FBI had source inside Trump team, claims Fusion GPS founder

Transcript of Glenn Simpson's Senate testimony sheds light on Russian investigation

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump addresses supporters during a campaign rally (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The man behind a controversial dossier of information about then-candidate Donald Trump claimed the FBI had a source inside Mr Trump's network during their investigation of his campaign, a newly released transcript has shown.

Glenn Simpson, the founder of research firm Fusion GPS – who commissioned former MI6 officer Christopher Steele to compile the dossier – testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in August. In his testimony, he suggested that Mr Steele had claimed the existence of a secret FBI source inside the Trump camp.

The so-called "Steele dossier" is known for its shocking claims, including that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia – something Mr Trump has repeatedly denied.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein released a transcript of the interview on Tuesday, after repeated disagreements with Republicans on the committee.

According to the transcript, Mr Simpson told the committee that Mr Steele had reported his suspicions about the Trump campaign to the FBI in July in 2016. When the researcher spoke with the FBI again in September, Mr Simpson said, agents made it clear that they believed at least some of his allegations.

“My understanding was that they believed Chris at this point – that they believed Chris might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing and one of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump Organisation,” Mr Simpson said.

Mr Simpson declined to say who he suspected the whistle-blower to be, but did not think it was a source of Mr Steele's.

“It was someone like us who decided to pick up the phone and report something,” he said, adding that he believed the source was “voluntary,” and “was concerned about the same concerns we had”.

A source close to Fusion GPS, however, told NBC that the Trump-team source did not exist. Mr Simpson, this source said, had mischaracterised a tip from an Australian diplomat about Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos.

Mr Papadopoulos drunkenly told an Australian diplomat during the campaign that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton, according to the New York Times. The diplomat then relayed this information to American officials, sparking the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign.

Mr Simpson also said Mr Steele had cut off contact with the FBI after former agency head James Comey announced he was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Around the same time, the Times reported that the FBI was investigating Mr Trump and had found no connections to Russia.

“I understand Chris severed his relationship with the FBI out of concern that he didn't know what was happening inside the FBI and there was a concern that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people,” Mr Simpson said.

Fusion GPS commended Ms Feinstein for releasing the transcript, and said Mr Simpson’s “lengthy responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questioning speaks for itself”.

Ms Feinstein said she released the transcript with the agreement of the other Democrats on the committee, to combat the "innuendo and misinformation" surrounding it.

"The only way to set the record straight is to make the transcript public," she said.

Mr Trump has repeatedly denied colluding with Russia during the campaign, and called the entire investigation a “witch hunt”.

“Everything I’ve done is 100 percent proper,” he said at a press conference last weekend. “...Just so you understand, there’s been no collusion, there’s been no crime.”