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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, first hired the research firm that months later produced for Democrats the salacious dossier describing ties between Donald J. Trump and the Russian government, the website said on Friday. The Free Beacon, funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in 2015 to unearth damaging information about several Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. Trump. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination. Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee had begun paying Fusion GPS in April for research that eventually became the basis for the dossier. The Free Beacon informed the House Intelligence Committee on Friday that it had retained the firm. That committee is one of a number of congressional committees investigating Russian attempts to disrupt the 2016 election and whether there was any collusion with Mr. Trump’s associates. The role of the website answers one of the lingering mysteries behind the events leading up to the production of the dossier and its publication by BuzzFeed in January. It has long been known that Fusion GPS was first hired by Republicans, but it was not known who was the source of the funding. This week, Mr. Trump and his allies seized on the fact that Democrats had paid the fi... Link to the full article to read more