the meeting was attend by an associate of glen simpson. so there are ways, all of these threats beginning to tie together. >> give me, can you give us the context for how this interview came about and why your committee felt it was crucial the talk to glen simpson, the person who oversees the firm that commissioned this document? >> good question. he prepared this dossier which implicates president trump in russia meddling in the election, and possible other wrongdoing. and he was an associate. and so he was one of the witnesses who was subpoenas to come before our committee, i know what paul manafort and donald trump jr. was also requested. as first round. i think senator grassley is taking the right approach and he is to be commended for wanting to make this testimony public because it relates to our oversight of the department of justice. the special counsel is pursuing criminal charges and we want to make sure that anything may be made public including the tens of thousands of pages of documents that have been submitted. it does not in

of testimony on the trump-russia dossier to the senate judiciary committee yesterday, as far as glen simpsone committee is welcome to publicly release the transcript of those ten hours of testimony. in an exclusive statement provided to us tonight, simpson's lawyer says in part, quote, the transcript reveals all of mr. simpson's testimony based on the hours of questioning from staff, the committee can release the transcript if it so chooses. be my guest. that's important, because chuck grassley, the chair of that committee, just told a town hall in iowa tonight that his committee is going to take a vote on whether or not they want to put out that transcript of the ten hours of testimony. he said personally he sees no reason why he would vote against making that testimony public. oh, dear. intelligence veteran malcolm joins us next. wondering, what if? i let go of all those feelings. because i am cured with harvoni. harvoni is a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. it's been prescribed to more than a quarter million people. and is proven to cure up to 99% o

who is glen simpson?former wall street journal reporter who founded an investigative firm, fusion gps, which was hired by a never trump republican back in september 2015 to collect opposition research on trump. and that evolved into this now infamous dossier laying out a series of allegations about trump and russia. but simpson also worked on the other side of the putin divide for a russian oligarch arguing against the set of sanctions called the magnitsky act. the story behind the sanctions, they believe, is a fraud. the republicans on the judiciary committee wanted to talk to him about that and questioning whether there were some unregistered lobbying going on, including simpson worked with those very people who appeared at that trump tower meeting. bear with me, this gets complicated. he was working on their side of the fones th the fence on that case. the dossier undermines donald trump and russia. the democrats on the committee wanted to talk to him about what he knows about donald trump's russia con

where that dossier and the interviews with glen simpson may be relevant as well. >> and, of course, glen simpson runs the and that put together that dossier that eventually found its way into the special prosecutor's office and others, outlining the extent of trump connections to russia. and glen simpson has said that he's happy to have the full transcript of his ten hours of testimony to the staff released immediately. >> there are a couple l of things. one, of course, i'd really like to hear from mr. steele directly, not from the president who hired mr. steele, but i would also like to hear from mr. simpson as well. and there is a fine line that has to be balanced which is between interfering with an investigation of the special counsel and the public right to know. and, of course, as a member of the public, i want to know and i would like to know soon enough that it can be public before the 2018 elections. i think that's very important. i think they need to cooperate with mr. mueller so that they don't do anything, for example, you don't want them releasing information that is not alr

glen simpson is an investigator for "the wall street journal." he was interviewed by senate judiciary staff today for ten hours. there's one report tonight that he handed over as many as 40,000 documents to the committee. again, fusion gps is the outfit that ultimately commissioned that dossier and he just handed over 40,000 documents? the leader of that committee is republican senator chuck grassley. we've talked about here on the show the fact that senator grassley in the past has made an effort to undermine the dossier by attacking its origins and attacking fusion gps. those efforts have really been to no effect. tu today abc news reports that the man who created the dossier, not the man who commissioned it and arranged for payment of it, the former officer in britain who collected the intelligence, contacted the sources and wrote up the dossier in the first place, the man fired by fusion gps, christian steele himself, not only has talked to the finn in detail about the dossier and how he put it together. according to abc news today christophe

glen simpson, he was reportedly interviewed by senate judiciary staff today for ten hours. there's one report tonight that he handed over systems 40,000 documents to the committee. again, fusion gps, his outfit is the group that ultimately commissioned that dossier, and he just handed over 40,000 documents. the leader of that committee is republican senator chuck grassley. and we've talked about here on the show the fact senator grassley in the past has made a effort to try to undermine the does way by attacking it's or engines and fusion gps. so far the efforts have been to no effect. but today nbc news reports that the man who created the dossier, not the one who commissioned it, but the former mi-6 officer in britain who collected the evidence, wrote up the dossier in the first place, hired by fusion gps to create the dossier, not only has talked to the fbi in detail about the dossier and how he put it together, according to abs news today, christopher steele has given the fbi specific information about the identity of his sources that he used to put the dossier together

glen simpson should testify in the committee in the open, under oath, and so should the others as wellnald trump jr. and the person -- anyone involved in that meeting in early june that involved apparently jared kushner and others. >> remind us why glen simpson is significant to the investigation here. >> because he compiled a dossier that implicated donald trump in the russian meddling and other potential wrong doing but also he is apparently a close associate of those who attended, includi includi including paul manafort. we want to make sure whether it's the release of the transcript or anything else we in no way conflict with the special counsel's role. he should be protected by legislation that i've offered and others, that's bipartisan. >> was he a compelling witness? did he become more interesting to you after ten hours of testimony? >> every witness is going to be interesting to me. every witness potentially has facts that are relevant to the investigation and those facts may be more interesting the more we learn. >> mark? >> senator, one of the issues that seems to be coming t

abc news reports that committee members will question glen simpson about the funding and sources thatused for this document. simpson runs the research firm fusion gps. it hired a former british spy to produce the documents about now president trump ahead of the presidential election. the president denies the report's accusations and says they were made up as an attack on his campaign. our chief intelligence correspondent catherine herridge is live with more. catherine? >> the committee is not commenting that the session moved ahead today. meantime, a committee spokesman did confirm that glen simpson and the firm provided documents to congressional investigators but most are worthless or irrelevant. the statement reads that fusion's documents consisted of headlines from public news reports and more than 175 pages of blank paper. fusion provided the dossier that has been publicly available since january. a privileged log that raises more questions than it answers. last month simpson, who is seen here at the security forum, received a congressional subpoena to testify and eventually agre

fusion gps could founder gave ten hours of testimony on the trump russia committee, as far as glen simpson a concerned the committee is welcome to publicly release the transcript of that. similar sons lawyer says in part, quote, the transcript reveals all of mr. simpson's testimony based on the hours of questioning from staff. the committee can release the transcript if it so chooses. be my guest. that's important because snar grassley told a town hall in iowa that his committee is going to take a vote on whether or not they want to put out that transcript of those ten hours of testimony. he says personally he sees no reason why he would vote against making that testimony public. oh, dear, intelligence veteran joins us next ♪ music edible arrangements for summer. order in store or online. we were in a german dance group. i wore lederhosen. so i just started poking around on ancestry. then, i decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. it turns out i'm scottish. so, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. just turn on cars.coms on tprice dropswant? and get real-time notifications that

he appeared before your senate judiciary committee investigators today, glen simpson.w what was said and can you share with us? >> i can't share with you specifics about what was said. the senate of judiciary committee investigators have been very busy as the senate has been out of session. they've reviewed tens of thousands of pages of documents and i expect us to have some open hearings when we come back into session in the first week and second week of september, but i can't give you anything more than that glen did appear and was interviewed by the staff committee. >> what can you tell us about that dossier? >> i can't tell you anything about that at this point. >> it's all so sensitive. let's talk about steve bannon, former chief of staff at the white house, reince priebus, former chief of staff. are they being called to testify before the judiciary committee? >> there appears to be good bipartisan cooperation between senator grassley and the ranking member senator feinstein. in terms of whether those two have been called yet by the full committee, i don't know ye

afterward, glen simpson said he stands by the dossier. said, quote, the committee can release the transcript if it so chooses. the transcript of ten hours of his testimony on the dossier. at that town hall in iowa, senator grassley told his persistent constituent that he was open to releasing that transcript of those ten hours of testimony if his committee voted to do that. here's what we can report tonight. judiciary has 11 republicans and nine democrats. we think all nine democrats would likely vote to release that transcript. we reached out to all of them as well as the republicans on the committee. one of the republicans who isn't the chairman, senator orrin hatch of utah, tells us now that he would vote to release that transcript. quoting from a statement that his office gave us, quote, the senator, like chairman grassley, believes we should make as much public as possible and as soon as we can. barring additional and unexpected developments, he would vote in favor. so says orrin hatch's office. that's interesting. it means if one mo

is, i listen to william russians alk about how hired glen simpson with fusion behalf on their trying to get the magniski act knocked down. democrats hired him or someone in er the democratic party, looked like collusion there. d.n.c. e-mail got hacked, when it got hacked, they would over their servers to authorities, but now we find out pakistani has been arrested at the airport in washington that passwords to the d.n.c. servers and we don't seem equal coverage of different things related to russians and foreign governments. i want your opinion. guest: i think that is fair criticism. in this ave a dog fight, i think there has been a bias in the media with regard to donald trump. now some of that is self-inflicted, some of this is news. it is ridiculous to suggest the all this, nventing these are major stories, there has been a little bias, exclusion of n other stories. the dosier issue, you are right, a serious one that appears to have fingerprints of democratic think ves on it, and i that is something people capitol hill are pushing and saying, you going to start investigating influ

and one is, i listen to william browder before congress talk about how the russians had hired glen simpson with gps to lobby on their behalf trying to get the magnitsky act knocked down. but we also know that the democrats hired him to do the dossier or someone in the democratic party. so it looks like there was some collusion there. also, one thing that bothers me is the dnc e-mail. when it got hacked, when their servers got hacked, they would not turn over their servers to the government. but now we find out a pakistani has been arrested at the airport in washington that had the key and the passwords to all of the dnc servers. and we don't seem to have equal coverage of different things related to the russians and foreign governments. i was going to get your opinion. >> i do think that's a fair criticism. i don't have a dog in this fight but there has been a bias in the media with regard to the coverage of donald trump. now some of that is self inflicted. some of this is real news. it's ridiculous to suggest that the media is inventing all of this stuff. these are major stories. but i th

. >> yes, so, glen simpson was calling a number of journalists, pitching a story. the story he was pitching was that sergei had not been murdered he died of natural causes. and sergei was not a whistle-blower, he was a criminal. reporter: former russia ambassador to washington was asked about november 2016 trump tower meeting with former national security advisor mike flynn and the president's son-in-law. >> discuss opening secret channels at kremlin with jared kushner. >> i said many things, did not discuss substance of our discussions, out of respect to our partners. reporterpartners. >> wonderful reporting thank you. david: we're coming right back with much more, stay with us. >> president trump slamming obstructtionist democrats as a danger to national security. >> they be obstruct, you are putting all of america's safety at risk. david: we take with up with the dean, ed rollin grs and secretary of state tillerson accusing russia of armying the taliban. >> russia is supplying weres to taliban, that is a violation. of international norms. and united nations secu

glen simpson, he was the cofounder of fusion, met with the senate judiciary committee yesterday. simpson hired a former british intelligence officer to find ties between intelligence associates and russia and create the dossier. catherine herridge is live in washington at one point this story was white-hot but now we don't hear that much about it. >> that might have to do with the fact that congress is in recess. the statement from simpson's lawyer claims that he is being smeared by the campaign team and allies over the issue. after the senate committee confirms that simpson and his legal team provided thousands of worthless documents to congressional investigators, the statement reads in part "fusions recent production of documents consisted solely of headlines from news reports and over 7500 pages of blank paper. fusion eventually provided a copy of the same unverified dossier that has been publicly available since january. "the senate committee issued a subpoena for simpson to publicly testify, at the same time fox news found simpson and his lawyer reportedly told the committe

every time he hears the senate is investigating it, or hearing a witness on it, like glen simpson, one of the people behind the dossier production. >> the crux of it is that over the course of five years, the russians built a relationship with trump, gathered compromising material on trump, and did it all with the intention of manipulating him if he ever rose to power. a lot of the stuff has been discredited. some of it, we don't know if it is true or not. it is unverifiable. but it is clearly bothering trump. >> i'm going to end this with my belief about all these cases. couldn't spearcy cases, investigations on, tv, the movies or real life, a city hall case, the person involved in the case knows it all. they know what they did. like they said in philly, georgie knows what georgie has done. they all know it. trump knows everything he tried to cover up, everything he wishes he hadn't done now. he knows it all. it is not a mystery to him. when he hears about bob mueller hiring 16 lawyers, they're really serious about this, getting it done. you've dealt with criminal defendants and peopl

what's interesting about this, to me, will be if we get to see glen simpson's testimony.s the former wall street jou journal reporter who had responsibility for assembling the dossier and hired christopher steel, the former mi6 agent who worked on this because of his russia connections. those are people, i don't know if you know, glen. i've known him a long time. i have a lot of confidence in his integrity and his seriousness. people in england that i've talked to and that others have spoken to say the same thing about christopher steel. >> you know glen. what picture do you think glen painted in this still secret testimo testimony. his lawyers said they do want it released. >> i think glen explained he hasn't been up to anything nefarious here. he was doing a job that he was hired to do as a private investigator. he did not, for instance, has been accused set up the trump tower meeting as some kind of trick on the trumps and it will be interesting to see, by the way, when and if donald trump junior, paul manafort and jared kushner finally testify before the committee the

into russian meddling in the 2016 election is rolling on, even if it doesn't top the headlines, glen simpsonunder of fusion gps and one of the people behind the so-called trump dossier that included salacious accusations against president trump appeared before the staff on the senate judiciary committee for transcribed testimony behind closed doors today. chuck grassley subpoenaed asked for a public hearing, but simp so i said he would invoke his fifth amendment rights. >>> we'll be right back with some blockbuster reporting from "new york times" about drama between president trump and senator mcconnell. you're going to want to hear about this. stay with us. when you have something you love, you want to protect it. at legalzoom, our network of attorneys can help you every step of the way. with an estate plan including wills or a living trust that grows along with you and your family. legalzoom. legal help is here. you don't let anything lkeep you sidelined. come on! that's why you drink ensure. with 9 grams of protein, and 26 vitamins and minerals... for the strength and energy, to get back

of course, continuing to percolate today, actually glen simpson, co-founder of the research firm fusionps, the one that actually hired that british intelligence agent to investigation possible campaign and infamous dossier that a lot has unsubstantiated allegations the president has gone after, clandestine meeting, and earlier today part of their investigation. still that committee wants to talk to donald trump jr., they want to talk to paul manafort. there is still, the special counsel's investigation. this is going to be a huge thing. we have not talked about that a lothovering over this presidency. >> it is. and why isn't the president going an fights in his own party when he has democrats to worry about? seems to me the president calculus thus far, democrats are not well enough organized to take advantage of it and it doesn't do much good to have your own party in control when your own party is investigating you? and stuff on health care, won't pass the bills he wants passed. the alternative, much worse for president trump. reaches a point democrats are poison taking over the chambe

glen simpson knows more than what's contained in the 35 pages published by buzzfeed.o it's interesting what democrats may be asking simp oy now on the record behind closed doors in the senate judiciary committee. >>> let's go to two things we know, when you get close to the nerve with russia, donald trump let you know that you have done so. his reaction to the dossier and reaction to media outlets that cover the unsubstantiated d dossi dossier was one of the most vittvitt reon the being of interesting to mueller is of concern for the white house? >> it has to be. what gets a lot of attention are the very salacious sexual details we won't go into here. but the dossier actually allege add conspiracy between the trump campaign and russia. it went into a lot of details about alleged connections and talked about how the intelligence services were trying to cultivate trump for years, and how the russians met with several trump soeshlgts. many allegations are unproven, but some things have been corroborated by the fbi and it's been used as a template by both the fbi and the

glen simpson, former wall street journal investigative reporter now the head of fusion gps testified hours before the judiciary committee behind closed doors on tuesday. and was his firm who hired the very well regarded british intelligence officer christopher steel to do that dossier. now senator grassley has told a town meeting in iowa he's looking into holding a public hearing, but doesn't have an inherent objection it releasing the transcript of that. simpson and his attorney say it is up to the committee to release the transcript. where do we stand on the investigation into finding out whether the really troubling contents of that so-called dossier may be true. >> there has been an effort by some to discredit the firm fusion gps or discredit mr. steel and as you say, mr. steel has a very good reputation, is reportedly a former british intelligence officer. i can't confirm that. but is reported to be very well regarded and i think the key thing from an investigative point of view is not trying to impeach the people who produce the report or commission the report, but rather find

glen simpson, a former journalist who specialized in money laundering and russian organized crime andte investigation of trump and russia last year. this is how simpson described what he does at a recent film festival. >> i call it journalism for rent. >> reporter: simpson began his efforts when trump was running in the republican primary. according to political operatives he was initially paid about a million dollars by wealthy republicans and then more later by democrats who both wanted him to dig up dirt on trump and plant negative news stories. the 35-page dossier on the so-called russian connection to trump with some very salacious allegations including unsubstantiated claims about trump in a moscow hotel room was not completed until just before the election. and then provided to journalists, the clinton campaign and the fbi. all to the outrage of donald trump. >> i saw the information, i read the information outside of that meeting. it's all fake news. it's phony stuff. it didn't happen. >> reporter: now many republicans in congress are working to discredit the dossier and simps

we don't know what glen simpson said behind closed doors, but let me just show you something.ons to members of congress, he's been in sort of open warfare with some of them. there have been some where he said donald trump has expressed frustration over a bipartisan bill sanctioning russia, he tried to convince senate foreign relations chairman bob corker of tennessee that it wasn't good policy, and then you saw bob corker made some offhand remarks last week suggesting that donald trump really doesn't understand some of the things he needs to understand as president, which got people talking about whether donald trump is fit to be president. bob corker was a guy who was talked about as donald trump's potential vice presidential candidate. bob corker is a guy who was talked about as secretary of state. donald trump is fighting with everybody about russia which makes one wonder, what is it about russia that makes donald trump fight with everybody about? >> well, that's the ball game there, that's the biggest question. we can talk about intelligence, we can talk about evidence, bu