Article snippet: Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in August that law enforcement officials had already been investigating MORE’s team for Russia connections before the “Steele dossier” was completed. Simpson, whose opposition research firm compiled the controversial dossier, pushed back in his testimony on the idea that Fusion GPS produced a phony document, telling the panel behind closed doors that the document’s author, a former MI6 spy named Christopher Steele, told him that, by September, the FBI already had “other intelligence” backing up claims in the dossier. “It’s political rhetoric to call the dossier phony. ... We can argue about what’s prudent and what’s not, but it’s not a fabrication,” Simpson told the panel. Sen. MORE (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, on Tuesday unilaterally released Simpson’s more than 300 pages of testimony to the committee in a startling move that comes amid an escalating partisan fight over the FBI’s Russia investigation. Simpson’s testimony calls into question that narrative, pushing back at the notion that the dossier was a partisan hit-job funded by Democrats. Its release infuriated Judiciary Chairman MORE (R-Iowa), who called Feinstein’s actions “confounding.” According to Simpson, who had called on Grassley to release the transcript, Steele was so concerned by the possibility that a presidential candidate might be “blackmailed” by Russia that he reached out to the FBI of hi... Link to the full article to read more