOSTER: In the summer of 2016?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes.
MR. FOSTER: And they knew that because you were telling them about it?
MR. SIMPSON: We get calls from journalists who are working on stories about all kinds of subjects and some things we can answer questions on and others we don't. ”

“ What would you describe as kind of the key expertise of your firm, Fusion GPS?
A. Public information is our specialty. We generally are all ex-journalists and specific type of journalists, investigative reporters, and, you know, being a journalist is all about finding public information. ”

“ It's the only Buddhist republic in Russia and there's nothing much there, but if you put your companies there you can lower your taxes. They were putting their companies in Kalmykia that were holding investments from western investors and they were staffing these companies — they were using Afghan war veterans because there's a tax preference for Afghan war veterans, and what we learned is that they got in trouble for this eventually because one of Putin's primary rules for business was you can do a lot of things, but you've got to pay your taxes. ”

“ I don't know if it was particular properties or something with regard to Scotland. Can you just describe what that research was.
A. Sure. He has golf courses in Scotland and Ireland and one of the facets of UK or anglo company law is that private companies have to file financial statements, public financial statements. So when you're looking at a guy like Donald Trump who doesn't like to share information about his company, it's useful to find a jurisdiction where he's required to share that information with the local government. ”

“ Q. Were any clients on the Trump research not American citizens?
A. I don't mind answering that if that's okay. They're domestic clients.
MR. FOSTER: You said earlier that the information that you gather in your work is owned by the client, it's not owned by you, and so therefore you also referenced your nondisclosure agreements and that you felt like if you had information that related to national security or law enforcement that the nondisclosure agreement did not prevent you from disclosing that information to third parties. ”

“ Q. And was any of the information you provided to the media information that wasn't the result of your own research but that had been passed along to you by Baker Hostetler or Prevezon?
A. I think the answer to that is yes, but I'm struggling to think of a specific example. As I was saying earlier, the lawyers did a lot of the research too. So there was obviously a sharing of research where, you know, we were feeding research to them and they were housing a central repository of research and then the research would become memoranda and given in court filings. ”