<p>The Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC helped fund the research that resulted in the infamous &ldquo;Trump dossier.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p>The dossier, first published by <em>BuzzFeed</em> in January, contained all sorts of allegations against Trump, including material tying him to Russia. ;Few of the claims in the dossier have been verified. ;</p>
<p>As reported by <em>The ;Washington Post</em>, the DNC and the Clinton campaign hired research firm Fusion GPS to find dirt on then-candidate President Trump. Attorney Mark Elias was hired to oversee the project and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele was hired to write the dossier. ;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The fact Democrats were behind the funding for the dossier is not totally new,&rdquo; ;notes ;the<em> ;Post</em>. &ldquo;Until now, though, the dossier had not been tied specifically to the Clinton campaign or to the DNC.&rdquo; The report follows a tweet from Trump urging the FBI and Justice Department to &ldquo;immediately release who paid for it.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p>Prior to Fusion GPS being retained by Elias and his law firm (Perkins Coie), the research on Trump had been paid for by ;an unidentified Republican during the GOP primary. The Clinton campaign and the DNC decided to keep the research going through the end of October, just days before Trump won the election. ;</p>
<p>Steele&rsquo;s research documents were given to Elias, but it is unclear how much information was shared with the DNC and the Clinton campaign and who was aware of the roles of Fusion and Steele. Elias and Fusion have declined to comment on the arrangement.</p>
<p>Clinton and the DNC&#8217;s involvement with the dossier is a &ldquo;very sad commentary on politics in this country,&#8221; said Trump on Wednesday. &#8220;Hillary Clinton always denied it. The Democrats always denied it, and now, only because it is going to come out in a court case, they said yes they did it. They admitted it and they are embarrassed by it.&#8221; ;</p>
<p>The DNC and the Clinton campaign reportedly shared the cost of paying Fusion GPS, but no dollar amount has been disclosed. &ldquo;I have no idea what Fusion or Steele were paid but if even a shred of that dossier ends up helping [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller, it will prove money well spent,&rdquo; tweeted former Clinton campaign manager Brian Fallon.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the DNC insists it was not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion, and the Clinton team claims it knew nothing about Steele until after the election. ;</p>
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<p>&ldquo;There is, presumably, a reason Democrats haven&rsquo;t copped to funding the dossier,&rdquo; reports the <em>Post.</em> &ldquo;First among those reasons is paying a foreigner for opposition research for an American political campaign.&rdquo;</p>
<p>This could be troublesome given the Dems&rsquo; argument about Trump working with Russia.</p>
<p>Steele&rsquo;s dossier contains information allegedly obtained from &ldquo;a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure and a former top-level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin.&rdquo; In other words, team Clinton and the DNC were paying a Brit for information obtained from the Russian government. ;</p>
<p>Fusion GPS has other ties to Russia, including an alleged smear campaign against Sergei Magnitsky, a whistleblower who was tortured and killed after exposing a $230 million tax theft. Fusion is also fighting the release of its bank records as ordered by a subpoena ;signed by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). ;</p>
<p>Fusion GPS appeared before the House Intelligence Committee last week, refusing to submit to the subpoena and threatening to ;plead the Fifth against self-incrimination. The bank has until Friday to make a decision while the company attempts to negotiate with Nunes. ;</p>
<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note:</strong> It should be very clear to all concerned, even those hardcore on the left, that the whole Russia collusion theme was a hoax perpetrated by Hillary Clinton and the DNC. Time to turn the investigation to where it belongs.</p>