With the release of the Mueller report, it’s not just the Democrats who are considering their next move: Republicans in Congress are also taking action.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said Tuesday that House Republicans are considering submitting criminal referrals to the Justice Department against several individuals, and suggested they were tied to Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.
As the now-debunked Trump/Russia collusion narrative unraveled over the past two years, it became clear that much of the narrative was based on the unverified allegations in the dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele in conjunction with Fusion GPS.
Criminal referrals are coming
Asked whether the House Republicans had any criminal referrals in mind as a result of the information contained in the Mueller report, Meadows confirmed that they were considering several.
“I can tell you that there are two or three individuals that we believe could have potentially given false testimony to Congress. We have been looking at that, reviewing not only the Mueller report, but comparing those to transcribed interviews that might have happened in Congress,” Meadows said.
The remark from Meadows came at an event hosted by The Washington Post, and followed comments from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who suggested that an ally of the Trump campaign, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, would face a criminal referral for allegedly making false statements during testimony to the House Intelligence Committee that Schiff now chairs.
Fusion GPS associates
Meadows didn’t name who he had in mind for criminal referrals but appeared to suggest that those individuals were associated with Fusion GPS and the Steele dossier that formed the foundation of the anti-Trump investigations.
“I do have great concerns on the role, not just Fusion GPS, but those associated with it played early on, and how was that used or not used as it relates to this investigation,” the congressman said.
Likely suspects
The most likely recipient of one of those impending criminal referrals is Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, who is alleged to have lied to members of Congress during his testimony on November 14, 2017 before the House Intelligence Committee.
Simpson’s alleged lie was in regard to his relationship with Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, who served as a go-between for Steele and the government after the FBI cut ties with the former British spy. Simpson told the committee he’d only met with Ohr after the 2016 election, but told a congressional task force that he had met with Ohr in August of that year, months prior to the election.
Ohr himself could be the subject of a criminal referral, as could his wife, Nellie Ohr, who worked as a contractor for Fusion GPS throughout much of 2015 and 2016 and is believed to have played an integral role in the creation of the dossier.
It will be interesting to see if the criminal referrals against Fusion GPS associates are ever put forward, but hopefully someone will eventually be held accountable for the blatant use of foreign disinformation to attempt to influence and overturn an election — or, in Trump’s words, “the greatest con-job in the history of American Politics!”