Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson in 'real legal jeopardy', GOP investigator says
Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson is pleading the fifth because he's in "real legal jeopardy," said a member of the House Judiciary Committee on Sunday.
Last week, Simpson's lawyer announced that his client intends to “invoke his constitutional rights not to testify" for a closed-door deposition on Oct. 16.
Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, said he is not surprised Simpson would take such a course of action, considering how his past testimony clashes with what a Justice Department official under scrutiny told the committee.
"The reason for that … is that Glenn Simpson had previously testified under oath to the House Intelligence Committee that he never met with Bruce Ohr or discussed with Bruce Ohr the Steele dossier prior to the October [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] application in 2016 or the 2016 presidential election," Ratcliffe said on Fox News. "That is in direct contradiction to what Bruce Ohr told me under oath last month. I'm not surprised he is taking the Fifth. He probably should. He's in real legal jeopardy. Very clearly someone is not telling the truth. Nellie Ohr, Bruce's Ohr wife, certainly can shed some light."
Simpson’s firm Fusion GPS hired former British spy Christopher Steele during the 2016 campaign to conduct the opposition research, which led to the so-called Trump or Steele dossier containing a number of unverified claims about potentially compromising ties between President Trump and Russia.
Ohr, formerly the associate deputy attorney general, met with the Oversight and Judiciary Committees in late August, where he faced questions about his feeding the FBI information from Steele even after he was cut as a source for providing confidential information to the media. Ohr also attracted scrutiny because his wife, Nellie, was a contractor for Fusion GPS. She is expected to speak with lawmakers next week.
GOP investigators are concerned about potential surveillance abuse by the government, as the FBI used Steele's salacious dossier, which was funded in part by Democratic interests, in multiple Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications to gain the authority to spy on onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein signed off on the last one of those, and this week failed to appear before the Judiciary Committee, prompting a subpoena threat from Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fusion-gps-co-founder-glenn-simpson-in-real-legal-jeopardy-gop-investigator-says