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<\/a><\/p>\nChuck Ross | Reporter
\nThe Daily Caller<\/p>\n
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- Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley is accusing Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson of giving \u201cextremely misleading if not outright false testimony\u201d to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Grassley, the chairman of the committee, said in a letter Monday that he hopes the Justice Department is treating Simpson\u2019s testimony in the same manner as that of Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer who pleaded guilty on Nov. 29 to lying to Congress.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Grassley claims that Simpson may have lied when he denied that he was working for a client to investigate President Donald Trump after the election.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is drawing parallels between the false testimony that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen gave to Congress in 2017 and the \u201cextremely misleading\u201d statements made by the founder of the firm that commissioned the infamous Steele dossier.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that the Justice Department is handling all these instances of false statements to Congress with the same level of seriousness they treated Mr. Cohen\u2019s,\u201d Grassley, an Iowa Republican, wrote Monday in\u00a0a letter<\/a>\u00a0to Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal.<\/p>\n
Cohen pleaded guilty on Nov. 29 in the special counsel\u2019s investigation to lying to Congress in 2017 about the extent of his attempts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen admitted he lied about how long he worked on the project, which was ultimately scuttled in June 2016.<\/p>\n
Grassley accused Glenn Simpson, a co-founder of Fusion GPS, of possibly lying during his Aug. 22, 2017 testimony\u00a0when he claimed that his firm was not working for a client to investigate President Donald Trump after the 2016 election.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you didn\u2019t do any work on the Trump matter after the election date, that was the end of your work?\u201d Simpson was asked in his deposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no client after the election,\u201d said Simpson.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we now know, that was extremely misleading, if not an outright lie,\u201d Grassley asserted in his letter to Blumenthal.<\/p>\n
Grassley noted that a former Senate staffer named\u00a0Daniel Jones<\/a>\u00a0told the FBI in March 2017 that he hired Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, after the election to continue an investigation into Trump\u2019s possible ties to Russia.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn01.dailycaller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Senate-Judiciary-Committee-Chairman-Sen.-Chuck-Grassley-R-IA-attends-a-committee-hearing-on-Capitol-Hill-November-15-2018-in-Washington-DC-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSenate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley attends a committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Nov. 15, 2018 in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 (Photo by Win McNamee\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Jones, a former staffer to California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, told the FBI that he \u201chad secured the services Steele, his associate [redacted], and Fusion GPS to continue exposing Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones also said that the group \u201cwas being funded by 7 to 10 wealthy donors located primarily in New York and California, who provided approximately $50 million.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal of the group was to pass information to lawmakers, the FBI and the press, Jones told the FBI.<\/p>\n
\u201cContrary to Mr. Simpson\u2019s denial in the staff interview, according to the FBI and others, Fusion actually did continue Trump dossier work for a new client after the election,\u201d said Grassley.<\/p>\n
Grassley has noted\u00a0Simpson\u2019s inconsistent testimony<\/a>\u00a0in the past, most recently in\u00a0a letter<\/a>sent to another Democrat colleague on May 29.<\/p>\n
In his letter to Blumenthal, Grassley rejected the Democrat\u2019s request to interview Donald Trump Jr.<\/p>\n
Blumenthal asserted that the president\u2019s son may have lied in his Sept. 7, 2017 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the extent of his work to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Blumenthal suggested that Trump Jr.\u2019s testimony was inconsistent with what\u00a0Cohen<\/a>\u00a0disclosed in his plea agreement on Nov. 29 with the special counsel\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
But as Grassley noted, Blumenthal relied on\u00a0a since-debunked report from NPR<\/a>\u00a0on Nov. 30.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was fake news,\u201d wrote Grassley to Blumenthal of the NPR report, which was corrected after the news outlet acknowledged misreading a transcript of Trump Jr.\u2019s testimony.<\/p>\n
In dismissing Blumenthal\u2019s request, Grassley noted that the committee has \u201cactual evidence of misleading testimony,\u201d noting\u00a0Simpson\u2019s testimony.<\/p>\n
Republican lawmakers have accused Simpson of giving misleading testimony in another congressional interview.<\/p>\n
Simpson told the House Intelligence Committee on Nov. 14, 2017 that he had no contact with Justice Department or the FBI until after the election. Simpson acknowledged at the time that he met after the election with Bruce Ohr, a top Justice Department official who served as a back channel between the FBI and Steele.\u00a0(RELATED: Glenn Simpson\u2019s Testimony Conflicted With Bruce Ohr\u2019s)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
But Ohr testified on Aug. 28 that he met with Simpson both before and after the 2016 election \u2014 once in August 2016 and once in December 2016.<\/p>\n
Simpson and Fusion GPS have yet to explain the discrepancy in his testimony.<\/p>\n
- Grassley, the chairman of the committee, said in a letter Monday that he hopes the Justice Department is treating Simpson\u2019s testimony in the same manner as that of Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer who pleaded guilty on Nov. 29 to lying to Congress.<\/strong><\/li>\n