The firm that produced a dossier on then candidate Donald Trump was working for the Russian government and was being paid by a Kremlin official, a financier who lobbied for the controversial Magnitsky Act said Thursday.
Hermitage Capital Management CEO Bill Browder told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that Fusion GPS was acting as a foreign agent and should have registered as such in the United States.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Browder, "You believe that Fusion GPS should have registered under FARA because they were acting on behalf of the Russians?"
Browder replied yes, to which Graham said, "I just want to absorb that for a moment. The group that did the dossier on President Trump hired this British spy, wound up getting it to the FBI. You believe they were working for the Russians?"
Browder then said, "in the spring and summer of 2016, they were receiving money indirectly from a senior Russian government official."
Browder lobbied for the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which placed sanctions on the Russians the U.S. believes were responsible for the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky while he was in a Moscow prison.
Fusion GPS investigated Browder on behalf of the Russian government after Magnitsky alleged Russia stole money from Hermitage Capital. Information in the Trump dossier could not be verified by U.S. intelligence agencies.
The company reacted to claims it was working for the Russians in a statement provided to Business Insider:
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders hit back at the media Thursday for not covering Browder's testimony or asking questions about it during the daily White House press briefing.
"You guys love to talk about Russia, and there's been nonstop coverage," Sanders said. "Then the one day that there might have been a question on Russia, there wasn't."