Fusion GPS is a commercial research and strategic intelligence firm based in Washington, DC The company conducts open source investigations and provides strategic research and advice for businesses, law firms and investors, as well as for political investigations, such as opposition research. The "GPS" initialism comes from "global research, political analysis, strategic insight".
Video Fusion GPS
Histori
The company was founded in 2011 by Glenn R. Simpson, a former journalist and investigative journalist for Roll Call and The Wall Street Journal; Peter Fritsch, former senior editor of the Wall Street Journal; and former Wall Street Journal reporter Thomas Catan.
Maps Fusion GPS
Work
Opposition research on Mitt Romney
Fusion GPS is employed by Democrats in 2012 to conduct opposition research on US presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In February 2012, the Mother Jones magazine published an article about Frank VanderSloot and his Melaleuca company, which combined has provided $ 1 million to support SuperPAC Mitt Romney. After the article was published, apprentices at Fusion GPS searched the Idaho court records at VanderSloot by phone and fax. In January 2013, VanderSloot sued Mother Jones for defamation in a February 2012 article. In the litigation process, VanderSloot sacked the Fusion GPS founder, Simpson, on "the theory that Mother Jones conspired with Obama's team to defame VanderSloot ". The Seven District Judicial Courts of Idaho State dismissed the lawsuit in 2015.
Planned Parenthood
In August 2015, Planned Parenthood retained Fusion GPS to defensively investigate the truth of a series of incognito videos released by anti-abortion activists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt from the Medical Progress Center which they claim indicates Planned Parenthood officials agreed to sell fetal tissue acquired through abortion to medical researchers. Fusion GPS hires video and transcription experts to analyze videos and summarize findings in forensic reports. The report claims that "unedited" videos posted by activists have been "strongly edited". Anti-abortion activists linked the gaps with "bathroom breaks and waiting periods." This report was given to US congressional leaders as evidence because they are considering funding and other issues related to Planned Parenthood operations.
After the grand jury refused to indict Planned Parenthood for any wrongdoing, on March 28, 2017, Daleiden and Merritt were charged with 15 serious crimes in the State of California - one for each person they recorded without consent, and one for criminal conspiracy to invade privacy. On June 21, 2017, fourteen of these allegations were dismissed, on leave to amend, arguing that they were not legally sufficient. As of June 30, 2017, state prosecutors purified 14 counts that were decided by numerical identification for each video. On August 24, 2017, the San Francisco High Court rejected a new defense movement to deny the allegations and allow the case to continue. Daleiden later pleaded not guilty, while Merritt did not enter the appeal at the time.
Prevezon Holding
In 2013, the US Department of Justice, represented by US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, sued Prevezon Holding, a New York State-listed Cyprus company as a foreign business corporation, under the Magnitsky Act for money laundering. The lawsuit seeks confiscation of real estate assets and holdings in the US. In May 2017, two months after President Trump sacked Bharara, the lawsuit was settled for $ 6 million, without Prevezon admitting a mistake and with both sides claiming victory.
The only shareholder of Prevezon is Russian Denis Katsyv, whose father is Petr Katsyv, vice president of Russian state-run railway monopoly and "reportedly as a business associate of Vladimir Yakunin, Vladimir Putin's confidant." Russian lawyer Katsyv, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was not allowed to practice in the US, and Katsyv hired the BakerHostetler law firm to represent Prevezon; BakerHostetler hired Fusion GPS in early 2014 to provide research assistance for litigation.
On October 18, 2016, the appellate court disqualified BakerHostetler from the case as they represented the hedge fund of Bill Browder's Hermitage Capital Management for nine months in 2008/2009 when the US Justice Department was investigating a tax fraud scheme in Russia involving "corporate Hermitage portfolio co-optation". The US Justice Department believes that Hermitage Capital is a victim of tax fraud and that BakerHofstetler's earlier work on behalf of Hermitage Capital created a conflict of interest. As part of their litigation support for BakerHostetler and their client Verezon, Fusion GPS is investigating Browder, the witness who became the center of the US Justice Department case.
On July 27, 2017, Fusion GPS accused the White House of trying to "pollute" to investigate alleged presidential allegations against Russia. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointed to Browder's testimony as proving Trump's claim that an ongoing investigation of the potential relationship between his campaign and Moscow was a political tactic to weaken his presidency. Fusion GPS denied that it was only working with law firms in New York "to provide support for civil litigation" unrelated to Russia's attempt to remove the Magnitsky Act, saying there is no reason to enroll under the Foreign Agent Registration Act FARA).
Browder filed a complaint with the US Justice Department in 2016 that Fusion GPS may have lobbied "for Russian interests in a campaign to oppose the delayed Global Magnitsky Act [and] fail to enroll under U.S. law". The Magnitsky Global Human Rights Accountability Act (not to be confused with the Magnitsky Act) is a human rights law adopted on December 23, 2016. It is also named Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who works for Browder who died in a Russian prison after uncovering a corruption scheme which he later accused of helping to concoct.
On March 30, 2017, Chancellor of the Senate Judiciary Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa called for an investigation by the US Department of Justice on the alleged connection between Fusion GPS and Russia, and an investigation into whether Fusion GPS acts as an unregistered foreign agent. The Company refutes claims that they are involved in lobbying or have violated the Foreign Agent Registration Act. According to the "Fact Checker" column Washington Post , "there is no evidence that the Russian government paid Fusion's work on Prevezon's defense at the same time Fusion is investigating Trump's business dealings in Russia."
Trump Document and Christopher Steele
In September 2015, Fusion GPS was hired by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative political website, to conduct opposition research on Trump and other Republican presidential candidates. In the spring of 2016 when Trump emerged as a potential Republican candidate, Beacon Bebas halted a funding investigation into Trump. From April 2016 to October 2016, the Perkins Coie law firm, on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the National Democratic Committee retained Fusion GPS to continue opposition research on Trump. In June 2016, Fusion GPS maintained Christopher Steele, a British private intelligence investigator and former MI-6 agent, to research Russian connections to Trump. Steele produced a series of 35 page memos from June to December 2016, which became a document known as the Donald Trump-Russia document. Fusion GPS provided Marc Elias, the primary election lawyer for Perkins Coie, with generated documents and other research documents.
The Company is being sued for defamation by three Alfa-Bank owners mentioned in the file as connected with Putin. German Khan, one of the plaintiffs and one of Russia's richest citizens, was the father-in-law of Alex van der Zwaan, who was indicted in Mueller's investigation for making a false statement to the FBI. He pleaded guilty to one count and in April 2018 was sentenced to 30 days in prison and a $ 20,000 fine.
Investigating House Intelligence Committee
On October 4, 2017, Chairman of the Nunes of the House Intelligence Committee issued a summons from the court to the management of the company, demanding documents and testimony in late October and early November 2017. According to a Democratic committee source, a court summons was issued unilaterally by a Republican majority committee.
On October 18, 2017, the House Intelligence Committee held a private meeting with two Fusion GPS executives, Peter Fritsch, and Thomas Catan. The aim is to seek information about their creations about "an opposition research document that makes obscene statements about President Donald Trump's relationship with Russia." The meeting was attended by committee staff and a single committee member, Representative Tom Rooney (R-FL). In response to the questions raised at the meeting, Fritsch and Catan demanded their Fifth Amendment rights against the allegations. Their lawyer, Joshua Levy, said that before the meeting, he had told the committee in writing that his client would ask for their rights, but they were forced to keep appearing. He added they would cooperate with a "serious" investigation but that "the Trump plot has been campaigning to condemn our clients for being tied to Trump documents."
On October 23, 2017, Fusion GPS filed a court order against a Nunes court summons to search company bank records for a period of more than two years, arguing it would undermine and possibly destroy businesses and infringe on their First Amendment rights. On 4 January 2018 US District Court Judge, Richard J. Leon, dropped the Fusion application, deciding that Fusion banks must submit financial records submitted by the House Intelligence Committee; Fusion asks the judge to keep ordering it because they plan to appeal.
On October 28, 2017, The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative political website, told the House Intelligence Committee that it has retained Fusion GPS services from 2015 to May 2016, to research Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates.. The goal is the discovery of destructive information. The Free Beacon and its main funding source, hedge fund manager Paul Singer, denied any involvement in Steele's paperwork, suggesting that they had stopped funding research on Trump before Steele was involved.
On January 2, 2018, Fusion GPS founder Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch wrote an opinion in the New York Times asking that Republicans "release a complete transcript of our company's testimony" and further explained that, "Steele's document is not a trigger for an FBI investigation into Russian intervention.When we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the file was considered very serious because the report reinforced the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the camp Trump. "
The committee interviewed Simpson for seven hours on November 14, 2017. The transcript of this interview was released on January 18, 2018.
Investigation of the Senate Judicial Commission
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee of Grassley and Democrat rank Dianne Feinstein made arrangements in July 2017 for the initiator of Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson to testify before their committee. It was agreed that Simpson would not testify in public but would be personally interviewed. The committee wanted to question Simpson about the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). A previous witness, banker and human rights activist Bill Browder, accused Simpson and Fusion GPS of avoiding registration as a foreign agent to campaign to influence and cancel the Magnitsky Act. Fusion GPS says through their lawyers that they do not need to register under FARA. The senators are also expected to use the hearing "to suppress Justice Department officials about what they know about Veselnitskaya, Prevezon, Fusion GPS and their connection to the Trump campaign or the Russian government."
On August 22, 2017, Simpson was questioned for 10 hours by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a closed meeting. The committee did not release trial transcripts, but indicated that Fusion GPS had provided more than 40,000 documents for investigation. Simpson maintains the confidentiality of the client's corporate identity; client names - conservative Web sites of The Washington Free Beacon, and a law firm representing the DNC and Clinton presidential campaign - were revealed in October 2017 as a result of an investigation by the House Intelligence Committee.
On January 2, 2018, Simpson and Fritsch co-authored an op-ed in the New York Times, asking two congressional committees to "release a complete transcript of our company's testimonial". On January 8, 2018, a Grassley spokesman said he did not plan to release the Simpson transcript August 22, 2017, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The next day, January 9, 2018, Feinstein unilaterally released the transcript.
See also
- Emailing the Democratic National 2016 email
- Russian intervention in the 2016 United States elections
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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