We start with the short testimony of Deborah Fine.
Testimony of Laura Seago
Laura Seago worked with Fusion GPS back in 2016, where she reported directly to Fritsch and Simpson. She has been granted immunity by the Special Counsel for her testimony. She understood Marc Elias to be the Fusion GPS contact for the Clinton Campaign.
Seago stated she was present at a summer 2016 meeting with “Mr. Elias, my colleague Peter Fritsch from Fusion GPS, Mr. Sussmann, and Mr. Sussmann’s client Rodney Joffe.” As to the nature of that meeting:
“The general purpose, to the best of my recollection, was to discuss allegations of communications between the Trump organization and Alfa-Bank.”
Once the Alfa Bank allegations were developed, Seago met with journalist Franklin Foer (who would write the October 31, 2016, Alfa Bank article in Slate). The purpose of that meeting was to discuss “the allegations of communication between the Trump Organization and Alfa-Bank.”
They sold Foer on the Alfa Bank data at that meeting, telling him there were “highly credible computer scientists who seemed to think that these allegations were credible.” These “credible computer scientists” would ultimately be cited in Foer’s article. She admitted that Fusion GPS did nothing to validate the DNS records – something she said was “beyond my capabilities.”
Seago was walked through a number of e-mails she had with Joffe and other members of Fusion GPS. Some of these were privileged (the Joffe e-mails) so the Special Counsel was unable to discuss with Seago the contents. However, she did know about contents of the Joffe e-mails generally:
Finally, she admitted to understanding whose interests were served by planting the Alfa Bank story.
(Read more: Techno Fog, 5/18/2022) (Archive)
Here’s a more in-depth Transcript review of Day 3 – Sussmann Trial