Turns Out a Far Right Wing Website Funded by a GOP Billionaire Was First Behind Salacious Anti-Trump Russia Dossier

‘Salacious Dossier Describing Ties Between Mr. Trump and the Russian Government’

Conservatives, Republicans, and especially Donald Trump and his supporters have been going crazy the past few days, having convinced themselves that Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia after news broke the DNC and the Clinton campaign may have funded the dossier revealing salacious details about Donald Trump and his ties – sexual and financial – to Russia.

Trump repeatedly has tweeted Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia, after Fox News has been hammering the false fact home. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly said Friday that if there was any collusion it was between the Clintons and Russia.

But as The New York Times reports Friday evening, it turns out the Russia dossier came into being thanks to a far right wing website funded by a “vulture-fund” billionaire Republican donor, Paul Singer, who has ties to Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell, and the Koch Brothers, to name just a few.

“The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, was the first to hire the firm that conducted opposition research on Donald J. Trump — including a salacious dossier describing ties between Mr. Trump and the Russian government — website representatives told the House Intelligence Committee on Friday,” The New York Times reports.

“According to people briefed on the conversation, the website hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in October 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.”

Great journalism there, by the way: “The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination.”

It’s important to note that The Washington Free Beacon’s editor-in-chief is Matthew Continetti, frequently appears on MSNBC, the supposed liberal network. His father-in-law is the neo-conservative William Kristol, founder of the right wing website The Weekly Standard. Kristol is often seen on MSNBC also.

“The Free Beacon is funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, according to an associate of Mr. Singer,” the Times adds.

After The Washington Free Beacon ceased funding the research, the Times notes, “Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee also retained Fusion GPS to research any possible connections between Mr. Trump, his businesses, his campaign team and Russia. Working for them, Fusion GPS retained a respected former British spy named Christopher Steele.”

Continetti, the Free Beacon’s editor-in-chief, and the website’s chairman, Michael Goldfarb, have posted a note to readers delivering their side of the story, citing their First Amendment “right to engage in news-gathering” as they “see fit”  

And that’s how the Russia dossier, that Trump and his supporters now believe is evidence of “collusion” between Clinton and Russia – for reasons that do not make any sense whatsoever – came into being.

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Image by Simon Edelman, US Dept. of Energy via Flickr 

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