Daily Caller—Fusion GPS and the House Intelligence Committee renewed their legal battle on Friday over subpoenas for the Trump dossier firm’s bank records.
Lawyers for Fusion submitted a new request for a temporary restraining order preventing its bank, TD Bank, from producing records requested by the House panel regarding records of its transactions “with any law firm, ‘media company’ or journalist with which it has worked.”
The filing raises the possibility that Fusion has paid journalists.
The committee, chaired by California Rep. Devin Nunes, subpoenaed TD Bank for Fusion’s records early last month. The bank was poised to hand over the documents, but the two sides reached a last-minute settlement on Oct. 27.
“None of those demands are pertinent to the Committee’s ‘Russia investigation,’ and disclosure of the documents would cause irreparable harm to Plaintiff by destroying the confidentiality of its business with its clients and contractors and by violating Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights to free speech and free association,” Fusion’s lawyers argue.
They called the subpoena “overbroad” and intended “to harm Plaintiff.”
Nunes, who served as an adviser to the Trump campaign, sought to find out the identities of the Fusion GPS clients who hired the firm during the 2016 election cycle to investigate Donald Trump. Facing the release of Fusion’s bank records, the law firm that represented the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee came forward last week to acknowledge that it was the funder for the dossier, which was authored by former British spy Christopher Steele.
The law firm, Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS in April 2016. Fusion hired Steele that June.
The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website, also came forward last Friday to reveal itself as one of Fusion’s clients. The Free Beacon hired Fusion in Oct. 2015 to conduct standard opposition research on Trump and other political candidates. The site is funded by billionaire Republican donor Paul Singer. The site has insisted that its research on Trump was not included in the dossier.
In its court filing, Fusion GPS describes a standoff that unfolded with the House committee this week.
As part of its Oct. 27 agreement, House Intel demanded that TD Bank produce 112 of 400 Fusion GPS bank records in its possession.
Lawyers for the two sides held a phone conference on Thursday to negotiate terms of the request. Fusion’s lawyers urged the committee’s attorneys to narrow or withdraw the request for the bank documents. But counsel for the House panel said they were “not in a position to accept [Plaintiff’s] suggestion that it withdraw its request for these specified transactions, which are necessary for its investigation.”
Fusion’s lawyers say that the House committee seeks records of its bank transactions with 10 law firms, as well as with unnamed media companies and journalists. read more
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave…”
What they are trying to conceal is that the slimeball FBI used this slimeball company to produce the “dossier” that was used to secure the wiretap for Trump Tower. Our government needs to be disinfected.
Perkins Coie and Fusion might as well give it up. we are going to find out sooner or later. At present what we imagine is probably worse that the truth, or is it?
While all this back & forth goes on with Congress the Democraps still wield the political power in Washington through the dampening effect placed on the presidency by the special counsel and its Democrap attorneys with unlimited tax dollars and time at their disposal!
Jedi Clampett, what they are trying to conceal is payola in the news industry…
“Payola, in the music industry, is the illegal practice of payment or other inducement by record companies for the broadcast of recordings on commercial radio in which the song is presented as being part of the normal day’s broadcast.”
TD Bank is a Canadian bank. Have the chairman of the Bank Services Committee call up the Canadian Minister of Finance and let him know that there have been a number of complaints of irregularities concerning the operations of Canadian banks in the States along with their American subsidiaries and that an great number of detailed and time consuming investigations will have to take place which will also likely involve Perkins Coie. Hang up and watch Perkins Coie hang Fusion out to in the wind and the TD honor the first requests for Fusion’s accounts.
It’s time to start playing dirty if Trumps Presidency is to be preserved.