Senator Dianne Feinstein gets fed up with all of the Republican excuses and releases the Fusion GPS transcript onto the internet.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Tuesday unexpectedly released the transcript of congressional investigators' August 2017 interview with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, whose firm was behind a controversial dossier alleging ties between President Donald Trump and Russians. 

Feinstein's move represents an escalation of partisan tensions that have long been simmering on the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. Simpson had called for the transcript of his appearance to be made public, but Republican leaders so far had not agreed to release it. 

A spokesman for Grassley said Feinstein posted the transcript with "no agreement" from committee Republicans. 

"The American people deserve the opportunity to see what he said and judge for themselves,” Feinstein, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said in a statement about her decision to release the Simpson transcript.

“The innuendo and misinformation circulating about the transcript are part of a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice. The only way to set the record straight is to make the transcript public," she said.

(If you want to read that transcript you can do so here.)

Since the release a number of news outlets have reported on its contents.

For instance Axios reported that at least a portion of the dossier had been confirmed to the FBI by a White House source: 

Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson told Senate Judiciary Committee staffers in August that the FBI had independently received information from an Trump campaign insider that led them to find some of the allegations in former MI6 agent Christopher Steele's Trump-Russia dossier credible. That revelation comes from a transcript of his testimony to the committee released unilaterally today its ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

That source of course turned out to be George Papadopoulos.

Simpson revealed that there was evidence of Russian money laundering:

During his testimony, Simpson detailed ways that money had been stolen from a bank in Kazakhstan, then laundered throughout multiple countries — before possibly being funneled in part to the Trump Soho hotel project. 

At the center of the ordeal appears to be Felix Sater, a Trump-linked Russian-born businessman who in 1998 pleaded guilty to taking part in a mafia-related stock fraud scheme, and who is now cooperating with an international investigation into an alleged money laundering network.

Business Insider reports that Christopher Steele had initially reached out to the FBI, but then became concerned that they were being manipulated by Trump and cut ties with them: 

Simpson said Steele "stopped dealing" with the FBI after the New York Times reported in October 2016 that the FBI had found no clear links between Trump and Russia. Steele was also irked by the letter that then-FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress on October 28, effectively re-opening the Hillary Clinton email investigation. 

"That episode, you know, obviously created some concern that the FBI was intervening in a political campaign in contravention of long-standing Justice Department regulation," Simpson said. "So it made a lot of people, including us, concerned about what the heck was going on at the FBI." 

Simpson called the New York Times piece, published on October 31, "a real Halloween special." 

"Sometime thereafter the FBI -- I understand Chris severed his relationship with the FBI out of concern that he didn't know what was happening inside the FBI and there was a concern that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people and that we didn't really understand what was going on," Simpson said. "So he stopped dealing with them."

We also learned that according to Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson's lawyer that at least one person has been killed due to the release of the dossier.

!!!

Glenn Simpson's lawyer said someone has been killed as a result of the Steele dossier being published. pic.twitter.com/TMjbi7oPU7

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 9, 2018

I have been busy today so I have only started to read through the 312 page transcript, but I have already concluded that the Republicans did not want this released for some very scurrilous reasons.

This is how Scott Dworkin responded to what he read.

After reading the Fusion GPS transcript it’s clear Republicans have been completely ignoring all of the credible allegations of money laundering, conspiracy with Russia against the US & other crimes committed by Donald Trump & his pals. It’s proof Republicans are traitors—Period.

— Scott Dworkin (@funder) January 9, 2018

Yeah, essentially that.