Somebody colluded with Russia, and it wasn’t Donald Trump. Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin were working to repeal the Magnitsky Act for the Kremlin with none other than Fusion GPS, the same opposition research firm the DNC and Clinton campaign had hired in April 2016 to dig up—or create—ties between Trump and Russia.
Fusion’s Glenn Simpson met with Veselnitskaya and Akhmetshin both before and after that Trump Tower meeting. Simpson told Congress he had no idea that the two Russians were meeting with the Trump team, but Fusion GPS even provided the materials and handouts for the meeting in question.
Three days after the June 9 Trump Tower meeting, the public learned the DNC had been breached. Around this same time, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, a former British spook, specifically to tie Trump to Russia. Steele oversaw the creation of the still-unverified and salacious “dossier.” But Steele farmed out the responsibility for the dossier to Edward Baumgartner, a British national with ties to the Kremlin, who used Russians as sources who were likely current and former Russian intelligence officials.
