The feud escalated dramatically earlier this month, when news broke of a meeting between the president's son and a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya, who at the time was lobbying to repeal the law known as the Magnitsky Act.
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Inside the battle between an anti-Putin banker and the firm that produced the Trump-Russia dossier
There's been a long-brewing battle between a former banker and a firm that produced the explosive Trump-Russia dossier.
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Veselnitskaya's relationship with Fusion's cofounder, Glenn Simpson, has been scrutinized by reporters trying to understand who she is, who she works for, and who works for her. The reporters have had help from Browder, who is known both for spearheading the Magnitsky Act through Congress in 2012 and his willingness to speak to the press.
Asked about Veselnitskaya in an email earlier this month, Browder responded with a PowerPoint presentation that he said highlighted the role she
Browder's reputation has become inextricably linked to the global human-rights campaign he launched in 2009 after his tax lawyer — or accountant, depending on whom you ask — died in a Russian prison. The lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was thrown in jail and beaten to death after he discovered a $230 million tax fraud scheme that implicated high-level Kremlin officials, Browder says.
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Others, primarily those sympathetic to Moscow, dispute Browder's story. People close to Simpson contend he is not necessarily one of them. But the two have a somewhat bitter history that has become increasingly politicized amid the intensifying probes into Russia's meddling in the presidential election and the Trump campaign's possible role in it.
Browder is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
A smear campaign or opposition research?
In 2013, Veselnitskaya hired
To rebut that claim, BakerHostetler hired Fusion to dig up dirt on Browder, he says. The wealthy investor, who renounced his US citizenship in 1998, has since characterized Fusion's work for BakerHostetler as a "smear campaign" against him and Magnitsky carried out "in advance of congressional hearings on the Global Magnitsky Act."
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Oversight of the Foreign Agents Registration Act
Browder, Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Glenn Simpson were all called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week about t
Browder is set to testify on Thursday. But Manafort and Simpson have since worked out deals with the committee to either testify behind closed doors or submit written answers to the committee's questions. Trump Jr.'s situation is unclear.
targeting Fusion GPS because the firm was reported to be the first to raise the alarm over Trump campaign's links to Russia.”
A spokesperson for Grassley, Taylor Foy, disputed that claim.
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for years," Foy said in an email on Wednesday.
"
There is another player now alleging that Fusion, in a case completely unrelated to Russia or the Magnitsky Act, acted in violation of FARA.
Thor Halvorssen, the founder of an organization called the Human Rights Foundation, wrote in testimony submitted to the committee on Tuesday that Fusion engaged "
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