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<\/a><\/p>\nChuck Ross | Reporter
\nThe Daily Caller<\/p>\n
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is pressing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff for answers about\u00a0his interactions with Glenn Simpson, the founder of the opposition research firm behind the Democrat-funded Steele dossier.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0a statement<\/a>\u00a0released on Friday, McCarthy questioned whether Schiff, a California Democrat, should recuse himself from the Intelligence panel\u2019s Russia investigation because of\u00a0a meeting<\/a>\u00a0he had with Simpson at the Aspen Security Forum in July 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven Chairman Schiff\u2019s previous underlying rationale when calling for others to recuse themselves from Russia-related investigations, in order to avoid charges of hypocrisy or perceived bias, should Chairman Schiff recuse himself from his intended investigations after meeting with a witness of an ongoing investigation?\u201d McCarthy asked.<\/p>\n The Schiff-Simpson meeting has come under scrutiny because of Simpson\u2019s role in pushing the unverified Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory. Simpson has also been accused by some Republican lawmakers of lying to the House Intelligence Committee about his interactions with government officials while working on the dossier.\u00a0(RELATED: Bruce Ohr\u2019s Testimony Conflicted With Glenn Simpson\u2019s)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n During testimony to the House panel on Nov. 14, 2017, Simpson withheld that he met with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr prior to the November 2016 election. Simpson said that he met Ohr only after the election. But Ohr told Congress on Aug. 28, 2018 that he and Simpson met on Aug. 22, 2016 at Simpson\u2019s request. They met again on Dec. 10, 2016.<\/p>\n Kevin McCarthy talks with reporters following the weekly House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol April 17, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ohr\u2019s wife worked as a contractor for Fusion during the 2016 campaign. And after the election, Ohr served as the back channel between the FBI and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who worked for Fusion GPS on the dossier project.<\/p>\n During the same testimony in which Simpson has been accused of lying, Schiff sought investigative leads from the Fusion GPS founder.<\/p>\n McCarthy asserted that it is \u201cvirtually unprecedented \u2026 that a now Chairman of an investigative committee would seek direction from a fatally biased witness who was actually paid by political opponents to uncover dirt on the President.\u201d<\/p>\n Schiff recently announced<\/a>\u00a0that he plans to expand the committee\u2019s investigation into whether President Trump conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election and whether foreign agents have leverage over Trump.<\/p>\n The Steele dossier is the main source document for that conspiracy theory. In the 35-page document, Steele alleges a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Kremlin to release emails stolen from Democrats. Steele also claimed that the Kremlin is blackmailing Trump with a video tape of him with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room in 2013.<\/p>\n None of the core allegations about Trump have been verified in the more than two years since the dossier was published.<\/p>\n McCarthy is also accusing Schiff of running cover for Fusion GPS and the FBI, which relied heavily on the dossier to obtain surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.<\/p>\n Schiff served as a roadblock to House Intel Republican efforts to obtain Fusion\u2019s bank records.\u00a0Those documents<\/a>, which were released after a legal fight in October 2017, revealed that the Clinton campaign and DNC paid Fusion GPS $1 million to investigate Trump.\u00a0(RELATED: Bruce Ohr Testimony Undercuts Adam Schiff\u2019s Defense Of FBI)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Schiff\u2019s office and Fusion GPS have downplayed the Aspen meeting.<\/p>\n \u201cThe chairman did not have any pre-planned meeting with Glenn Simpson, and any conversation with him at the Aspen conference would have been brief and social in nature,\u201d a spokesman for Schiff told The Hill, which reported the meeting on Feb. 7.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n