John Podesta (l) and Christopher Steele (Credit: public domain)
“In recently unsealed testimony to Congress, former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta acknowledged that both he and Hillary Clinton were aware that her campaign had purchase opposition research and was looking for dirt on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 election.
(…) In a second appearance before the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017, Podesta testified that Clinton likely didn’t know the names of the firm, Fusion GPS, and former British spy Christopher Steele who had conducted the research. But he said she and he were both cognizant of an opposition research effort to connect Trump to business dealings in Russia.
(…) Podesta’s explanation is consistent to testimony that Steele, a former MI-6 operative, gave in March before a British court in which he said Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson told him that Clinton and the leadership of her campaign were aware of his research.
“You also understood that Hillary Clinton herself was aware of what you were doing?” a lawyer asked Steele.
“I think Glenn had mentioned it, but I wasn’t clear,” Steele answered.
Then Steele was confronted with what lawyers said were notes he took at a meeting with the FBI in 2016 in which he purported to tell agents that Clinton was aware of his research. The lawyers read from those notes during the court proceedings.
The notes, according to the transcript, read:
“We explained that Glenn Simpson/GPS Fusion was our commissioner but the ultimate client were the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign and that we understood the candidate herself was aware of the reporting at least, if not us.”