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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- EXECUTIVE SESSION
- COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
- JOINT WITH THE
- COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT,
- U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
- WASHINGTON, D.C.
- INTERVIEW OF: NELLIE OHR
- Friday, October 19, 2018
- Washington, D.C.
- The interview in the above matter was held in 2141 Rayburn
- House Office Building, commencing at 10:10 a.m.
- Present: Representatives Meadows, Jordan, Ratcliffe, Gaetz,
- Raskin, and Krishnamoorthi.
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- Mr. Somers. Good morning.
- This is a transcribed interview of Nellie Ohr. Chairman
- Goodlatte and Chairman Gowdy requested this interview as part of a
- joint investigation by the House Committee on the Judiciary and
- the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform into
- decisions made and not made by the Department of Justice and the
- Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the 2016 Presidential
- election.
- Would the witness please state her name and the name of her
- current employer for the record.
- Ms. Ohr. Nellie Ohr. I work for Accensure iDefense.
- Mr. Somers. On behalf of the chairman, I want to thank you
- for appearing today, and we appreciate your willingness to appear
- voluntarily. My name is Zack Somers, I'm the majority general
- counsel for the House Judiciary Committee. I will now ask
- everyone else who is here in the room to introduce themselves for
- the record, starting with Mr. Jordan.
- Mr. Jordan. Jim Jordan.
- Mr. Meadows. Mark Meadows, North Carolina.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. John Ratcliffe, Texas.
- Mr. Gaetz. Matt Gaetz, Florida.
- Mr. Breitenbach. Ryan Breitenbach, senior counsel, House
- Judiciary, majority.
- Mr. Baker. Arthur Baker, investigative counsel, House
- Judiciary Committee, majority staff.
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- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Raja Krishnamoorthi.
- Mr. Castor. Steve Castor with the House Committee on
- Oversight and Government Reform, majority.
- Ms. Doocy. Mary Doocy.
- Mr. Buddharaju. Deep Buddharaju, House Oversight, Mr.
- Gowdy's staff.
- Ms. Greene. Emily Greene, with Mr. Jordan's staff.
- Mr. Hiller. Aaron Miller, House Judiciary.
- Ms. Hariharan. Arya Hariharan, House Judiciary, counsel,
- minority.
- Ms. Sachsman Grooms. Susanne Sachsman Grooms, House
- Oversight Democrats.
- Mr. Somers. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not
- apply in this setting, but there are some guidelines that we
- follow that I'd like to go over. Our questioning will proceed in
- rounds. The majority will ask questions for -- first for an hour,
- and the minority will have an opportunity to ask questions for an
- equal period of time. We'll go back and forth in this manner
- until there are no more questions and the interview is over.
- Typically we a take a short break at the end of each hour of
- questioning, but if you need to take a break apart from that, just
- let us know. We may also take a break for lunch at the
- appropriate point. As I noted earlier, you are appearing today
- voluntarily. Accordingly, we anticipate that you will
- answer -- that our questions will receive complete responses. To
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- the extent that you decline to answer our questions or if counsel
- instructs you not to answer, we will consider whether a subpoena
- is necessary.
- As you can see, there is an official reporter taking down
- everything that is said to make a written record. So we ask that
- you give verbal responses to all questions. Do you understand
- that?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Somers. So that the reporter can take down a clear, it
- is important that we don't talk over one another or interrupt each
- other, if we can help it. Both committees encourage witnesses who
- appear for transcribed interviews to freely consult with counsel,
- if they so choose. And you are appearing today with counsel.
- If counsel would please state their names for the record.
- Mr. Berman. Joshua Berman for Ms. Ohr, from the Clifford
- Chance law firm.
- Mr. Hekman. Rebecca Hekman from Ms. Ohr from Clifford
- Chance.
- Mr. Somers. We want you to answer our questions in the most
- complete and truthful manner possible, so we will take our time.
- If you have any questions or if you do not understand one of our
- questions, please let us know. If you honestly don't know the
- answer to a question or do not remember it, it is best not to
- guess. Please give us your best recollection, and it is okay to
- tell us if you learned the information from someone else. If
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- there are things that you don't know or can't remember, just say
- so, and please inform us who, to the best of your knowledge, might
- be able to provide a more complete answer to the question.
- You should also understand that although this interview is
- not under oath, you are required by law to answer questions from
- Congress truthfully.
- Do you understand that?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Somers. This also applies to questions posed by
- congressional staff in an interview. Do you understand this?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Somers. Witnesses who knowingly provide false testimony
- could be subject to criminal prosecution for perjury or for making
- false statements. Do you understand this?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Somers. Is there any reason you're unable to provide
- truthful answers to today's questions?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Somers. Finally, we ask that you not speak about what we
- discuss in this interview with anyone outside of who is here in
- the room today in order to preserve the integrity of our
- investigation. That is the end of my preamble. Do you have any
- questions before we begin?
- Mr. Berman. Could I take a moment. So the last part, you
- just mentioned a confidentiality. Does that agreement govern
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- everybody in this room?
- Mr. Somers. It does.
- Mr. Gaetz. This is Matt Gaetz, Judiciary member from
- Florida. I'm unaware of any House rule that requires
- confidentiality in these proceedings, and I do not consider myself
- bound by it at all.
- Mr. Hiller. And, Zack, I think we'd like to point out that
- information has routinely been leaking from these proceedings,
- sometimes while the interview is ongoing, I'd note that for the
- record, it's important to know that.
- Mr. Somers. I will just say if there's something you feel
- you need to respond to that came out of the interview, I think you
- would not be bound by that. But I think if --
- Mr. Meadows. And since, counselor, since you asked, I think
- that it was a bipartisan initiative in a public hearing with Mr.
- Strzok that both Democrats and Republicans suggested that these
- transcripts be made available publicly after individual personal
- items are scrubbed so that there's no personal embarrassment. And
- so in answering that, I think consistent with that theme, I fully
- anticipate all transcripts will be released after scrubbing the
- personal information because there's many on the Democrat and
- Republican side that wants -- wants that to happen. And if that's
- a mischaracterization -- mischaracterization from my Democrat
- colleagues, you correct the record, but I believe that's where we
- were. Is that correct?
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- Mr. Hiller. Yes, sir.
- Mr. Meadows. All right. And so with that in mind,
- obviously, speaking to it in generic terms is something that
- happens on a regular basis, but obviously there's been a few more
- specifics that have come out of these hearings. But from a
- personal standpoint, if there are personal confidences that,
- relationship-wise, we want to be sensitive to that to make sure
- that those are protected.
- Mr. Berman. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I've let Mrs. Ohr
- know that if she needs a break, a nature break, I appreciate you
- reiterating that. She will just tap me on the shoulder or let one
- of you know. I'd like to just put on the record, thank you, Mr.
- Baker, for being patient with us as we found time, a date for this
- hearing or this interview, I know we went back and forth, but I
- appreciated the courtesy on the various scheduling.
- And thank you for pointing out, she's here voluntarily,
- unlike others who have needed to be subpoenaed, haven't showed.
- She from the absolute get-go has been willing to come in and
- answer questions. And that's why she's here voluntarily. There
- was no need and there will be no need for a subpoena at any point
- with her.
- And, finally, as Mr. Baker and I have discussed many times
- over the weeks, and we talked the last time I was here with
- another client, she wants to answer every single possible
- question. She's not going to be waiving any privileges. So
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- doctor/patient, attorney/client, marital or things along those
- lines, so I recommend -- the House may have a different view of
- privileges. So to the extent questions can be asked, she wants to
- answer them. That's the goal.
- Mr. Meadows. Well for the record, I just want to say thank
- you, and Ms. Ohr, thank you. One of the things that -- we may see
- things differently, and I don't know that we do because I'm
- not -- this is my first time meeting you. But I can tell you that
- I've seen things differently with some of the other witnesses, and
- yet I've found that their transparency has actually made a
- difference with me, and so I thank you for voluntarily showing up
- today, Ms. Ohr.
- Mr. Somers. All right. The time is now 10:19. We'll begin
- our first round of questioning. Mr. Jordan.
- Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Zack. Ms. Ohr, thank you again for
- being here. I want to ask you -- start by asking some of the some
- things about how you came to work for Fusion GPS, and then get
- into certain people that you may or may not have had contact with
- and what took place in those meetings or conversations.
- So what were the dates that you worked for Fusion GPS?
- Ms. Ohr. Approximately, October of 2015, give or take a
- couple weeks, and into the end of September, 2016.
- Mr. Jordan. And do you recall how much money you
- were -- your compensation for that, it looks like almost a year,
- working for Fusion?
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- Ms. Ohr. Yeah, I was paid $55 an hour, and I worked variable
- amounts, somewhere around 30 hours a week. And I don't recall the
- exact total.
- Mr. Jordan. Do you work from your home or do you work from
- an office space or where did you work?
- Ms. Ohr. From home. From home.
- Mr. Jordan. From home.
- Ms. Ohr. Can you hear me all right?
- Mr. Jordan. I can.
- Ms. Ohr. Okay.
- Mr. Jordan. Can you hear me?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And what did you do?
- Ms. Ohr. I did online open source research using Russian
- sources, media, social media, government, you know, business
- registers, legal databases, all kinds of things.
- Mr. Jordan. To what end? What was the objective?
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh. At what time period are you talking?
- Mr. Jordan. That year you worked for Fusion.
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh. I mean, I did a couple of different
- projects for them.
- Mr. Jordan. Can you tell me what those projects were?
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah. The first project, the initial project had
- to do with looking into a particular Russian firm that was
- suspected of being involved in sex trafficking.
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- Mr. Jordan. Can you tell me the name of that firm?
- Ms. Ohr. Vlad Models.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And what else did you work on?
- Ms. Ohr. I worked on a project looking into the relationship
- of Donald Trump with organized crime, a Russian organized crime.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And was that work at all related to the
- now famous dossier?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. What was it related to then -- walk me through
- what that work entailed?
- Ms. Ohr. What it entailed in what sense?
- Mr. Jordan. Describe what you were doing and what the
- objective was?
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah, I would write occasional reports based on the
- open source research that I described about Donald Trump's
- relationships with various people in Russia.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. I want to come back to that. So, who
- approached you?
- Ms. Ohr. Nobody approached me.
- Mr. Jordan. You approached Fusion?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. And how did that happen?
- Ms. Ohr. I believe it was in September of 2015 that I read
- an article in the paper that mentioned Glenn Simpson. And I
- remembered because he had been a Wall Street Journal reporter
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- working on things like Russian crime and corruption, so I
- recognized the name. I was underemployed at that time and I was
- looking for opportunities.
- Mr. Jordan. So you called him up?
- Ms. Ohr. I sent an email.
- Mr. Jordan. All right, and then what happened?
- Ms. Ohr. He said, come in and we'll meet.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And you met and --
- Ms. Ohr. Then they agreed to have me do some project for
- them.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. So it was all on your initiative?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And tell me about what transpired in that
- first meeting then with you and Mr. Simpson.
- Ms. Ohr. I met with --
- Mr. Jordan. Well, first of all, did you know Glenn Simpson
- prior to that? You said you read his name in the press and you
- knew he worked for the Wall Street Journal, so had you met with
- him prior?
- Ms. Ohr. I had been at a conference that he was at. I don't
- recall directly talking with him at that conference, and I don't
- know whether he knew who, you know, who I was other than the fact
- that I attended that conference.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And did he know at the time that he hired
- you that your husband worked for the Department of Justice?
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- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. Was Glenn Simpson acquainted with your husband,
- Bruce? Did they have a friendship or relationship prior to you
- going to work for Fusion?
- Ms. Ohr. They were acquainted, yes.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And what did he specifically tell you he
- wanted you to do?
- Ms. Ohr. Initially, the project that I first described
- regarding the company that was suspected of involvement in sex
- trafficking.
- Mr. Jordan. And who was the client that wanted that
- information, do you know?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't know.
- Mr. Jordan. So you were asked to get information on this
- trafficking issue by Mr. Simpson, and you didn't know who you were
- working for?
- Ms. Ohr. Right.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. On the second project, the
- second -- refresh my memory on the second project again. The
- second project was what?
- Ms. Ohr. Looking into the relationship of Donald Trump with
- Russian organized crime figures.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And who was financing that operation?
- Ms. Ohr. I didn't know.
- Mr. Jordan. You didn't know?
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- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. All right. Talk to me about your interactions
- that you may have had with Christopher Steele.
- Ms. Ohr. I met with him -- I mean, Bruce brought me along to
- meals on, I believe, as I recall, three occasions with Christopher
- Steele.
- Mr. Jordan. So you had three in-person meetings with Mr.
- Steele?
- Ms. Ohr. Correct.
- Mr. Jordan. Do you recall those dates? I mean, I know of
- one, but do you recall the dates of all those meetings?
- Ms. Ohr. One of them was shortly after his first wife died.
- I don't recall what -- exactly what date that was.
- Mr. Jordan. Let me back up. Were they all here in D.C. or
- where were the meetings?
- Ms. Ohr. All in D.C.
- Mr. Jordan. All right. And the first one was, you said,
- after Mr. Steele's wife had passed?
- Ms. Ohr. Correct.
- Mr. Jordan. And you met here in D.C.?
- Ms. Ohr. D.C.
- Mr. Jordan. Were all these meetings between the -- did all
- these meetings take place at the time you were working for Fusion?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. So how many of them took place between
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- October 2015 and September 2016?
- Ms. Ohr. Just the final -- yeah, I think just the final one.
- I don't remember the date of the second one.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And the final one is what date, do you
- know?
- Ms. Ohr. The final one, July 30, 2016.
- Mr. Jordan. And that's the one at the Mayflower Hotel?
- Ms. Ohr. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
- Mr. Jordan. And that's the one at the Mayflower Hotel?
- Ms. Ohr. That made what?
- Mr. Jordan. I'm sorry. That's the one that took place at
- the Mayflower Hotel? I'll speak into the mike. Is that right?
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And who was at that meeting?
- Ms. Ohr. Myself, Bruce, Chris Steele, and an associate of
- Chris Steele.
- Mr. Jordan. Do you know that individual's name?
- Ms. Ohr. No, I'm sorry, I don't remember it.
- Mr. Jordan. So four people at the meeting.
- Ms. Ohr. Right.
- Mr. Jordan. What did you talk about?
- Ms. Ohr. His suspicions that Russian Government figures were
- supporting the candidacy of Donald Trump.
- Mr. Jordan. Did you get any information at that meeting?
- Ms. Ohr. Mainly that.
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- Mr. Jordan. No, I mean, did they actually physically give
- you any documents, any electronic communications, anything at
- that meeting --
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall receiving anything, no.
- Mr. Jordan. And what did Mr. Steele say about Mr. -- then
- candidate Donald Trump and involvement in Russia and what Russia
- may be doing? Do you recall what was said?
- Ms. Ohr. He was very concerned that his research had led him
- to the conclusion that Russian government figures had for a number
- of years been promoting the potential -- a potential presidency of
- Donald Trump.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. So was the information given at that
- meeting, would you say that was what became part of, again, the
- now well-known document called the dossier.
- Ms. Ohr. When I eventually read the dossier, I recognized
- that argument in there.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. So you did read the dossier?
- Ms. Ohr. When it became public.
- Mr. Jordan. Not before?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. Did you know why Mr. Steele was in town? Why he
- was in D.C. that particular weekend?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't.
- Mr. Jordan. Did you talk with -- did you have conversations
- with your employer, Mr. Simpson, about Christopher Steele in the
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- course of your work for Fusion GPS?
- Ms. Ohr. After meeting Christopher Steele, we mentioned it
- to each other that I had had breakfast with him.
- Mr. Jordan. You say you mentioned it to Glenn Simpson?
- Ms. Ohr. Glenn Simpson. Or there was some chitchat about
- the fact that we had had breakfast.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay how often did you talk with Mr. Simpson?
- You're working from home --
- Ms. Ohr. Right.
- Mr. Jordan. You got these two projects you're working on.
- You said that they weren't directly involved in the dossier. Did
- you talk to him on a daily basis, weekly basis? Did you send
- information to him? How did the work relationship operate?
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh. I didn't meet directly with him. I would
- go in every few weeks, and I would -- I only met with him, not
- every one of those meetings, and I would in between send my
- reports in. So every few weeks.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. Tell me your background prior to working
- for Fusion? Tell me your employment background?
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh. I started out in academia. I taught
- Russian history at Vassar College, and then when we came to
- Washington, I did -- I was an independent contractor doing
- contract work for various -- in support of U.S. Government clients
- in general, and --
- Mr. Jordan. Walk me through --
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- Ms. Ohr. Sorry?
- Mr. Jordan. Walk me through the clients you did contract
- work for. Was this U.S. Government?
- Ms. Ohr. U.S. Government.
- Mr. Jordan. Various agencies in the United States
- Government.
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. Tell me the agencies?
- Mr. Berman. I'm not sure how to address this. I'm not sure
- what the U.S. Government agencies' positions are, given various
- agreements she signed as parts of her independent contracting
- relationships. So she's willing to answer questions, I just don't
- know -- don't want to put her at risk of violating employment
- agreements she had at the time, especially with U.S. Government
- agencies.
- Mr. Jordan. Is it fair to say you worked with some of the
- intelligence-based agencies in the United States Government.
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. Did you work for the CIA?
- Mr. Berman. Again, I would raise the same concerns, sir, if
- we're going to get into specifics.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And for how long did you do that and how
- many different contracts did you have?
- Ms. Ohr. Starting in 2000, I did some part-time contracting
- for Mitre, which is a contract --
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- Mr. Jordan. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
- Ms. Ohr. Mitre. Mitre Corporation, which in turn had
- contracts with U.S. Government clients.
- Mr. Jordan. Got it.
- Ms. Ohr. Through most of 2008. And then starting in 2008, I
- worked for Open Source Works.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay.
- Mr. Berman. Sir, can I just consult with my client?
- Mr. Jordan. Sure.
- Mr. Berman. Sir, may I ask a question, just as a follow-up?
- Mr. Jordan. Yes.
- Mr. Berman. Mrs. Ohr, have you ever worked for a U.S.
- Government agency?
- Ms. Ohr. Not directly.
- Mr. Jordan. Not directly, but --
- Ms. Ohr. As an independent contractor.
- Mr. Jordan. As and independent contractor -- so you were
- basically a subcontractor for entities who did have contracts with
- the United States Government?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. Yes. But you know that the folks you were
- contracted to provide work for, that you had a working
- relationship for, you know that they were working for various
- intelligence-based agencies in the United States Government?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
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- Mr. Jordan. Got it. All right.
- Mr. Meadows. So I have one follow-up. Have you ever
- submitted a resume that would list any of those agencies on that
- resume?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Meadows. So no resume that would indicate that you did
- work for those agencies on a resume?
- Ms. Ohr. My resume stated that I was an independent
- contractor doing work in support of U.S. Government.
- Mr. Meadows. But normally there is a sentence or two right
- after it on what they did. And so what I'm saying is, did -- in
- those resumes, and for example, like with Mitre, we do work with
- the CIA, NSA whoever --
- Ms. Ohr. I do not explicitly name those agencies in a
- resume.
- Mr. Meadows. All right.
- Mr. Jordan. Earlier you mentioned that had -- that you
- communicated your work with emails to Fusion, your employer. Do
- you still have those emails if we needed to get access to those
- and see those? Do you still have those records?
- Ms. Ohr. I have them.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. I am going to go back a second. You saw
- Glenn Simpson's name. You remembered that you had seen him at
- some kind of conference. You knew your husband had a relationship
- with him. You sought him out because you were looking for work.
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- At that meeting, did he say -- was it like, well, you know, we're
- looking for someone who's an expert on Russia?
- Tell me exactly when you approach him, and he says, as a
- matter of fact, we actually need someone just like, with your
- skills. How did that first meeting where you're trying to get
- employment, how did that go?
- Ms. Ohr. I should mention that on a very important aspect of
- my recollection of him was that he was very -- he had done some
- very important work as a Wall Street Journal journalist on exactly
- Russian corruption, and organized crime, and oligarchs and things
- like that. So I knew we had a shared interest in that topic. So
- that was kind of the context for our discussion.
- And in terms of, you know, we need someone, whether he said
- something like that, you know, it's my -- my sense is that he was
- saying, you know, we can always use someone who has those kinds of
- skills?
- Mr. Berman. I think that Mr. Jordan is asking you what you
- remember actually from the conversation.
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh. And I don't remember the specifics of the
- conversation.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. What did your husband know about your
- work? Particularly --
- Ms. Ohr. He knew that I was --
- Mr. Jordan. Again, I'm focused on your work from 2015 to
- 2016 at Fusion.
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- Ms. Ohr. What did he know about it? He knew that I was
- working there.
- Mr. Jordan. I mean, did you talk about the work you were
- doing?
- Mr. Berman. Again, Ms. Ohr is not going to talk about her
- communication with Mr. Ohr, given that it's protected under the
- marital privilege.
- Mr. Meadows. So, counselor, so in the spirit of transparency
- where you started out with this, a big part, as you surely
- anticipated, is what communication happened between Glenn Simpson,
- Nellie Ohr, and ultimately, her husband, Bruce Ohr. And what
- you're telling me is that any communication she's had with her
- husband she's going to claim privilege, marital spouse privilege,
- to not answer that. Is that correct? Because that's not
- consistent with what you told me at the beginning.
- Mr. Berman. Ms. Ohr is more than willing to answer questions
- about her communications with Glenn Simpson. This committee
- certainly can bring Mr. Simpson in here and answer similar
- questions. They have had Mr. Ohr in here. She like, hopefully,
- no U.S. citizen, is going to be compelled to discuss her private
- conversations with her husband.
- Mr. Meadows. I would not ever ask for private conversations,
- nor would I share mine. However, there is a much different venue
- when you look at a July 30th meeting where Mr. Ohr brings his wife
- to a meeting with Christopher Steele, and obviously she was part
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- of a conversation there. Those kinds of things have to be -- and
- it would certainly include communication with her husband. I'm
- not asking for bedroom talk. Okay?
- Mr. Berman. Mr. Meadows, totally fair. At any conversation
- in which anybody else is present, Glenn Simpson, Chris Steele, a
- third party associate, a person on the subway, she will answer
- those questions, there is no privilege if it is not exclusively
- between her and her husband, at least for today's conversation.
- Mr. Meadows. So, but let me be clear because I want to make
- sure we are clear. Those conversations that she may have had with
- her husband that then were communicated with a third party are no
- longer just private conversations between her and her husband.
- For example, if she has a conversation with her husband and then
- ends up talking to Glenn Simpson or Christopher Steele, even at a
- later date, they are no longer private conversations, as much as
- they are shared with a third party. Would you agree?
- Mr. Berman. Sir, so if she's asked the question: Did you
- ever share with Mr. Simpson a conversation you had with your
- husband? Obviously, there's a yes/no answer to that. And if the
- answer is yes, then I recognize there isn't a privilege. What did
- you tell Mr. Simpson about your conversation with your husband? I
- think that's squarely, sir, in what you're asking, and I would
- not -- I would instruct my client to answer that question because
- she's talking about what she told Mr. Simpson. Different than,
- what did you and Mr. Ohr -- what did you and Bruce talk about
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- over --
- Mr. Meadows. So we just need to be a little more specific
- with some of our questions?
- Mr. Gaetz. And, counselor, let me ask this question, it is
- your view of the privilege that it covers the existence of the
- conversation beyond just the substance of it?
- Mr. Berman. Yes, sir.
- Mr. Gaetz. For the purpose of this discussion?
- Mr. Berman. Yes, sir.
- Mr. Gaetz. All right. Thanks.
- Mr. Meadows. While he's looking at his notes, let me go back
- to that July 30th meeting at the Mayflower Hotel at approximately
- 10 a.m. It was in the morning. Is that correct?
- Ms. Ohr. It was in the morning.
- Mr. Meadows. Okay. Why were you included in that meeting?
- Ms. Ohr. Because I'm interested in Russia.
- Mr. Meadows. So it was totally an academic exercise for you
- to go and be with a DOJ official? I mean, I'm interested in a lot
- of things, too, but I don't normally get to go in and sit in on a
- meeting between an informant and a DOJ official just because I
- have an interest. So you're saying it was totally academic? You
- were just interested in Russia?
- Ms. Ohr. Could you rephrase the question?
- Mr. Meadows. Okay. You took no role, and you had no
- anticipated role, and that you just asked to attend the meeting
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- just for curiosity?
- Ms. Ohr. Well, I mean, I know that I view myself as part of
- a community of people who are interested in Russia, and Chris
- Steele was part of that community. And we had interesting
- discussions about Russia before, and so I viewed --
- Mr. Meadows. So why didn't you set up the meeting with
- Christopher Steele? Why was it a meeting that your husband sets
- up and you up and then you come along? You obviously -- you're a
- very learned and intelligent individual, your know where I'm going
- with this. How do you get to be in a room with a DOJ official and
- a potential informant, and you happen to work for someone who has
- hired that same informant?
- Ms. Ohr. I didn't know that.
- Mr. Meadows. When did you learn that?
- Ms. Ohr. At the breakfast.
- Mr. Meadows. So at the breakfast you learned that you and
- Mr. Steele are working for the same company?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Meadows. And so, again, you went because you thought he
- could tell you things about Russia?
- Ms. Ohr. As I said, my view is of being part of a community
- of people who are interested in Russia, that we have a back and
- forth discussion, we try to mutually understand what is going on,
- and it's by no means clear what is going on in the minds of
- some elite --
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- Mr. Meadows. But Mr. Steele is not the most learned when it
- comes to matters of the Russia community. He may be an informant.
- He may have obviously connections. But I wouldn't say that when
- you look at all the academics that are out there on Russia, that
- Christopher Steele's name is even in the top 20. So why all of a
- sudden was there this interest in meeting with Christopher Steele
- on that particular day?
- Ms. Ohr. I mean, all I can do is repeat what I've said.
- I --
- Mr. Meadows. So did you take part in the conversation
- letting him know about the open source work that you were doing
- with Fusion?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall specifically what I said to him --
- Mr. Meadows. I didn't ask specifically, I said generally,
- did you talk about your work with Fusion GPS?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall telling him the content of what I
- was researching, but I'm not sure about that. The fact that I was
- doing work for GPS, clearly, he was aware of that.
- Mr. Jordan. So he knew that before the meeting? You said
- you didn't know he was working for your employer when you got to
- the meeting, but did Christopher Steele --
- Ms. Ohr. I don't know if he knew before or not, I'm not
- sure.
- Mr. Jordan. Your husband knew that you worked for Fusion and
- your husband knew that Chris Steele worked for Fusion?
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- Ms. Ohr. I don't know whether he knew that he worked for
- Fusion.
- Mr. Jordan. You don't know whether your husband knew?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't. I don't.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. I'm sorry Mark. Go ahead and question.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Ms. Ohr, you're saying that at that early
- July, 2016, meeting with Christopher Steele is when you learned
- that you and Mr. Steele were both doing work for Fusion GPS?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. In that moment when you realized that
- at the breakfast, did it cross your mind that maybe the work that
- you were doing for Fusion GPS, as it pertained to Donald Trump in
- your reports, had been communicated to Christopher Steele?
- Ms. Ohr. I probably didn't think that through. I mean, I
- didn't think about it.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. At some point in time, based on your
- husband's prior testimony, did it dawn on you that the work that
- you had been doing maybe had been part of the information upon
- which Mr. Steele was relying or using in preparation of the
- dossier?
- Ms. Ohr. Judging from the content of the dossier, it seems
- to be quite separate, but I don't know for sure.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. But at some point didn't you come to the
- conclusion that the research that you had been doing should be
- made known to the FBI because it had a connection to Christopher
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- Steele?
- Ms. Ohr. There's kind of two questions there, could you
- separate them out?
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Did you request that the research that you
- had been doing on behalf of Fusion GPS be provided to the FBI?
- Ms. Ohr. Request --
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Did Bruce Ohr take your research and provide
- it to the FBI?
- Mr. Berman. I'm not sure -- I'm not sure. Are you asking
- about a communication between her and Mr. Ohr?
- Mr. Ratcliffe. I'm asking about an action between her and
- Mr. Ohr. I want to know whether in the chain of custodial
- evidence her research on behalf of Fusion GPS was taken through
- Mr. Ohr to the FBI or to the Department of Justice?
- Mr. Berman. But that's communication between --
- Mr. Ratcliffe. It's not communication, it's an action.
- Mr. Berman. An action is viewed as communication, sir.
- Mr. Somers. No, no. He's asking if Bruce Ohr gave
- information to the FBI, a third party, that came from Ms. Ohr. I
- don't understand how there's a spousal communication problem
- there.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. There isn't.
- Mr. Berman. Well if you're asking about a link in the chain
- between, hypothetically, Ms. Ohr giving something to Mr. Ohr,
- which you are, then that is communication.
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- Mr. Ratcliffe. I'm ask about her role in connection with the
- custodial chain of evidence for the Steele dossier that went from
- Christopher Steele to the FBI. I'm asking if she played a role in
- that with her husband.
- Mr. Berman. Did you play any role with regards to the
- dossier and Christopher Steele?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Berman. Or Mr. Ohr? Anything with the dossier?
- Ms. Ohr. I first saw the dossier when it became public.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. So did your research go from you to the FBI?
- Was the FBI provided with your research for Fusion GPS?
- Mr. Berman. Did you give the FBI your research?
- Ms. Ohr. I did not directly give the FBI my research.
- Mr. Somers. Did you ask anyone else to give the FBI your
- research?
- Mr. Berman. Again, hypothetically, if that engaged a
- conversation between her and her husband, she can't answer that.
- Mr. Somers. I'm not asking her who she asked, that might be
- a follow-up question where there would be an objection, but the
- basic question, did you ask anyone to give the FBI your research
- doesn't necessarily call for a spousal communication. I asked a
- follow-up, it may.
- Mr. Berman. Fair enough. I'm going to instruct her not to
- answer that question.
- Mr. Breitenbach. So let me ask it a different way. Are you
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- aware that your research was provided to the FBI?
- Ms. Ohr. I'm not aware of whether it was provided to the
- FBI.
- Mr. Meadows. All right. So let me go back to July 30th,
- because there's something that's just not connecting, and maybe
- help me understand this a little bit. Because you said that you
- were unaware that he was working for Fusion GPS, and you were
- unaware -- you had no knowledge whether your husband knew he was
- working for GPS. Is that correct?
- Ms. Ohr. Correct.
- Mr. Meadows. So when he mentioned he was working for Fusion
- GPS, did you have this unbelievable "aha" moment. Oh my goodness,
- you're working for the same firm I am. Help me understand that.
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah, more or less.
- Mr. Meadows. Okay. Did your husband have an "aha" moment?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall.
- Mr. Meadows. What do you mean you don't recall?
- Ms. Ohr. I was having my own "aha" moment, so I wasn't
- watching his --
- Mr. Meadows. Well, here is the whole thing, Ms. Ohr. And,
- again, I appreciate you being here voluntarily, but there are key
- questions, and the premise of how you're characterizing the
- conversation with other testimony that we have is a little
- inconsistent, and so I want to give you a chance to really clarify
- where you are because, I'm not trying to trap you. I'm honestly
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- just trying to get to the truth.
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh.
- Mr. Meadows. It is our understanding that your husband knew
- of both connections, yours and Mr. Steele's, to Fusion GPS. And
- there would be an "aha" moment where your husband would say, hold
- on, just a minute, you're working for the same firm as my wife. I
- believe you would have recalled that. Did that happen?
- Ms. Ohr. Not in my recollection, but as I said, I was having
- my own "aha" moment.
- Mr. Meadows. All right. So the context of that
- conversation. You said it was basically more about your interest
- in Russia. Obviously, the conversation didn't stay there because
- the conversation focused a great deal on Carter Page at that
- point. Is that correct?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall. I mean, I don't recall whether it
- was or not.
- Mr. Meadows. Do you recall Carter Page's name coming up?
- Ms. Ohr. There's a lot about that that I don't recall. I
- mean, I had been doing research on my own, and so if there was
- something he said --
- Mr. Meadows. So as an academic -- here is my concern. As an
- academic, you're paid for your ability to recall.
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh.
- Mr. Meadows. I mean, that's what a professor gets paid for.
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh.
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- Mr. Meadows. And what you're saying is is that here in this
- particular situation you can't recall whether Carter Page's name
- was brought up?
- Ms. Ohr. As I was saying, there were, you know, a number of
- things discussed, but I had been doing things in my own research.
- And so if something chimed with what I had been independently
- finding through my own open source research, then I kind of -- it
- didn't stick in my memory, it didn't jump out.
- Mr. Berman. Were you present for the entire breakfast?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Berman. Was there a time where you walked away from the
- table to go to the bathroom?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Meadows. Counselor, I would ask you -- if you're going
- to coach her -- here is the problem. We've got sworn -- well,
- it's not sworn, we have transcribed interviews that would indicate
- that Carter Page and many of his associates met with different
- people, that that was the topic, a main topic of the conversation
- at your breakfast meeting, and we got that from your husband, so
- would that surprise you to know that there were multiple
- conversations that morning about Carter Page that you cannot
- recall?
- Ms. Ohr. It would not surprise me if he was discussed.
- Mr. Meadows. Okay.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. I want to try to clarify one point that I had
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- 32
- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- asked you earlier. Your husband testified under oath that you,
- quote, provided me with a memory stick that included research,
- she, meaning you, had done for Fusion GPS on various Russian
- figures. And the reason she provided that information to me is,
- my understanding was, it related to some of the same, it related
- to the FBI's Russia investigation, and she gave me that stick to
- give to the FBI. End quote.
- Do you have any reason to question the veracity of your
- husband's testimony under oath?
- Ms. Ohr. I do not.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you.
- Mr. Jordan. That was the same thing I was going to go
- to -- let me go back 1 second. Who did you give your information
- to at Fusion? Did you report directly to Glenn Simpson or someone
- else.
- Ms. Ohr. I reported to someone else.
- Mr. Jordan. Who was that individual?
- Ms. Ohr. Jake Berkowitz.
- Mr. Jordan. Excuse me.
- Ms. Ohr. Jake Berkowitz.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. Thank you. Did you in the course of your
- work at Fusion, did you ever interact or talk with anyone in the
- press about your work?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. Did you ever communicate with anyone at the
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- Perkins Coie law firm.
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. Anyone associated with the Clinton campaign or
- the Democrat National Committee?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. All right. I'm going to switch here. If you
- want to stay on the July 30th meeting, I have a few more there
- but -- go ahead.
- Mr. Meadows. So going back, and since it's the only meeting
- that you recall having with Mr. Steele, and that's why we keep
- coming back to that date, and obviously, you're aware from reports
- that the investigation was opened up on Mr. Trump the following
- day?
- Ms. Ohr. Subsequently. More recently I learned of this.
- Mr. Meadows. Right. So you're characterizing this
- conversation as being a Russian intellectual conversation, and
- yet, your husband's notes would indicate that you, and Mr. Steele,
- and I guess this fourth person -- who was the fourth person?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall the person's --
- Mr. Meadows. Male or female?
- Ms. Ohr. Male.
- Mr. Meadows. Male. Where were they from?
- Ms. Ohr. If I recall correctly, he had a British accent, so
- I'm guessing he was from the UK.
- Mr. Meadows. But you didn't mind him being part of a meeting
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- and you didn't know where he was from? I mean, you were
- discussing personal work-related stuff, and you're doing that with
- somebody that came with Christopher Steele, and you didn't know
- who they were?
- Ms. Ohr. Well, he introduced them as an associate.
- Mr. Meadows. I understand that, but, I mean, wouldn't you
- want to know whether the information you're sharing while you're
- under contract with Fusion GPS is being shared in an appropriate
- manner?
- Ms. Ohr. As I understood, I mean, I would take appropriate
- precautions with anybody, but to -- you know -- but to adhere to
- my NDA to the extent that I viewed it as necessary, and in this
- case once I learned, I guess, that he was working for Fusion GPS,
- I didn't -- I mean, I didn't provide that much information. I
- didn't talk that much.
- Mr. Meadows. So this gentleman was an associate with Mr.
- Steele at Fusion GPS?
- Ms. Ohr. No, I'm sorry -- I --
- Mr. Meadows. I knew the answer to that, but go ahead. I
- mean, I guess what I'm saying is.
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah.
- Mr. Meadows. Where was any associate of Mr. Steele's?
- Ms. Ohr. As I recall, he was, he worked for Mr. Steele's
- company?
- Mr. Meadows. So he worked for which company?
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- Ms. Ohr. Well, subsequently, I recall that the name was
- Orbis at the time, I did not remember.
- Mr. Meadows. And so he worked for Orbis, and he didn't say
- anything about his background?
- Ms. Ohr. The associate?
- Mr. Meadows. Yeah. Who he used to work for?
- Ms. Ohr. No. Nope.
- Mr. Meadows. So you lacked curiosity there. You didn't
- really care who -- did he talk much, the associate?
- Ms. Ohr. Not that I recall.
- Mr. Meadows. Did he say anything of significance?
- Ms. Ohr. Not that I recall.
- Mr. Meadows. All right. In your husband's notes it talked
- that you had extensive conversations about Donald Trump, candidate
- Donald Trump at that point. Did you recall that?
- Ms. Ohr. We had conversations about him. As I said, as I
- said, I left partway through the conversation.
- Mr. Meadows. Well, just for a bathroom break, is what your
- counselor said. So you left through the conversation and you came
- back. How long was the total conversation?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall how long it was.
- Mr. Meadows. How long were you absent? How long did you go
- to the -- well, I don't want to ask that. How long were you
- absent from the conversation?
- Ms. Ohr. Well, I then went elsewhere.
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- Mr. Meadows. So you're saying the meeting went on after
- you --
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Meadows. -- after you left. Why did you excuse
- yourself?
- Ms. Ohr. I understood that they wanted to talk.
- Mr. Meadows. Talk about what?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't know.
- Mr. Meadows. So you excuse yourself and you're not sure what
- they wanted to talk about?
- Ms. Ohr. I assumed it was a continuation of the
- conversation, that it was not my place to be there.
- Mr. Meadows. So do you recall when they talked about having
- Trump over the barrel?
- Ms. Ohr. No. Huh-uh.
- Mr. Meadows. So did you say anything derogatory about Mr.
- Trump in that meeting?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall.
- Mr. Jordan. Ms. Ohr, have you ever met or had conversations
- with personnel in the FBI, specifically Andy McCabe?
- Ms. Ohr. I'm sorry, what was the second half of your
- question?
- Mr. Jordan. Have you ever had any conversations or meetings
- with Andy McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
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- Mr. Jordan. Lisa Page, former FBI counselor?
- Ms. Ohr. I met her but before she was at the FBI.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. And did you have conversations with her
- during the time period you worked at Fusion regarding the work you
- were doing or any work that is Fusion was doing?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. How about Peter Strzok?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. Did you know about some of the other -- were you
- kept abreast of other work that Fusion may have been engaged in,
- like the other clients they had, other work they were doing?
- Ms. Ohr. What do you mean by kept abreast of?
- Mr. Jordan. Did you know some of the other projects that
- Fusion GPS and Mr. Simpson were working on?
- Ms. Ohr. I was aware of another project.
- Mr. Jordan. Can you tell me what that project was?
- Ms. Ohr. It had to do with -- now the name of the company
- escapes me. But it was Veselnitskaya, the lawyer who was involved
- in a case.
- Mr. Jordan. Did you say Veselnitskaya?
- Ms. Ohr. That was the name of the lawyer.
- Mr. Jordan. Yeah. I'm familiar with her, but talk to me
- more.
- Ms. Ohr. I just knew that he was working on it.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. Are you aware of any efforts by Fusion
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- GPS to uncover negative facts about Members of Congress?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall.
- Mr. Meadows. I'd ask you to think about that more. You
- don't recall any work with Fusion GPS about doing negative work on
- Members of Congress?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall being asked to do work on --
- Mr. Jordan. We're not asking you that.
- Mr. Meadows. Not that you were asked, that were you aware of
- it.
- Ms. Ohr. I'm sorry. That I was aware of independent
- projects that they were doing on Members of Congress?
- Mr. Jordan. Yes.
- Ms. Ohr. I'm not aware of any project -- I was not informed
- of any such projects.
- Mr. Meadows. Were you -- excuse me, Jim.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay.
- Mr. Meadows. It's critical, and if you want to confer with
- your counselor, you need to do that.
- Mr. Berman. You're encouraging a moment. I understand the
- question, I believe.
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh.
- [Discussion off the record.]
- Mr. Berman. Thank you, sir.
- Ms. Ohr. Can you repeat the question?
- Mr. Berman. I think the question is, and if I rephrase it
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- 39
- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- inappropriately, please tell me. Are you aware of any work that
- Fusion GPS was doing, whether or not you worked on it, whether or
- not you were asked about it, having to do with Members of
- Congress?
- Mr. Jordan. Yes.
- Ms. Ohr. No, I'm not.
- Mr. Jordan. What about congressional staff?
- Ms. Ohr. No, I don't think so.
- Mr. Jordan. Specific the name Jason Foster?
- Ms. Ohr. What was the last part?
- Mr. Jordan. Jason Foster.
- Ms. Ohr. Jason Foster. No, I'm not aware of --
- Mr. Jordan. Mr. Ratcliffe.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. So, Ms. Ohr, one of the concerns had to do
- with the connection between, obviously, you being seen as the
- go-between between Fusion GPS and your husband, Mr. Ohr, Bruce
- Ohr, and by go-between, either directly or indirectly
- communicating information or transferring information. How many
- times did a communication, either directly or indirectly, either
- from your husband to Mr. Simpson or from Mr. Simpson through you
- to your husband occur?
- Ms. Ohr. Wouldn't that involve my communications with my
- husband?
- Mr. Berman. Did Mr. Simpson ever ask you to pass anything
- along to your husband?
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- Mr. Berman. Is that --
- Mr. Meadows. That's part of it, sure.
- Mr. Berman. Break it down so we avoid the marital thing.
- Ms. Ohr. Okay. He sent an email saying, call me, and I
- assumed it was for --
- Mr. Meadows. We have a copy of that. Obviously, we're
- talking about something more substantial than that.
- Mr. Berman. Did Mr. Simpson ever ask you to pass along
- anything to your husband?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Meadows. Did Mr. Simpson ever expect you to do that?
- Ms. Ohr. Not that I'm aware, no.
- Mr. Meadows. In your communication, did Mr. Simpson ask you
- about your meeting with Mr. Steele on July 30th?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall that he asked about it.
- Mr. Meadows. Did you report on it?
- Ms. Ohr. If I recall correctly, I simply mentioned that we
- had had this breakfast together and --
- Mr. Meadows. And there was no written document that was
- included with that?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Meadows. Were you aware that your husband was having
- multiple conversations with your boss?
- Ms. Ohr. What time period are you talking about?
- Mr. Meadows. From November of 2016 -- it would actually be
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- prior to that -- prior to that prior -- to the November election,
- that he had conversations with your boss. Were you aware of that?
- Mr. Berman. Other than whether or not your husband shared
- that with you? You're not asking did she learn it from her
- husband. Outside of any conversations with your husband, were you
- aware that -- you're talking about Mr. Simpson when you say her
- boss?
- Mr. Meadows. Mr. Simpson or associates of Mr. Simpson at a
- high level, yes.
- Ms. Ohr. Who was no longer my boss after September.
- Mr. Meadows. Right.
- Ms. Ohr. As I said, there was that one email where Glenn
- said --
- Mr. Meadows. So you're saying only one time?
- Ms. Ohr. That's the only time that I specifically am aware
- from Glenn Simpson --
- Mr. Meadows. Well, you prepped for this hearing, so
- obviously you saw that email. But are you saying that there was
- only one time that that happened because that is not consistent
- with some of the other information that we have?
- Ms. Ohr. Well, anything that my husband directly told me
- about I would not --
- Mr. Berman. She's not answering questions about that.
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Even the existence of a meeting?
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- Mr. Meadows. Again, counselor, we're not asking for bedroom
- talk here. What we're asking for is -- obviously, the whole
- reason for this -- and I'm going to turn it over to my -- to a
- lawyer.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. So, Ms. Ohr, you said that after you and your
- husband met with Mr. Steele at the Mayflower Hotel that you had a
- conversation with Glenn Simpson who was still your boss. Correct?
- Ms. Ohr. At that time, yes.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. You said you had chitchat about it?
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. What do you mean by chitchat?
- Ms. Ohr. With Glenn, what I recall is simply, yes, I had
- breakfast with them or, you know, something like that.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Did he fill in the details there that you had
- previously been unaware of about Mr. Christopher Steele being a
- client of GPS and doing work relating to Russia?
- Ms. Ohr. It was understood by that point because I hadn't
- learned it.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Did Mr. Simpson indicate to you that he was
- going to or wanted to meet with your husband, Bruce Ohr,
- subsequent to that breakfast?
- Ms. Ohr. At that time I don't recall him saying that, but
- I'm not 100 percent sure.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you know in the fall of 2016 before the
- election whether or not your husband did in fact meet with Glenn
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- Simpson?
- Ms. Ohr. The only specific date, which I don't remember the
- specific date, is that email, so --
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Tell me about the email?
- Ms. Ohr. It just said, call me.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. How do you know about the email?
- Ms. Ohr. Because we share an email address. My husband and
- I do, that is.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. So I want to ask you about this. Let me give
- this to your lawyer and I want you to follow along with me.
- Mr. Berman. Thank you, sir.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Glenn Simpson testified under oath before the
- House Intelligence Committee.
- Mr. Berman. Sir, that's what we're looking at, Mr. Simpson's
- testimony?
- Mr. Ratcliffe. It is an excerpt from Glenn Simpson's
- publicly available testimony before the House Intelligence
- Committee. On page 78, he was asked a question: You never heard
- from anyone in the U.S. Government in relation to these matters,
- either the FBI or the Department of Justice. His answer: After
- the election. I mean, during the election, no. Read along with
- me, if you would.
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. What did you hear after and from whom and
- when? His answer: I was asked to provide some information to the
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- Justice Department. Question: By whom and when? Answer: It was
- a prosecutor named Bruce Ohr who was following up. You know, I
- can't remember when, it was some time after Thanksgiving, I think.
- And then on the following page, again, halfway down, the top
- of the paragraph, Mr. Simpson again clarifies under oath. The
- context of this was that it was after the election. All right.
- Have you able to review that testimony?
- Ms. Ohr. I'm sorry. What was the question?
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Were you able to review that testimony?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes. Thank you.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Does testimony appear to be accurate to you?
- Are you aware of facts which indicate that Glenn Simpson did hear
- from members of either the FBI or the Justice Department before
- the election of 2016?
- Ms. Ohr. Whatever meetings he had with my husband, I don't
- recall the dates.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Didn't you just tell me you had an email?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes, and I don't recall the date of it.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. You don't know the timing of that? Whether
- it was before or after the election?
- Ms. Ohr. Not right now, I don't have a recollection of that.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Do we have a copy of that email? Well, I was
- going -- what I want to ask you is, Ms. Ohr, was -- this testimony
- from Mr. Simpson is very much at odds with your husband's sworn
- testimony before this Joint Task Force. Your husband testified
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- that he spoke with and met with Mr. Simpson to discuss a
- Russia-related investigation, including the dossier in August
- of 2016.
- Do you have any reason to doubt that?
- Ms. Ohr. To doubt my husband?
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Yes.
- Ms. Ohr. I have no reason to doubt that.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Do you have any reason to doubt your
- husband's testimony under oath that during that meeting in August
- of 2016 that Glenn Simpson gave a memory stick of information to
- be given to the FBI that your husband believed included the
- dossier?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't know anything about --
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Any reason to question your husband's
- testimony under oath?
- Ms. Ohr. If you have that testimony to show me, I would look
- at it.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. I do. Your husband's testimony -- let me
- read it to you.
- Mr. Berman. Could we see a copy -- we're working with one
- copy, sorry.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. The only copy, I assumed -- actually, let me
- read it to you and I'll show it to you.
- Mr. Berman. Thank you, sir.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Quote: The rest of the conversation had to
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- do with additional information that he had gathered about the
- possible connections between the Russian Government and the Trump
- campaign, and he gives me a thumb drive. I think the natural
- assumption at that point, I had not seen the dossier, I had heard
- there was such a thing as the dossier, but I hadn't seen it, so he
- gives me a thumb drive. I assume that this was the dossier. End
- quote.
- Ms. Ohr. Who is that referring to? He?
- Mr. Ratcliffe. That's your husband referring to Glenn
- Simpson.
- Mr. Berman. What is the timeframe? I don't have the
- transcript so I don't know when Mr. Ohr -- I don't have my notes
- either.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. It was his testimony that you and I were both
- present for before the subcommittee.
- Mr. Berman. Oh, no, no, I understood when he said that, and
- you keep saying he was under oath, I can't remember that part.
- But putting that aside for a moment, what was the time period that
- he allegedly got this flash drive?
- Mr. Ratcliffe. August of 2016.
- Mr. Berman. That's what the testimony was? You obviously
- have transcripts of prior testimony. I would love to see the
- transcripts. But what is your question for Ms. Ohr? And that is
- not a transcript, those are your notes, sir.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. I'll represent that this is an excerpt of the
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- transcript.
- Mr. Berman. And I will say I have no reason to doubt you on
- that, I just don't have the transcript in front of me.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. I guess my point -- if you take me at my
- word, counselor and Ms. Ohr, there seems to be a clear
- contradiction in testimony under oath between what your husband
- said under oath and what Glenn Simpson said under oath before
- congressional investigators. I'm trying to find out who is
- telling the truth. Can you shed any light on who is telling the
- truth?
- Ms. Ohr. I can't.
- Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay.
- Mr. Jordan. I want to go back where Mr. Meadows was just a
- few minutes ago and go in the other direction. Did Glenn Simpson
- ever talk to you, encourage you to talk to your husband about
- certain information, or ask you about conversations you had had
- with your husband about projects you were working on and things
- Fusion was working on?
- Ms. Ohr. Did he -- can you repeat the question, please?
- Mr. Jordan. Did Glenn Simpson ever ask you or talk to you
- about the work that your husband was doing?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. How about Mr. Steele, did he ever talk to you
- about work that your husband was doing at DOJ?
- Ms. Ohr. Did Mr. Steele talk -- no, I never spoke
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- independently with Mr. Steele except at that breakfast.
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- [11:10 a.m.]
- Mr. Jordan. Are you aware of the fact that after each and
- every conversation or meeting that your husband Bruce had with
- Mr. Steele, that he would then go to the FBI and talk to the FBI
- about those conversations? Were you aware of that fact?
- Ms. Ohr. I subsequently learned that.
- Mr. Jordan. And when did you learn that?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall when.
- Mr. Jordan. Did Glenn --
- Mr. Meadows. So you were unaware of that when it was
- happening?
- Ms. Ohr. I mean, I knew that he was close to the FBI, so I
- would not be surprised.
- Mr. Jordan. Did Mr. Simpson ever ask you to talk with anyone
- at the FBI?
- Ms. Ohr. I'm sorry. Could you repeat the question?
- Mr. Jordan. Did Glenn Simpson ever ask you to meet with
- anyone at the FBI?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. Did anyone accompany your husband when he met
- with the FBI to convey Fusion information?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't know. And I'm not -- the two parts of your
- question are assuming that he did, and I would say that I do not
- know that.
- Mr. Jordan. Well, we know that he did.
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- Ms. Ohr. Okay.
- Mr. Jordan. He's testified to that. And just to be clear,
- you never went with your husband when he spoke with anyone at the
- FBI?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. And you've never attended any meetings at the
- FBI?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. Or with the FBI, I should say. Okay.
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Meadows. Let me do one real quick follow-up. The email
- that you've obviously reviewed or you recall -- so I don't know if
- you've reviewed it. We're getting you a copy of this -- where
- actually Glenn Simpson calls in, you respond and you share an
- email, and you say, Glenn wants you to call, and you basically
- say, This is for you. You send it to your husband, and it says,
- This is for you, as I recall it. How would you know that Glenn
- Simpson calling in was for your husband and not for you?
- Ms. Ohr. That's a good question. I guess because I was
- having regular meetings with -- I mean, actually the time
- period -- I'm not sure what time period it was, so if it was after
- I ended work with him, there would be no reason. So --
- Mr. Meadows. But even after -- so assuming that you had
- ended your official response --
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah.
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- Mr. Meadows. -- why -- previous employer sends you an email,
- says give me a call, and you automatically assume it's your
- husband? Why would you do that?
- Ms. Ohr. Because I was very busy on a new job.
- Mr. Meadows. No. No. No. No. Oh, so that's the reason
- you were -- you were very busy on other jobs, and so you told your
- husband that I assume it's for you, because you're so busy because
- you couldn't call him back because -- that doesn't seem to line
- up, Ms. Ohr.
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh. Well, my work for them was done and so --
- Mr. Meadows. But you get an email that says --
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah.
- Mr. Meadows. -- please call me, and you say, This must be
- for you, referring to your husband. How would you know?
- Ms. Ohr. Because I couldn't think of a reason that he would
- need me to talk to him because I had finished working for him.
- Mr. Meadows. So you do recall the email?
- Ms. Ohr. Excuse me? What was that question?
- Mr. Meadows. You do recall the email?
- Ms. Ohr. I do recall the email.
- Mr. Meadows. When was that email?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall the date.
- Mr. Meadows. But it was after you were terminated?
- Ms. Ohr. If I recall correctly.
- Mr. Meadows. All right. And so --
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- Mr. Berman. Just to be clear, I mean, she wasn't terminated.
- She left work, yeah.
- Mr. Meadows. Your relationship was terminated, yeah. We
- don't want a bad resume report here, I get it. So but here is the
- curious part: For you to act like you have no knowledge of a
- relationship between Glenn Simpson and Bruce Ohr, and then to make
- the assumption in an email that when he calls in it is for your
- husband, those two are incompatible.
- Ms. Ohr. I didn't say no knowledge that a relationship
- existed, because when we met with Chris Steele, he said Glenn
- knows that I'm here. So clearly, they --
- Mr. Meadows. Well --
- Mr. Berman. Can I speak with the witness for a second, sir?
- Mr. Meadows. Yeah.
- [Discussion off the record.]
- Mr. Berman. Sorry about that, sir.
- Mr. Meadows. So those are inconsistent. So how do you
- make -- how do you reconcile those for me?
- Ms. Ohr. Can you repeat what --
- Mr. Meadows. What I'm saying is, is that you've testified
- this morning that you were unaware of ongoing communication
- between Glenn Simpson and your husband, and yet, you get an email
- that says, please ring me. I have got a copy. I'll give you a
- copy of it. Please ring me. And your response is, I assume Glenn
- means you, not me.
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- Ms. Ohr. Oh, thank you.
- Mr. Berman. We now have in front of us a copy of what we
- think is this email. Can she look at this for a moment, sir?
- Mr. Meadows. Sure.
- Mr. Berman. Thank you.
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah. So, I mean, I knew that they had spoken off
- and on, so -- and since I was no longer working for him --
- Mr. Meadows. So characterize off and on for me. I mean,
- because that's different than what you've testified earlier today,
- so let's get it clear. What is off and on?
- Ms. Ohr. I mean, over the years. I mean, they had spoken
- many years before, so my understanding --
- Mr. Meadows. But, again, I want to caution you, I mean,
- there -- if they've spoken over the years, Ms. Ohr, and you get an
- email and you were the one that was -- had just previously worked
- for Mr. Simpson, and for you to suggest that, oh, it must be for
- you, that those two are not consistent. That line of reasoning is
- not consistent.
- If they're having regular conversation, it would -- it would
- be consistent, and that's what I'm trying to get at. Were you
- aware that they were having regular communication, yes or no?
- Ms. Ohr. Glenn had just, as you can see from this email, had
- just forwarded an article --
- Mr. Meadows. From Think Progress?
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah.
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- Mr. Meadows. But it was Russia related, so how -- and you're
- a Russian scholar, so how would you know that it is not for you
- and instead for him?
- Ms. Ohr. I just remember that, you know, when this article
- arrived, Bruce showed it to me, so I just sort of assumed that it
- was -- that he had taken note of it. So I filed it away as a --
- Mr. Meadows. So let me get this straight. Bruce shows you
- the article that Glenn Simpson gave him about NRA connections with
- the Trump campaign from Think Progress, and that on the same
- thread, you see that and you automatically assume that he is
- calling for that?
- Mr. Berman. Can I ask -- can I -- in the second email from
- the bottom, Sunday, December 11, 2016, at 1:08 p.m., the words are
- written "thank you." They come from the Nellie Ohr email account.
- Do you know who wrote that, you or Bruce, on this shared account?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't know. I don't know which one of us.
- Mr. Meadows. So it could have been you?
- Ms. Ohr. I'm sorry. What was that question?
- Mr. Meadows. So it could have been you?
- Ms. Ohr. It could have been me.
- Mr. Meadows. So you could have been exchanging back and
- forth with the Think Progress article?
- Ms. Ohr. It could have been.
- Mr. Meadows. Okay. So then it really makes my question a
- lot more relevant. If this -- you and him going back and forth,
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- then why when he said please ring me would you refer to it your
- husband?
- Ms. Ohr. It could have been Bruce, yeah. I don't know which
- one of us wrote it. It was -- he was clearly writing -- letting
- both of us know.
- Mr. Meadows. But that is your communication to your husband.
- I mean, that is your communication to your husband saying, I
- think -- I mean, we know that. So what I'm saying is, how did you
- know? Obviously, you knew about an ongoing relationship between
- your husband and Glenn Simpson that was occurring. Is that
- correct?
- We have time because of the -- I've been keeping track
- because of the referrals. I get it.
- So is that correct?
- Ms. Ohr. As I understand, any communications between my
- husband and myself are privileged.
- Mr. Meadows. As I understand, this was a third party. There
- was a third party involved. Counselor, let me just tell you,
- we're going to keep going down this. We will subpoena you if we
- have to. I'm all about protecting your privacy, but this is not
- about privacy. This is about a relationship between Bruce Ohr,
- Glenn Simpson, and the knowledge that Ms. Ohr had of that when,
- indeed, there was a third party involved in that communication.
- Mr. Berman. Mr. Meadows, she's answering your questions
- about these communications with a third party. She's answering
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- questions. She has -- I believe you've asked her why did she flip
- the December 12, 2016, 10:05 a.m. email to her husband's, what
- appears to be, Department of Justice account. And I believe she
- said she doesn't recall exactly why she did it.
- Mr. Meadows. No. No. That's not what she said. I asked a
- specific question that she did not answer just a few minutes ago,
- and that question is, was she aware of ongoing communication
- between Mr. Simpson and her husband because of the type of
- communication that was -- actually involved three people? Was she
- aware of that, yes or no?
- Mr. Berman. So outside of any communications you may have
- had with your husband.
- Mr. Meadows. I'm not asking you to rephrase my question,
- Counselor. I'm getting frustrated because I think both of us know
- where I'm going with this, and at this point she needs to answer
- the question. And if she's not, then we'll come back in a
- different purview and make sure that she does answer it.
- Mr. Berman. Well, I would say, we understand the subpoena
- power that this committee has, and we don't want to get there.
- Mr. Meadows. I don't want you to get there either. So just
- answer the -- I mean, obvious --
- Mr. Berman. She can't answer a question if it's based on
- communications with her husband. So if I know, sir, that -- if
- you know your wife or -- your wife knows you went to a particular
- grocery store, and I am asking questions about the grocery store
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- based on that information, that's intruding on the marital
- communications.
- So that's all -- I wasn't trying to rephrase your question,
- sir. I was simply saying outside of any communications you may
- have had with Ms. Ohr, because you're clearly not asking for her
- communications between them. As you said, you wouldn't want
- people doing that to you. Outside of that, are you aware there
- was an ongoing relationship? But if you're asking her based on
- communications she had with Ms. Ohr, she can't answer that.
- Mr. Meadows. So, again, I'll come back and we'll close with
- this, and hopefully we can get a better answer. What in your mind
- triggered the fact that when "please ring me" came across, that it
- had to be for your husband and not for you? I mean, what -- I
- mean, obviously, if he didn't have an ongoing relationship, why
- would you refer it to him? Is there any reason you would refer a
- phone call from your previous boss to your husband if he didn't
- have an ongoing relationship without him explicitly asking for it?
- Ms. Ohr. Since I had finished working for him, it seemed
- logical that it would be for --
- Mr. Meadows. So you have had no communication with
- Mr. Simpson since you terminated your relationship?
- Ms. Ohr. I think I sent a couple of emails with --
- Mr. Meadows. So that didn't hold up, then?
- Ms. Ohr. I'm sorry?
- Mr. Meadows. I mean, why would it hold up? Why would that
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- stand a reason? If you continued to have communication after you
- terminated your relationship, why would that assumption be
- accurate then?
- Ms. Ohr. I just didn't see a reason why he would want to
- talk to me on the phone.
- Mr. Meadows. I think we're out of time.
- [Discussion off the record.]
- Ms. Hariharan. All right. So we are back on the record. It
- is 11:43. My name is Arya Hariharan. I represent Mr. Nadler from
- the Judiciary Committee, and I'm going to ask questions on behalf
- of the minority.
- I just want to quickly state for the record, the transcript
- for Bruce Ohr does not represent that the memory stick was
- submitted in August. In fact -- this is on page 85, or whenever
- you have the chance to review it. In fact, it represents that
- Bruce Ohr's meetings with the FBI started in around November
- of 2016, according to the 302s. And that's generally speaking
- when he started submitting that information in terms of the
- various memory sticks, so just for the record to reflect that
- based on what was said in the previous hour.
- Mr. Berman. And this is responsive to Mr. Ratcliffe's
- representations based on his notes --
- Ms. Hariharan. Exactly.
- Mr. Berman. -- from 40 minutes ago or so?
- Ms. Hariharan. Exactly.
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- Mr. Berman. Thank you.
- Ms. Hariharan. I believe Mr. Raskin has a question he'd like
- to ask.
- Mr. Raskin. I do. I actually have just a couple questions.
- One is, would you kindly review for me what your academic
- background and general professional trajectory has been. Forgive
- me, I missed the earlier questioning.
- Ms. Ohr. Yes. I have a degree in Russian history and
- literature from Harvard, and I have a Ph.D. in Russian history
- from Stanford. And I was in academia for a number of years, and
- then moved to D.C. and was an independent contractor doing work
- mostly in support of various U.S. Government clients.
- Mr. Raskin. Okay. So in the course of your academic and
- professional pursuits, did you have occasion to find out
- information about the relationship between Donald Trump and
- Russian organized crime?
- Ms. Ohr. In my academic pursuits, you mean, when I was in
- academia in the 1990s?
- Mr. Raskin. Yeah. Either -- yeah.
- Ms. Ohr. Well, at some point he sold a mansion to Dmitri
- Rybolovlev, who is -- in mysterious circumstances, so that
- certainly piqued my interest. But I don't recall the exact date
- of that.
- Mr. Raskin. Okay. And then in your professional work since
- arriving in Washington, what did you find out about the
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- relationship between Donald Trump and the Russian mob?
- Ms. Ohr. What time period are you talking about?
- Ms. Hariharan. When you worked for Fusion or anytime?
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah. Yeah. When I worked for Fusion was when I
- started paying attention to it, and I learned a lot about contacts
- that were questionable with people who have been suspected of
- various relationships with Russian organized crime, some of it
- from my own research, some from reading that I did in pursuit of
- that project in terms of crime figures who bought apartments in
- Trump Towers or other properties, and a gambling ring in Trump
- Tower and things like that.
- Mr. Raskin. So it was -- you found at a number of different
- points that there were contacts between Donald Trump and various
- Russian organized crime figures?
- Ms. Ohr. From my reading, people who U.S. law enforcement
- has identified as Russian organized figures, such as Vyacheslav
- Ivankov, had either spent time in Trump properties, or people of
- that -- type of people bought properties. I'm not saying that
- Donald Trump, you know, personally knew every single one of them.
- I don't know about that.
- Mr. Raskin. But it created the possibility that there might
- have been money laundering going on through Trump real estate
- properties?
- Ms. Ohr. Certainly the types of transactions raised that
- suspicion.
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- Mr. Raskin. Yeah. Can you just characterize generally the
- relationship between Russian organized crime and Vladimir Putin
- and the Russian Government?
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah. Certainly, Vladimir Putin and members of the
- Russian government are not wholeheartedly seeking to prosecute
- organized crime, we'll put it that way. Instead, there are
- personal relationships that might involve bribery, that might
- involve people doing favors in return for being able to operate,
- people being caught and having a little talking-to at the police
- station and being let go with the implication being that the
- police were -- either received a bribe or were encouraging the
- person to cooperate in some way, to help out, do favors.
- Mr. Raskin. How deep does the relationship go? Would it be
- inaccurate to say that the organized crime syndicates in Russia
- operate under the protection of Vladimir Putin?
- Ms. Ohr. Protection is a good word because it does imply not
- necessarily, you know, that they were a boss, or that Putin was a
- boss, but rather they had to make some kind of deals or
- understandings.
- And there's certainly a very well-documented argument, for
- example, made by Karen Dawisha in her book "Putin's Kleptocracy."
- For -- in the 1990s, some pretty well-documented evidence of Putin
- being sort of a go-between with a local St. Petersburg organized
- crime group, and then involvement with various dealings that
- appeared to be sort of robbing the Russian treasury in various
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- jobs that Putin held, and that people around him held.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Good morning.
- Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Ms. Ohr.
- Ms. Ohr. Thank you.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Good morning. I'm Congressman Raja
- Krishnamoorthi.
- Let me back up for a second. I apologize if this was already
- asked, but what was the genesis of the work that you originally
- did with regard to the relationship between Trump and organized
- crime, like what actually prompted that line of research?
- Ms. Ohr. I had started working for Glenn Simpson and Fusion
- GPS, and I had already done one project for them. And they gave
- me a choice of a couple -- you know, they gave me a choice of what
- to do next, and there was one that was non-Russia related, and I
- said I really want to study -- I want to, you know, do
- Russia-related research, and so they said, Well, how about this
- one?
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And did they tell you who the client was
- for that particular issue?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And how did you go about doing that
- research?
- Ms. Ohr. I did open source online research, you know, all
- kinds of media, social media, government -- Russian government
- documents, legal documents, society pages, all kinds of different
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- things.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And did Fusion GPS give you
- suggestions on different queries to make, or did they just say, Go
- ahead and, you know, have at it?
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah, they gave me suggestions, uh-huh.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. Okay. And I know that you
- answered a couple of questions related to this for Congressman
- Raskin, but, I guess, what about that research surprised you, if
- anything?
- Ms. Ohr. I suppose the depth -- it was the fact that, as I
- said, there was some already suspicion due to Trump's transaction
- with Rybolovlev some years ago, and so, I received very strong
- confirmation that there were deep and widespread ties with
- apparently unscrupulous people.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And how far back did that go and time, I
- should say?
- Ms. Ohr. Did the ties, I mean, he was seeking to do business
- in the Soviet Union back into the '80s. And along the way,
- he -- some of his deals were with people who have been suspected
- of organized crime.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Go ahead.
- Ms. Hariharan. Can you share what some of the names of those
- unscrupulous organized you crime folks were or who they were?
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah. There was a hotel deal that he thought about
- that was -- the hotel deal ended up involved with Umar
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- Jabregulov,(ph) who's a Chechen and is suspected in the murder of
- an American businessman whose name slips my mind right now. Yep.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Anybody else?
- Ms. Ohr. Anybody else, there were numerous people -- in
- terms of hotel deal -- in terms of deals in Moscow, or do you mean
- anybody else? How --
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Any organized crime figures is what I'm
- referring to. Anybody that was, you know -- I can't pronounce
- that name exactly. I should be, given my own name, but like who
- are some of the other organized crime figures that, you know, you
- researched and found ties to Donald Trump?
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh. Tokhtakhounov, who has been suspected
- of -- I can't remember if he was convicted or tried for -- or
- suspected of trying to fix the Olympics a long time ago. And
- certainly, Trump's campaign chair, Manafort had close -- had ties
- with Oleg Derepaska.
- Rinat Akhmetov is someone who also was associated with
- Manafort. Now, he's Ukrainian, and right now, I can't remember
- whether people explicitly, you know, pointed to particular
- organized crime activity that he's suspected of.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. So going back to Donald Trump, setting
- aside Paul Manafort for a moment or any of the other members of
- the Trump Organization, when you found these ties to exist, or
- through open source research to exist, did that -- was there
- anything remarkable about those ties? Did you find that they
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- continued into today, or into the time period -- I think you
- worked for GPS through September 2016. Did you find that those
- ties were longstanding, and did they continue into the present
- time at the time that you were researching those ties?
- Ms. Ohr. Let's see. I mean, certainly the -- for example,
- the Miss Universe Pageant, that was a few years before that. I
- think Mr. Tokhtakhounov attended, you know, was in the VIP
- gallery, if I remember correctly, suggesting that there was some
- acquaintance or tie. And in terms of more recently than that, I
- mean, there -- yeah, I can't name any specific transactions or
- anything like that that come to my mind right now.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. Okay. And these particular ties
- that Donald Trump had to these groups, or these individuals, have
- you done similar research before about any other Americans with
- ties to organized crime in Russia? What I'm trying to get at is,
- did you develop kind of an expertise in this particular area that
- you would be able to tell like, you know, what are -- what's just
- a photo opportunity between two people versus, you know, looking
- at something bigger than that?
- Ms. Ohr. Yeah. Good question, yes. I certainly followed
- Russian organized crime figures for a number of years. In terms
- of Americans' associations with them probably would be limited to
- what's in the press. I'm not -- at the moment, my
- recollection -- I don't recall doing deep research on any of
- those, but I'm a -- yeah, I'm -- I may misremember.
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- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Got it. Now, the research that you
- ended up doing on these ties between Donald Trump and these
- organized crime figures, what did you do with that?
- Ms. Ohr. What did I do with my research?
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Yeah.
- Ms. Ohr. I wrote it up in reports and emailed them to Fusion
- GPS.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And do you know what happened
- with them after that?
- Ms. Ohr. Some of the material appeared in the press. I
- don't know what their relationship is with the press.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. Do you want to take the next
- line?
- EXAMINATION
- BY MS. HARIHARAN:
- Q Quickly, just going back to the scope of your research,
- you mentioned it was mostly open source, and it was what you found
- online. So you were not involved in reviewing classified or
- highly sensitive materials?
- A No.
- Q And to go back to the Congressman's point with regards
- to your reports, were you, at any point, told that your research
- was going to support anti-Trump clients?
- A I don't know if I was told that. I suppose along the
- way I assumed that it was somebody who didn't want Trump
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- to -- yeah.
- Q So you were never told this is for the DNC?
- A No, as I recall.
- Q Okay. At any point prior to the 2016 election, were you
- asked to provide research on Russian election interference?
- A At any point prior to what?
- Q To November 2016.
- A Was I asked to provide information, I believe I was and
- I just didn't have time to really get in depth in it, so I relied
- mainly on what's in the press.
- Sorry, was your question election interference?
- Q Yeah.
- A In general? Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I thought you were
- talking about the DNC hack.
- Q Oh, no, I'm sorry. Just Russian involvement in general.
- A In general.
- Q Yeah.
- A I certainly did research on social media themes that
- were supportive of Trump and that also echoed Russian messaging,
- so -- and that seemed to indicate Russian support for extreme
- groups, both on the far right and far left, that were divisive.
- So in that sense, yes. Yeah.
- Q And that was included in the reports you provided to
- Fusion?
- A I wrote a report that had to do with that subject,
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- uh-huh.
- Q So I apologize if some of these are repetitive to
- earlier, but it's just to be clear for the record.
- The report you just mentioned on Russian election
- interference, did that -- that occurred before the election or
- after?
- A All my reports are before the election.
- Q Before the election, okay.
- So I want to walk through what has come up before, and that
- is the Steele dossier. So on Tuesday, the President
- tweeted -- this Tuesday: "Is it really possible that Bruce Ohr,
- whose wife Nellie was paid by Simpson and Fusion GPS for
- work" -- excuse me, he wrote GPS Fusion, "for work done on the
- fake dossier and who was used as a pawn in this whole scam witch
- hunt, is still working for the Department of Justice? Can this
- really be so?" There's a lot of question marks in there.
- Did you work with Christopher Steele at all as part of your
- contract for Fusion GPS?
- A No.
- Q Did you work with Christopher Steele to develop what is
- now called the Steele dossier?
- A No.
- Q And did any aspect of your work for Fusion GPS involve
- firsthand gathering of facts for this -- for the dossier?
- A No.
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- Q Outside of the three meetings you mentioned with
- Christopher Steele and your husband, the more social gatherings it
- sounds like, did you attend meetings with Christopher Steele and
- sources of his?
- A No.
- Q Did you communicate with confidential sources or source
- networks as part of your own work?
- A No.
- Q And were you ever a source for Christopher Steele?
- A No.
- Q So you have no reason to believe that the research or
- work product that you provided to Fusion GPS became part of the
- series of reports known as the Steele dossier?
- A I have no reason to believe that.
- [Ohr Exhibit No. 1
- Was marked for identification.]
- BY MS. HARIHARAN:
- Q So I'm going to introduce as, I guess, exhibit 1,
- because I don't know if they introduced theirs as exhibits, this
- is the Steele dossier as published by BuzzFeed. I'm going to read
- a couple different sections from it, just really quickly, to get a
- sense if, you know, you were the source for that information.
- So this is from the Steele dossier, and it is on what is
- labeled as page 17, but isn't actually a page 17. The page number
- is on the bottom right. It says August 10, 2016, on the bottom.
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- A Okay.
- Q Got it, okay. So, quote: "Speaking in confidence on
- 9th August, 2016, an ethnic Russian associate of Republican U.S.
- presidential candidate Donald Trump discussed the reaction inside
- his camp and revised tactics therein resulting from negative
- publicity concerning Moscow's clandestine involvement in the
- campaign. Trump's associate reported that the aim of leaking the
- DNC's emails to WikiLeaks during the Democratic Convention had
- been to swing supporters of Bernie Sanders away from Hillary
- Clinton and across to Trump. This objective had been conceived
- and promoted inter alia by Trump's foreign policy adviser, Carter
- Page who was discussed" -- "who had discussed it directly with the
- ethnic Russian associate," end quote.
- Is that the result of any of your research?
- A No.
- Q And turning to -- oh, there's no page number. It would
- say September 14, 2016, at the bottom.
- A Uh-huh.
- Q Quote, local business -- so Steele is -- I'm sorry. Did
- you need another second?
- Mr. Berman. We do have page numbers.
- Ms. Ohr. Is there a paragraph number?
- BY MS. HARIHARAN:
- Q Number two.
- A Detail number two.
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- Q It doesn't have a page number at the bottom.
- Mr. Berman. Here it is, 27 is the --
- BY MS. HARIHARAN:
- Q So in this, Steele is speaking to a -- he's quoting a
- trusted compatriot. I'll just read it.
- A Okay.
- Q It says, quote: "The local business slash political
- elite figure reported that Trump had paid bribes further there to
- interests" -- "to further his interests but very discreetly, and
- only through affiliated companies making it very hard to prove.
- The local service industry source reported that Trump had
- participated in sex parties in the city, too, but that all direct
- witnesses to this recently had been silenced, i.e., bribed or
- coerced to disappear."
- Is that the result of your research?
- A No.
- Q So this would be on page 33, October 19, 2016, quote:
- "According to the Kremlin insider, this had meant that direct
- contact between the Trump team and Russia had been farmed out by
- the Kremlin to trusted agents of influence working in
- pro-government policy institutes like the law and comparative
- jurisprudence. Cohen, however, continued to lead for the Trump
- team."
- Is that the result of your research?
- A No.
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- Q Last one. This is the second-to-last page at the
- bottom: "Cohen had been accompanied to Prague by three colleagues
- and the timing of the visit was either in the last week of August
- or the first week of September. The agenda comprised questions on
- how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers who had
- worked in Europe and under Kremlin direction against the Clinton
- campaign and various contingencies for covering up these
- operations and Moscow's secret liaison with the Trump team more
- generally."
- Is that the result of your research?
- A No.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I have a question actually. Ms. Ohr,
- between October of 2015 and September of 2016, did you have any
- other clients besides GPS Fusion?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And when you would report to
- GPS -- or Fusion GPS with your findings, was it Jake Berkowitz all
- the time?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes, I think all the time, yeah.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And --
- Ms. Ohr. Except for the first unrelated project that I did.
- The Trump-related project was all Jake.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. Okay. Okay.
- Ms. Hariharan. The trafficking project was not?
- Ms. Ohr. Correct.
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- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And did Jake tell you why he
- wanted you to do this?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Did you ask him?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. Another question, I want to just
- go to this Mayflower meeting, July 30, 2016. How long did that
- meeting occur, if you recall?
- Ms. Ohr. How long did it last?
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Yeah.
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall. The length of a breakfast. I
- don't know.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And you were gone for a
- substantial portion of that breakfast, right?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And did you excuse yourself, or how did
- that --
- Ms. Ohr. I excused myself, yeah.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And after that July 30, 2016
- meeting, there were no other meetings that you had with your
- husband and Mr. Steele at the same time?
- Ms. Ohr. Correct.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. You didn't have any other
- meetings with Mr. Steele, period?
- Ms. Ohr. Correct.
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- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And you haven't had any meetings
- with Mr. Steele since your employment ended with Fusion GPS on
- September 2016, correct?
- Ms. Ohr. Correct.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. When was the first time that you learned
- of something called the Steele dossier?
- Ms. Ohr. That term first came out in -- when BuzzFeed
- published it.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. You don't remember when that was?
- Ms. Ohr. I thought it was January of, what would that be,
- 2017, I guess.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And you've never seen this -- you never
- saw this particular document or excerpts of it during the time
- that you were employed?
- Mr. Berman. Referring to exhibit 1?
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Yes.
- Mr. Berman. Thank you, sir.
- Ms. Ohr. At the breakfast, I -- if I recall correctly, they
- may have shown pieces --
- Mr. Berman. The question is, have you seen this document?
- Ms. Ohr. Not as an entire document, no.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And you hadn't seen it or its
- portions during the time that you were employed, correct?
- Ms. Ohr. I -- if I recall correctly, I may have seen
- a -- maybe a page or something of it at the breakfast.
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- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. That was the first time you learned of
- it?
- Ms. Ohr. I didn't know that there was going to be something
- called the dossier. What was subsequently known was not known to
- me at that time.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. And you had nothing to do
- with -- when you were at that breakfast, there was no talk about
- an investigation opening up into Donald Trump the next day or any
- other day by DOJ?
- Ms. Ohr. Not by DOJ.
- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Okay. Go ahead.
- BY MS. HARIHARAN:
- Q So to build on -- actually, super quickly, before I move
- onto what the Congressman was referencing, when we were reading
- through the dossier, how did you know that those particular pieces
- of information weren't what you had provided to Fusion, like you
- weren't the source for them?
- A Because the subject matter was very different from the
- kind of -- yeah.
- Q So at this -- just both at this breakfast, and just
- generally speaking, did you have any personal knowledge that
- the -- about the FBI's investigation into whether there was any
- coordination between people associated with the Trump campaign and
- the Russian Government?
- A News of an investigation came to me subsequently through
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- the press, most recently.
- Q But there was no discussion of an FBI investigation at
- the breakfast?
- A I didn't hear the word "investigation."
- Q So before or around October 2016, were you aware of any
- effort by the U.S. Government to surveil persons associated with
- the Trump campaign?
- A Can you repeat the question?
- Q Before or around October 2016, were you aware that the
- U.S. Government was planning to surveil U.S. persons associated
- with the Trump campaign?
- A No.
- Q And at that time, were you aware that there was a FISA
- application for the surveillance of Trump's former foreign policy
- adviser Carter Page?
- A No.
- Q During his interview, your husband Bruce Ohr told us
- that he had no involvement with the Trump/Russia collusion
- investigation. Is that consistent with your understanding?
- A Can you define the Trump/Russia collusion investigation?
- Q DOJ has, in these interviews, asked us to -- there is a
- broader sort of across government Russian investigation into any
- activity that they may be doing in the United States and then
- there's the very specific election interference investigation.
- And when I asked if Mr. Ohr had no involvement, besides turning
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- over information to the FBI, as he's testified?
- A I'm not aware of his having any involvement.
- It -- yeah.
- Q You've never worked for the Department of Justice,
- correct?
- A Correct.
- Q You don't currently work for them?
- A Correct.
- Q So you would not have any knowledge of what is going on
- in an ongoing investigation?
- A Correct.
- Ms. Sachsman Grooms. Just to make that one crystal clear,
- did you, at the time, that you were working for Fusion GPS have
- any knowledge of the Department of Justice's investigations on
- Russia?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- BY MS. HARIHARAN:
- Q President Trump was quoted as saying, quote: "They
- should be looking at Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie for dealing
- with, by the way, indirectly Russians," end quote.
- To be very clear, have you or Ms. Ohr ever engaged in a
- conspiracy to interfere in the U.S. election process with Russian
- individuals or entities or individuals associated with the Russian
- Government?
- A No.
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- Q Do you know what the President is referring to when he
- accuses both of you of that, directly or indirectly?
- A No.
- Q On August 20, the President tweeted the following:
- "Will Bruce Ohr, whose family received big money for helping to
- create the phony, dirty, and discredited dossier, ever be fired
- from the Jeff Sessions' Justice Department? A total joke," end
- quote.
- Did your family, in fact, receive big money in exchange for
- your work doing open source research for Fusion GPS?
- A How does -- is big money defined?
- Q That is a very good question.
- Mr. Berman. How much were you paid by hour?
- Ms. Ohr. $55 an hour.
- Mr. Berman. And just in a roughest of ballparks, how much do
- you think you made over your 11 months, 10 months with Fusion GPS?
- Ms. Ohr. A few tens of thousands.
- BY MS. HARIHARAN:
- Q Going back to -- and I know in the previous hour that
- your relationship with Mr. Simpson was sort of addressed, but I
- wanted to drill down a little bit more on that. You first came to
- know Mr. Simpson through his work at The Wall Street Journal,
- correct?
- A I did not personally meet him at that time, but I became
- aware of him at that time.
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- Q Okay. And so is it fair to characterize your
- relationship with him as purely professional?
- A Yes.
- Q When testifying before this Senate Judiciary Committee
- earlier this year, Mr. Simpson stated that he had discussions with
- Mr. Steele about sharing Fusion's research with the FBI because
- it, quote, "represented a national security threat, a security
- issue about whether a presidential candidate was being
- blackmailed," end quote. This is on page 159 through 161.
- Mr. Simpson then stated that he believed Fusion's research
- revealed, quote, "law enforcement issues about whether there was
- an illegal conspiracy to violate the campaign laws, and then
- somewhere in this time, the whole issue of hacking also surfaced,"
- end quote.
- Did Mr. Simpson ever share concerns with you that laws may
- have been broken by the Trump campaign?
- A The fact that we were investigating Trump relationships
- with crime figures certainly suggest that there was that
- possibility that was worth investigating.
- Q Did you, at any point, recommend to him that he should
- share Fusion's research related to Donald Trump and organized
- crime with either -- with the FBI?
- A I did not make recommendations along those lines.
- Q Did you have direct knowledge that Glenn Simpson was
- communicating with your husband in the fall or winter of 2016?
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- A There's an email that we discussed, so that -- it led me
- to think that they might be. I, you know, outside of our -- I
- have no separate knowledge except for personal conversations with
- my husband.
- Q Did Mr. Steele ever contact you directly in the summer
- or fall of 2016, not Mr. Ohr, but you directly?
- A No.
- Q At any point prior to fall of 2016, did you discuss your
- research on organized crime and Donald Trump with individuals
- outside of Fusion GPS, outside of this Mayflower breakfast
- meeting?
- A No.
- Q Did Mr. Steele, at any point, provide you with
- information related to your research with Fusion GPS, you
- directly?
- A No.
- Q I'm going to switch gears.
- A Okay.
- Q Public reporting indicates that since news broke of
- Mr. Ohr's communications with Mr. Steele, that he has been demoted
- twice within the Department of Justice. Do you know if they've
- provided any formal explanation as to why he lost his positions?
- Mr. Berman. I'll just remind you, she's not going to answer
- questions about communications she's learned from her husband. I
- mean, the same rules apply, from my perspective, from the majority
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- and the minority here. So outside of any private communications
- you have had with your husband.
- BY MS. HARIHARAN:
- Q Is it fair to say -- let me rephrase this.
- In your view, were your husband's demotions unfair? I'm not
- asking for the conversations you have had with him, just in your
- personal view. What was the impact it has had on your family and
- this whole ordeal for that matter?
- A There's two different things, the demotions and the
- ordeal.
- Q Start with the demotions.
- A Demotions, he is less stressed than he was before. The
- ordeal, the impact has been very negative. We have to watch what
- we do, what we say, and there's a lot of things out there in
- the -- online, which are false.
- Q Has it impacted your ability to find work?
- A I'm currently employed, so I don't know whether it would
- in the future.
- Q While on a trip to the Hamptons on August 17, President
- Trump was asked about your husband, and specifically, his security
- clearance, and he said, quote, "I think Bruce Ohr is a disgrace.
- I suspect it will be taken away very quickly."
- Has -- are you aware if his security clearance has been
- revoked by the Department of Justice?
- A I'm not aware.
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- Q Based on your understanding, generally speaking, of the
- work he did for the Department, specifically related to organized
- crime and drug enforcement cases, is it fair to say that he would
- need a security clearance to effectively do his job?
- A I don't really know if there's anything he could do
- without one or not.
- Mr. Berman. Can we take a one-minute break?
- Ms. Hariharan. Actually, I was about to say that, you know,
- we're good for this round. It is 12:22. We'll go off the record.
- [Discussion off the record.]
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- [1:38 p.m.]
- Mr. Baker. The time is 1:38, and we are back on the record.
- Mr. Berman. Mr. Baker, it is Joshua Berman. Do you mind if
- I say something briefly?
- Mr. Baker. Go ahead, counsel.
- Mr. Berman. In the morning session the issue of the marital
- and spousal privilege came up. I just want to be clear that this
- is a privilege that has ramifications beyond today's proceedings.
- As one can imagine, Ms. Ohr has this privilege in future
- proceedings in front of other bodies. So, hypothetically, if she
- were in a civil lawsuit, if she were in a criminal matter, if she
- was in front of the Senate, if she was in front of DOJ, if she was
- in front of an employment hearing, she would want to retain these
- same privileges.
- As such the assertion today is in no way directed at the
- minority or the majority in this proceeding alone, it is a
- recognition of a privilege she holds and by asserting it, Ms. Ohr,
- or, as her counsel, mean no disrespect to Mr. Meadows, Mr.
- Ratcliffe, Mr. Jordan, or anyone, or -- or Mr. Ratcliffe or
- Mr. Raskin or anybody else. And I just wanted to make sure nobody
- thought there was any game-playing or disrespect.
- Mr. Baker. Thank you very much.
- Mr. Berman. Thank you, sir.
- Mr. Baker. Thank you.
- BY MR. BAKER:
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- Q Ms. Ohr, I would like to go -- I would like to rewind a
- little bit and go back to just some basic questions. You had
- indicated earlier in this session, I believe, that your initial
- employment, or awareness of employment, with Mr. Simpson, you were
- looking in the newspaper, maybe -- you said something, maybe
- underemployed; you were looking for work; that caught your eye.
- You went, applied, interviewed. What would make you unique
- amongst maybe many other people that saw the same ad in the
- newspaper and went and applied or interviewed? What skills do
- you --
- A And I should clarify there was no ad in the newspaper, I
- just saw the name. And I was looking for -- for work. And I have
- studied Russia all my life. I am fluent in, you know -- read
- fluently in Russian. I have research skills as a -- you know,
- trained as an academic. So those skills come in handy for all
- kinds of research. And I have an interest in the types of things
- that I knew Glenn Simpson was interested in, because of his work
- for the Wall Street Journal. So it seemed to me a very good fit.
- Q So you indicate you have language skills in --
- A Yes.
- Q -- Russian? Reading and writing?
- A Yeah, I mean, obviously reading is the strongest
- and -- yes.
- Q And speaking? So I meant speaking, reading?
- A Yeah, yeah. I am -- I am rusty speaking, but -- but,
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- yeah, I read all the time in Russian.
- Q And you have academic credentials in --
- A Yes, I have a Ph.D. in Russian history and my
- undergraduate degree from Harvard was in Russian history and
- literature.
- Q Where is your Ph.D. degree from?
- A Stanford.
- Q Okay. So in very simplistic terms for non-Ph.D. people,
- you are pretty conversant in things Russian?
- A Yes.
- Q So if someone similar to Mr. Simpson were looking for
- someone skilled to scour, research, look at public-source
- information regarding things Russian, your name would probably
- come up on a short list, if someone were looking for people with a
- particular set of credentials?
- A I would be competitive.
- Q Okay, thank you. I want to jump a little forward from
- that point. You indicated, I think, earlier, that your initial
- assignment or portfolio at Fusion GPS, I think you said there were
- three projects you were working on, and two of them, I think, were
- identified. I don't remember the third one being elaborated on.
- And maybe --
- A I didn't work on it. They -- they offered, you know,
- and I said I wasn't interested in it.
- Q And what was that project?
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- A I don't know if you remember, they were involved in a
- case involving a video made by -- that involved Planned Parenthood
- and --
- Q Okay.
- A Yeah, so that was a topic that wasn't related to Russia,
- and I figured that wasn't my area where I could be the most use.
- BY MR. SOMERS:
- Q Were you at all involved -- I reviewed Glenn Simpson's
- transcript before Senate Judiciary and there was a lot of
- discussion of the Prevezon. Is that -- am I pronouncing it --
- A Yeah, that was the one with Veselnitskaya. I had
- forgotten the name of the company.
- Q Okay. Were you involved at all in that for Fusion GPS?
- A No.
- BY MR. BAKER:
- Q Would it be fair to say, just for clarity, that this
- product, or services, that Fusion GPS provides, it is not just,
- for lack of a better word, and this is my term, opposition
- research? It sounds to me like, and what I have read, they do
- litigation support, maybe helping businesses answer a question or
- define a problem based on public source?
- A I am not aware of the full scope of their work, but I
- understand that they do, yeah, research, investigation, that sort
- of thing.
- Q And I think you have indicated that primarily what you
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- would do is public-source information?
- A Yes.
- Q Why would someone like Mr. Simpson, or a business like
- Fusion GPS, why would they need to hire someone to do that on
- behalf of a client? Why wouldn't a client be able to Google, or
- whatever, public-source information themselves?
- A Well, the language would be, I think, the main thing,
- but also sort of general understanding of how the system works.
- Q And separate and apart from the language or the culture
- or the system of a particular government or country, I think it is
- fair to say, based on your academic credentials -- and I believe
- you indicated earlier, you also taught?
- A Yes, I taught.
- Q You probably have better than the average person's
- research skills?
- A I would like to think so.
- Q And you could compile and synthesize a large amount of
- information to a -- to a manageable issue or paper or summary?
- A That is what I aim to do.
- Q Okay. I want to jump -- I don't know if this is jump
- back or jump ahead. I don't think this issue has been addressed.
- Do you have, or are you familiar with, a shortwave radio or a Ham
- radio?
- A I own a Ham radio.
- Q And you own it for what purpose?
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- A Emergency communication in case of a storm, that sort of
- thing. If the cell towers go out, uh-huh.
- Q How long have you had a Ham radio?
- A Well, I bought it shortly after I got my Ham license and
- I got -- yeah, I -- I -- I am guessing it is 2015, but I don't
- remember exactly. It was -- you know, in 2014, I was
- underemployed, and I had some time, and I took a citizens
- emergency -- community emergency response team training. And, you
- know, it was just something sponsored by the DHS and the local
- fire department, you know, taught these courses and then they
- said, hey, if you are going to be helping with community response
- in case of an emergency, why don't we have -- you know, some
- people take Ham radio lessons in case the communications towers go
- out. And so I took the Ham radio class. I passed the test.
- Q That is a difficult test, isn't it or --
- A Sixteen questions, something like that. I squeaked past
- it.
- Q And are there different levels of licensure?
- A There are. I was the lowest level.
- Q Do you have any desire to reach a higher level for your
- purposes?
- A No.
- Q So your obtaining of a radio, and your taking the class,
- and your sitting for the exam and ultimately passing and receiving
- the license, it had nothing to do with your employment at Fusion
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- GPS?
- A It was well before.
- Q Well before?
- A Yeah.
- Q And it was -- you had time on your hands, something to
- do -- was this something you were always interested in doing and
- this is an opportunity that you had to pursue it?
- A I saw an ad for the community emergency response
- training, and I thought, now is a good time for me to do it since
- I have a little bit of time.
- Q Have you ever communicated with anyone in Russia using
- your Ham radio?
- A No.
- Mr. Somers. Did you monitor any broadcasts from Russia using
- the Ham radio?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- BY MR. BAKER:
- Q You indicated that most of your work for Fusion GPS was
- done from home?
- A Yes.
- Q Did you ever have occasion to visit a brick-and-mortar
- office where Glenn Simpson had facilities?
- A Yes.
- Q And how often would that be?
- A Once every several weeks, probably.
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- Q What was the -- what kind of office was it? Was it in a
- commercial building? Is it in a residence? Your description of
- the facilities where the official office was?
- A I mean, I guess they rented space in a building. I am
- not sure if anyone lives there or not.
- Q So commercial or --
- A I guess. I don't really know what you mean by
- commercial building. It is not like a huge, you know, faceless
- commercial building.
- Q Was it a private residence --
- A No.
- Q -- where there was an office set up in?
- A No. It was -- it was a building where people rented
- offices --
- Q Oh, okay.
- A -- as I understand it. People -- yeah.
- Q And when you would go into this building or this
- particular office, was there anything in there that would make you
- think the general tone of the owners of the office, or the
- atmosphere of the people that worked at that facility, was
- anti-Trump or anti-anything, or was it neutral, or --
- A I mean, they have been involved in projects that have
- been partisan, and, so, you know, they may have been involved in
- projects that might tend to favor one or the other. My impression
- was that they took on a variety of projects.
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- Q But nothing in the office that would give away a hint of
- a bias or a leaning to one side of an issue? I mean, your -- your
- last answer indicates they would take on a variety of projects.
- You know, a client, whoever, could pay the fee or whatever; they
- wouldn't turn business away necessarily. But was there anything
- that gave you the impression that they favored one type of
- research or one type of client over another?
- A Well, I really don't know the full scope of their
- projects.
- Mr. Berman. I think he is asking, the initial question, is
- there anything in the physical -- sort of the physical office
- space. I don't know what is in his head. It could be posters, it
- could be colors --
- Mr. Baker. Yes, that is exactly what --
- Ms. Ohr. Oh, sorry.
- Mr. Baker. Thank you, Counselor.
- Ms. Ohr. The physical office space, no.
- BY MR. BAKER:
- Q Okay.
- A I wouldn't not say -- I would -- no.
- Q There is nothing when you walk in, there is not a poster
- of Trump that says "Down with Trump" --
- A No.
- Q -- or anything like that? It is --
- A Yeah.
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- Q -- kind of neutral, but you know, you have knowledge,
- that they take on a variety of clients for a variety of causes,
- for a variety of purposes?
- A That is my understanding.
- Q Okay. Was there any -- was there any talk or any
- thought on your part, or anything you overheard that Mr. Simpson,
- himself, was uncomfortable, for whatever reason, in going directly
- to the FBI for any -- for any business he might have with the FBI?
- A I wouldn't know.
- Q Okay.
- BY MR. SOMERS:
- Q So you discussed earlier three meetings, I believe over
- a course of years, with Christopher Steele.
- A Yes.
- Q What was your understanding in -- let's go back to the
- Mayflower meeting. You know, walk into that meeting, you are
- going to meet with Christopher Steele. What was your
- understanding of who Christopher Steele was?
- A A private investigator who knew a lot about Russia.
- Q Do you have any knowledge of his previous work for the
- British Government?
- A Not specifically, but in general.
- Q But you knew he worked for -- I believe he worked for
- MI6. Is that correct?
- A I had a general understanding. Something along those
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- lines.
- Q Do you have any knowledge of his reputation?
- A As I understood it, I mean, the fact that Bruce met with
- him made me think that he probably had something good to
- say -- you know, that he had -- he knew things.
- Q So he had -- I am just trying to see, did he have a
- solid reputation, is that your understanding?
- A That is my understanding.
- Q Did you have any knowledge of his reputation, or who he
- was, from Glenn Simpson?
- A No.
- Q Okay, after the meeting, did you have any impression
- of --
- A No additional talk about him besides what I mentioned
- earlier.
- Q All right. So he was -- you assumed he had a good
- reputation because of your husband, but you -- would deal with
- him, but you didn't have an independent knowledge of his --
- A Correct.
- Q -- reputation?
- And you may have known that he worked for MI6, but --
- A I knew something -- that he had some kind of
- intelligence background or something, yeah.
- Q Okay. And then at that meeting, at the Mayflower Hotel,
- did Christopher Steele say at any point in time, I am going to
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- take this -- take information to the FBI?
- A I don't remember him saying that he would take
- information to the FBI.
- Q That he, Christopher Steele, would take information to
- the FBI?
- A I don't recall him saying that in my presence.
- Q It is our understanding that he was at that time, or
- shortly thereafter, taking information from the -- that ultimately
- became the dossier, to the FBI. I just didn't know if that came
- up.
- A I later learned that he had, himself, taken it to them.
- You know, way later.
- Q And the intent of the meeting, I mean, was this a
- friendly get-together, or was Christopher Steele trying to convey,
- did you think, information to your husband at the meeting?
- A By the end of the meeting, I understood that he was
- trying to convey to Bruce his concern.
- Q And he was trying to convey it to him as an official at
- the Department of Justice? This was to raise an official flag
- about this information?
- A I think that can be -- yes, I would say that.
- Q And switching -- switching subjects for a second. Were
- you -- so you worked for Fusion GPS, I think you said for -- it
- was almost a year, I think was the period you described. And you
- were out gathering information. Were you ever asked to verify
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- information that someone brought to you?
- A No.
- Q Like someone from Fusion GPS gave you information, were
- you ever asked to verify the veracity of it?
- A I wouldn't say verify.
- Q Or did Glenn Simpson ever -- you obviously gave
- information to Fusion?
- A Yes.
- Q You researched information. Did information ever come
- the other way, from Fusion to you?
- A Yes.
- Q What sort of information?
- A Well, they gave some material pages that talked about
- some of Manafort's travels.
- Q Any information related to Carter Page?
- A I don't think so. I don't seem to recall that.
- Q You are -- I think you testified you are somewhat
- familiar with the Steele dossier. Were you -- any information
- that you saw in the Steele dossier, had you seen any of that
- information before?
- A Not in the material that they gave me.
- Q Not in the material that Fusion had given you?
- A Right.
- BY MR. BREBBIA:
- Q If i could -- can I follow up, quick?
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- Similar to that point, did you communicate to anyone with
- Fusion GPS that your husband, Bruce Ohr, was going to provide any
- documents or information you had gathered to the FBI?
- A No.
- Q Did anyone at the FBI follow-up with you after they
- received those documents?
- A No. I am not even sure they -- I have no direct
- knowledge of their having --
- Q What form was the -- what form did the information take
- that you -- that was provided to the FBI? Was it a memo? Was it
- a list of open sources?
- Mr. Berman. I think she just said she has no information
- that it was provided to the FBI. I think it was the second part
- of her answer just now. So you are presuming that there was
- information that went to the FBI.
- BY MR. BREBBIA:
- Q Didn't you say you had no reason to doubt your husband's
- testimony that he took, I believe you called it a flash drive,
- from you, and provided it to the FBI?
- A I have no reason to doubt his testimony.
- Q So do you know the flash drive that we are talking
- about?
- [Discussion off the record.]
- Mr. Berman. If this is a continuing way to ask her about
- communications with her husband --
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- Mr. Brebbia. No, I am asking her -- did you --
- Mr. Berman. What was the question then? Sorry.
- Mr. Brebbia. Did you compile information on Russia and put
- that onto a flash drive that you then gave your husband?
- Mr. Berman. Providing her husband, whether she did or
- didn't, that is a form of communication. We have --
- Mr. Brebbia. The hand-to-hand interaction from her to her
- husband is covered by the marital privilege?
- Mr. Berman. To the extent that there was such a -- such a
- transmission, or a handing over, or a communication by physical
- act, yes.
- Mr. Somers. Did you ever put information on a flash drive to
- give to someone other than Fusion GPS?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Brebbia. Just so we are clear, the marital privilege
- covers non-testimony -- in your view,
- non-testimony -- non-testimony but the actual transaction of
- handing a physical object to her husband, the physical object
- which was then handed off to a third party, the FBI? So the
- contents, we agree whatever the contents are, are not privileged?
- Mr. Berman. I am simply suggesting that the act, the
- hypothetical act, of handing a flash drive, or something that you
- are suggesting, to her husband -- would be covered by the marital
- privilege. What some other person, in your hypothetical, Mr. Ohr
- or someone else, does with it, it isn't covered by the privilege.
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- It is just what goes on between Ms. Ohr and Mr. Ohr --
- Mr. Brebbia. Okay.
- Mr. Berman. -- that is the privilege. I have no problem
- with the after -- the before and the after.
- Mr. Jordan. You said you -- there was a flash drive or maybe
- flash drives prepared that you gave to someone other than Fusion.
- Who did you give them to?
- Mr. Berman. Again, to the extent that may implicate the
- marital privilege --
- Mr. Brebbia. Other than Bruce --
- Mr. Berman. -- she is instructed not to answer that
- question.
- Mr. Brebbia. Other than your husband?
- Ms. Ohr. No one.
- Mr. Brebbia. Okay.
- Mr. Jordan. Can I jump in?
- Mr. Brebbia. Yeah.
- Mr. Jordan. Just a few minutes. Thank you. And then I will
- let you guys come back. Because I got to run.
- You said Fusion gave you information a little while ago.
- What information did they give you?
- Ms. Ohr. A sheet with some flights that Mr. Manafort had
- taken.
- Mr. Jordan. So a -- is that like a timesheet or a schedule
- or an agenda? What would you call it?
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- Ms. Ohr. A list.
- Mr. Jordan. A list of Manafort flights?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay, did they give you any other information?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall. I mean, that is -- that is the
- only substantive thing they gave me.
- Mr. Jordan. So in your working relationship there was
- information you were putting together on the two cases you talked
- about earlier this morning with me, that you were putting together
- to give to Mr. Berkowitz -- I think you said at Fusion was your
- direct contact -- but there was also information flowing from
- Fusion to you to help you do your work?
- Ms. Ohr. Okay, I am sorry. I misunderstood the question.
- Not in the term -- form of physical documents. I thought you were
- talking about physical documents. Yes, they gave me, you could
- say, leads and suggestions of names.
- Mr. Jordan. Things they wanted you to do; they were your
- employer?
- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. And who was that person giving you the
- information? Who was -- who was saying, here is a lead, here
- is -- who gave you -- well, let's go back.
- Who gave you the timesheet about Manafort's flights?
- Ms. Ohr. Most of my communication was with Jake Berkowitz.
- Mr. Jordan. Jake Berkowitz?
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- Ms. Ohr. Yes.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. But that is not what I asked you. Who
- gave you the timesheet? Was it Jake Berkowitz?
- Ms. Ohr. I can't remember who physically gave it to me. I
- was meeting with him and Glenn.
- Mr. Jordan. Were there occasions where Mr. Simpson passed
- information to you, and in particular, could Mr. Simpson have
- passed you the Manafort flight schedule or timesheet or whatever
- we are calling it?
- Ms. Ohr. It is possible. I don't remember who physically
- handed it to me. He was there, if I recall correctly.
- Mr. Jordan. Back when you started, did anyone at the
- Department of Justice or FBI encourage you to contact Mr. Simpson?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- Mr. Jordan. It was all done -- did anyone encourage you to
- contact Mr. Simpson --
- Ms. Ohr. It was my initiative.
- Mr. Jordan. -- when you first started your employment? It
- was all on your initiative?
- Ms. Ohr. Uh-huh.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay. Do you have any knowledge that your
- experience as a contractor for various Federal agencies was
- marketed to Simpson ahead of your employment?
- Ms. Ohr. I gave them a resume.
- Mr. Jordan. So he knew about that. But do you think
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- they -- any knowledge that he knew about even prior to you handing
- him or submitting your resume to him?
- Ms. Ohr. Well, he knew that -- we had been at a conference
- together, so -- and at the time of the conference, my name was
- listed as open -- as working for open-source work.
- Mr. Jordan. How often do you think in your typical week of
- work, or month of work, for Fusion, how often did you communicate
- with Glenn Simpson?
- Ms. Ohr. Relatively rarely. Probably once every 6 to 8
- weeks, I am guessing. Roughly.
- Mr. Jordan. What were those communications typically like?
- Was he -- was he giving information to you, you passing on your
- work product to him? Or was that just something that was done
- electronically on a regular basis? How did it work?
- Ms. Ohr. He would sit in when I was having my regular
- check-in, you might say, with Jake, and he might, you know, add
- some additional information or leads or just listen. I don't --
- Mr. Jordan. So when were those regular check-ins with Jake
- that he would sit in on? How often were they?
- Ms. Ohr. Every few weeks, every -- say, approximately 3
- weeks on average, I would say.
- Mr. Jordan. So every 3 weeks you were meeting with
- Mr. Simpson?
- Mr. Berman. I think she was answering often were the
- check-ins with Jake.
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- Mr. Jordan. Okay. Every 3 weeks.
- Ms. Ohr. Exactly, yes. So -- so --
- Mr. Jordan. And Mr. Simpson would sit in on some of those or
- all of those or --
- Ms. Ohr. Occasional, yeah. Occasionally. Not -- not by
- far. Not by far all of them.
- Mr. Jordan. And in all this time, you had -- you had -- so
- every 3 weeks, you are checking in with your direct contact at
- Fusion, Mr. Berkowitz, and on some of those occasions, Mr. Simpson
- is there. You never once learned who, in fact, was paying them
- for the work you were doing, who they were contracting with?
- Ms. Ohr. I don't recall whether they explicitly named who
- was paying them.
- Mr. Jordan. Okay, okay.
- I got to run guys, I am sorry. Thank you.
- Mr. Breitenbach. Ms. Ohr, just following up on Mr. Jordan's
- question there, you don't --
- Mr. Jordan. Ms. Ohr, thank you, too. I apologize, I do have
- to run, thank you.
- BY MR. BREITENBACH:
- Q You don't explicitly recall who was paying for the
- research, but I think in the prior round you had indicated that
- you assumed that your research was going for the purposes of
- anti-Trump, or somebody that is engaged in anti-Trump or Trump
- opposition?
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- A I thought it was logical that that might be the case.
- Q Can you just talk a little bit more about why you were
- making that assumption?
- A I guess I figured that the premise of people looking for
- material about Trump's relationships with Russian organized crime
- were probably not people who supported his candidacy.
- Q So by that answer, I think it is by extension, you would
- agree. I know Mr. Baker had initially asked about how you
- portrayed -- or how you felt that research was -- could
- be -- could be portrayed, and I think you said it was
- investigative-type research, but in the sense of research going to
- somebody who is opposing Trump, another term could be "opposition
- research"?
- A I am not sure how "opposition research" is defined. It
- was research.
- Q But if it was going to oppose Trump -- and this was
- during the election, correct?
- A Yes.
- Q Can you talk about your feelings as to performing
- research that was then going to be used against the Trump
- candidacy?
- A I thought it was worthwhile to -- to, you know, look
- into.
- Q Why was it worthwhile, in your opinion?
- A Because, as I had mentioned earlier, when I first heard
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- many, many years ago, that he had had this transaction with
- Mr. Rybolovlev, who had -- under suspicious circumstances, I had
- already been curious about what -- what Mr. Trump might be
- involved in. And so when the opportunity came up, it was a way to
- satisfy my curiosity.
- Q I cannot say that name you just said, so, in terms of
- that gentleman, woman, I don't --
- A Yes. It is a man.
- Q -- it is a man -- can you just explain a little bit more
- about your prior understanding of that man and his
- connections -- or alleged connections, I suppose, with President
- Trump?
- A All I know is remembering reading in the press many
- years ago that he had bought a mansion in Florida from Trump, and
- it -- I mean any time -- you know, any time a Russian oligarch
- just plops down a lot of money for a mansion from somebody, my
- antennae go up. And so I was curious --
- Q Based on -- this is based off of your prior research --
- A Well, I --
- Q -- you were made aware of this connection?
- A Well, it was just -- in the press. It was in the press,
- yeah, a long time ago. And I don't remember the year. So it was,
- you know, I -- because I am -- I tried to stay on top of things of
- that nature, it was something that caught my attention way back,
- when it first happened.
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- Q Okay. So I suppose, would it be fair to characterize
- that you were not opposed to performing opposition research on
- then Candidate Trump?
- A That is fair.
- Q Would you have been opposed on performing research
- against Candidate Clinton?
- A I guess it depends on what research.
- Q Let's suppose if the research was directly within
- your -- your expertise on Russia, would that have been something
- that you would have been comfortable in doing, in performing
- opposition research? Because I think when you are an opposition
- researcher, you fully understand what your opposition research is
- going towards.
- So is it fair to characterize your understanding of where
- your opposition research was going, that you were comfortable with
- the idea that that research was going towards opposition of then
- Candidate Trump?
- A I would probably have been less comfortable doing
- opposition research that would have gone against Hillary Clinton.
- Q And why is that?
- A Because I favored Hillary Clinton as a Presidential
- candidate.
- Q Okay. You said earlier, I believe, in so many words, in
- the minority's questioning, that you had no reason to believe that
- your research had ended up in the dossier. Is that correct?
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- A That is correct.
- Q Knowing what you know now, I think you also indicated
- that there may have been some of your research that did end up in
- the dossier. Is that correct?
- A I am not sure what you are referring to.
- Q I am only referring to what I believed part of your
- prior explanation in a prior round may have indicated.
- A Uh-huh. I may have said something that gave you a wrong
- impression. So if you have a specific, I would like to hear --
- Q No, no, no, not at all. I think -- my impression was
- that you had indicated that your research may have, in part --
- A Uh-huh.
- Q -- based off of your reading of the dossier, after
- learning of the dossier and after knowing about it, it
- was -- there were similarities of what was in the dossier based
- on --
- A Uh-huh.
- Q -- based off of what you had been performing as
- opposition research?
- A My recollection of what I said was that when I
- eventually read the dossier in January of 2017, I believe, I did
- not recognize any of my research in the dossier. So your
- impression may come from my -- our July 30th meeting where we
- talked about some things that each of us had independently found.
- Q No, I appreciate that. I think that clarifies things.
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- A Uh-huh.
- Q Because I think prior testimony had indicated, at least
- to me, that you recognized some of what was in the dossier.
- A Yeah, no, I am -- I am sorry if there was any
- miscommunication. I very clearly did not. It was very distinct
- in my mind.
- Q Sure. Well, let me just ask you generally, did you
- recognize, based off of your own independent research, any of the
- actual research that was located in the dossier?
- A Not the research. I mean the -- some of the --
- Q Any of the facts?
- A -- were similar but totally independently derived. Does
- that make sense?
- Q So when you say "facts" --
- A Yeah, okay, I would say --
- Q -- are you --
- A I am sorry, I am sorry. Okay.
- Q Sure. When you say "facts," are you referring to prior
- knowledge that you had concerning the substance of the dossier?
- A Let me correct myself first by -- I realize that the
- dossier is entirely allegations. So can you rephrase your -- in
- other words, that is what is said in the dossier is allegations
- and not facts. So can you -- can you restate your question? I am
- sorry.
- Q Sure. So based off of your prior research or just
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- expertise on Russia, and knowing what you had known based off your
- prior research, was there anything in the dossier that seemed
- familiar to you?
- A I mean, some of the things looked believable, you could
- say, to the extent that they -- I could envision them happening
- within what I know about the system, but I won't -- I will not
- vouch for the veracity of anything that I did not independently
- research myself.
- Q Totally understand. I am just wondering if there were
- any allegations in the dossier that you had independently come
- across in your prior research.
- A Partially. Yeah.
- Q Now, I know the minority had put this in, I believe, as
- Exhibit No. 1 --
- A Yeah, yeah.
- Q -- can you point to anything directly in the exhibit
- that you are referring to, as having been -- as having been --
- A So that you are saying coincided with what I had
- independently found?
- Q Thank you.
- A Is that what you are asking about?
- Q That is exactly what I am asking.
- A Okay. It would take me some time to --
- Q Offhand, do you recall after having read the dossier --
- A Uh-huh.
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- Q -- is there anything that stands out to you as
- coinciding with research that you had previously performed?
- A The fact that Carter Page went to Moscow in July of
- 2016, I guess, is something that I independently found through my
- research. However, many of the details about -- that are claimed
- in the dossier are not something that I found in my research.
- BY MR. SOMERS:
- Q Can I just ask you a question about that. Because you
- said something a moment ago that confused me a little bit. You
- said there are things you recognize in the dossier, and you said
- there were other things -- I believe you said they were
- independently verified, there were things in there that --
- A Okay, I did not recognize my research, that is, the way
- that I, you know, the things that I found and the way that I
- expressed them. So I did not -- I came to the conclusion after
- reading this, that it was a totally independent research endeavor.
- Q So it was another -- it was another source of
- information?
- A Yes, I think, if I understand you correctly, yes.
- Q I thought you said verify before. So I just want -- you
- are saying that there are things that you researched, that appear
- in the dossier, but you don't believe they came directory from
- you?
- A Right. That is -- right.
- BY MR. BREITENBACH:
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- Q So you mentioned Carter Page. Why were you
- independently researching Carter Page?
- A I was asked to.
- Q By whom?
- A By Jake Berkowitz.
- Q Did he ever indicate to you the reason for researching
- Carter Page?
- A I think he said because Carter Page is an advisor to
- Trump.
- Q And can you explain some of the results from your
- research concerning Carter Page?
- A I found that -- well, he went to Moscow, he spoke at
- this university, and he talked about better relations between
- Russia and the United States, and he gave interviews where he
- advocated better relations between Russia and the United States.
- Q And this is based off of all open-source --
- A Yeah.
- Q -- research?
- A Uh-huh.
- Q Were you ever aware previously of the name Carter Page?
- A Not before he was announced as a Trump advisor.
- Mr. Somers. Was there any public source information on
- Carter Page that he had had a prior relationship with the FBI?
- Ms. Ohr. I am not aware of it until very recently.
- BY MR. BREITENBACH:
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- Q Are you aware of the Papadopoulos name that has been in
- the news?
- A I became aware of it as a result of press coverage in
- the recent months.
- Q Were you ever asked to perform research on
- Mr. Papadopoulos?
- A Not that I recall.
- BY MR. SOMERS:
- Q Michael Flynn?
- A Yes.
- Q What were you asked to research on Michael Flynn?
- A Just about any relationship he might have with Russia.
- Q Other countries -- other countries or just Russia?
- A Yeah, now I am trying to sort out what I -- what
- happened at the time, with what happened later. I mean, at some
- point, it became evident that he had a relationship with Turkey as
- well. I don't recall whether that was brought up at all.
- Q But that wasn't in the purview of your research?
- A Not that I recall.
- Q Paul Manafort, cover that a little bit?
- A Yeah.
- Q Were you asked to research him or --
- A Yes.
- Q Specifically?
- A Yes.
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- Q In regards to Russia or regards to --
- A Russia -- Ukraine, mostly.
- BY MR. BREITENBACH:
- Q Were you asked to research anybody else in Mr. Trump's
- family?
- A Certain -- I mean, you know, I was -- I was asked to
- research Trump's family broadly in connection with any -- any
- Russian connections.
- Q So broadly, but in terms of actually performing the
- research, did you begin to break out President Trump's family in
- terms of Melania Trump, all of his children? Were you doing
- independent research based off of each family member?
- A I did some.
- Q On which family members, do you recall, or all of them?
- A As I recall, I did some research on all of them, but not
- in much depth.
- BY MR. SOMERS:
- Q How about Donald Junior, did you do more in-depth
- research on Donald Trump Junior than some of the others?
- A I am afraid it was relatively superficial. It was --
- Q Nothing related to --
- A -- time pressure.
- Q Nothing related to travels or business dealings he may
- have had in Europe?
- A I looked into some of his travels and, you know, I am
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- not sure how much detail I remember, at this point.
- Q Ivanka Trump?
- A I looked into some of her travels.
- BY MR. BREITENBACH:
- Q And what were you trying to find with regard to each of
- these individuals? What was the purpose of looking into the
- family members?
- A Yeah, to see whether they were involved in dealings and
- transactions with people who had suspicious pasts, or suspicious
- types of dealings.
- Q Was there indication from Mr. Berkowitz or Mr. Simpson
- that they had any inside information as to whether there were
- suspicious connections with any of President Trump's orbit of
- individuals including his family?
- A What do you mean by "inside information"?
- Q I would say any information that they specifically gave
- you, in terms of your employment with Fusion GPS, that would
- indicate that there were some level of connections with President
- Trump's family and Russia?
- A They would give me leads based on their open-source
- research and, you know, legal documents and other things.
- Q Did they ever indicate that any of their leads were
- based off of sources of theirs?
- A I don't remember get- -- regarding the Trump family, no.
- Q Regarding any of the research during this year, 10-,
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- 11-month period, was any -- was any research based off of sources
- of theirs that you were aware of?
- A Yes.
- Q And who were the sources?
- A I recall a -- they were mentioning someone named Serhiy
- Leshchenko, a Ukrainian.
- Q And did they give you any indication as to Leshchenko's
- connections with them, how they got to know him? Were they doing
- work for him?
- A With Fusion GPS?
- Q Correct.
- A I am not aware of how they --
- Q Were you aware of how they had a connection with him?
- A I am not aware.
- Q But you were aware that he was a source of information
- that was leading to information that they had, that they were then
- presenting to you as reasons for following up on opposition
- research or what research --
- A Yes.
- Q -- that is, on President Trump or his family?
- A My understanding is that some -- yes. And -- yes, it
- was not necessarily on his family that Leshchenko's research was
- on.
- Q Are you aware of what his research, or what his source
- information included?
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- A His source information, I am not aware.
- Q You are just aware that he was a source of --
- A Yes.
- Q -- Glenn Simpson? Or was it a source of Mr. Berkowitz?
- Or both?
- A I am not aware of a differentiation between them. Just
- a source for Fusion GPS.
- Q That is one source. Were there any other sources that
- you were aware of?
- A I don't think so. I don't recall that there were.
- Q And were you aware of Mr. Leshchenko prior to him being
- mentioned to you as a potential source of their information?
- A Yes.
- Q In what way?
- A He is very well-known, Ukrainian, anti-corruption
- activist. So I had read about him in the press.
- Q Had you studied him before?
- A What do you mean by "studied"?
- Q Performed independent research for any prior employer.
- A No. I followed him in the -- you know, if I saw him
- mentioned in the press, I read -- I read about it.
- Q And previous to this particular incoming knowledge from
- Mr. Simpson or just from Fusion GPS, were you aware of any
- connections between Mr. Leshchenko -- am I saying that name, by
- the way?
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- A Yes.
- Q -- Mr. Leshchenko and President Trump, or anyone in
- President Trump's familial orbit or even friendly orbit?
- A I was unaware of any connections before that.
- Q I think in the news, I am sure you have seen that there
- have been emails between your husband and Mr. Steele. Is that
- correct?
- A In the news, emails?
- Q That you had seen.
- A I don't recall emails -- messages --
- Q Him being mentioned?
- A I remember communications being mentioned. I don't
- remember emails, messages.
- Q So previously you said you had a shared email account.
- A With my husband.
- Q Are you aware whether -- because it is shared, a shared
- email account, when emails come in, are you then both reading
- emails that are arriving in the same email account?
- A We usually kind of can tell who it is intended for.
- Whether it is from my friend, then it is probably for me. So he
- is not likely to read it. That sort of thing.
- Q Okay, so emails that were coming in from Mr. Steele,
- were you reading emails that were coming in from Mr. Steele to
- your husband?
- A I don't recall any emails coming into our joint email
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- account from Mr. Steele.
- Q You said, in the prior round of questioning, that you
- didn't hear the word "investigation" mentioned at the breakfast at
- the Mayflower. Is that accurate?
- A To the best of my recollection.
- Q Was there any corollary to the word "investigation" that
- you may have heard during that discussion? Meaning, let's
- say -- or synonym of "investigation"?
- You were very specific, I noticed, in saying that you did not
- hear the actual word "investigation" at that discussion.
- But did you ever hear any other terms? I can just try to
- think of some, like "inquiry," or was there any indication that
- the research that was being discussed at that meeting concerning
- President Trump, was -- were you aware, based off of a word that
- was used, that that information was going somewhere for some type
- of, quote, investigation or other similar term?
- A My understanding was that Chris Steele was hoping that
- Bruce would put in a word with the FBI to follow-up on the
- information in some way.
- BY MR. SOMERS:
- Q When did you become aware that the FBI was investigating
- Trump and the Trump/Russia connections?
- A Much more recently. When it came out in the press.
- Q Okay, so Glenn Simpson testified before the Senate
- Judiciary Committee that he became aware, or he was aware in the
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- October 2016 sort of timeframe. You were not aware around that
- timeframe that the FBI was investigating Trump/Russia connections?
- A I was aware that it was a possibility, whatever was in
- the press, about, you know, oh, they might be investigating, that
- sort of thing. But I never was explicitly aware.
- Q Any knowledge you had was from press reports?
- A As I recall.
- BY MR. BREITENBACH:
- Q Let me just go back to that breakfast meeting. So you
- were aware that information, according to that discussion, was
- going to potentially be given to the Department of Justice or the
- FBI? I know they are both part of DOJ, but what did you
- understand?
- A I guessed that it was going to the FBI.
- Q And when we say "it," can you say once again, what "it"
- is?
- A Yeah, that is a good question. I didn't know the extent
- of his research, but I understood that whatever it was he was
- finding, that he was concerned about -- that he was hoping that
- this information would go to the FBI.
- Q He was hoping. So did he formally ask, based off of
- your understanding of the conversation, for your husband to give
- Mr. Steele's research to the FBI?
- Or to the Department of Justice, or to any other Government
- agency?
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- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
- A Yeah. My recollection of the specific words was -- is
- cloudy. So the most -- what I can say is that my understanding
- was that he wanted to -- Bruce to put in a -- put in a word with
- the FBI and that may have involved information. It is -- I don't
- have direct knowledge of what that involved.
- Q Okay. And, again in the prior round, you answered in
- answer to a question that in so many words was, you didn't believe
- there was any discussion about opening an investigation on Donald
- Trump at that breakfast. And you answered, quote, not by DOJ. At
- least that is what I had written down. So something to the effect
- of, you answered, not by DOJ. It just raised in the question in
- my mind, by whom, if it wasn't by DOJ?
- A Yeah, and formally maybe I was mistaken because
- obviously FBI is part of the DOJ. But my understanding was that
- it would be the FBI that might begin -- if there were an
- investigation, they would be the ones who would logically begin
- it. It wasn't something the DOJ would initiate.
- Q Were you aware whether -- or do you recall any
- indication where Christopher Steele may have indicated that the
- research would also be beneficial to be passed on to any other
- government agency?
- A I am not aware of any --
- Q Other than the FBI?
- A -- discussion of that. I don't recall any discussion
- of that.
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- Q Okay, and then also going back to that breakfast
- meeting, you indicated that you may have seen a page of the
- dossier at the breakfast. So can you just explain, this is based
- off of your subsequent understanding and viewing and reading the
- dossier that you mentioned had been first produced on your
- understanding by Buzzfeed, correct?
- A Oh, okay. Are you asking multiple questions?
- Q Maybe. The -- when you said in the prior round that you
- may have seen a page of the dossier, that is based off of your
- subsequent understanding of having read the dossier following the
- production by, first Buzzfeed, publicly?
- A I recognized the type of information when I saw the
- dossier. Does that answer your question?
- Q I think so. So can you, again, recall off of top of
- your mind -- off the top of your head, what exactly the portion of
- the dossier that you believe you saw at that breakfast meeting
- that eventually became the final product, so to speak?
- A I don't recall what I saw on the page, but it -- because
- of his talking about that point, about being very concerned about
- the Russian Government, for many years, having favored, or
- supported a Trump candidacy, my understanding was, it was along
- those lines.
- Q Along the lines of Russia supporting a Trump candidacy
- in the past?
- A Supporting a Trump candidacy at that time. Or, yes, in
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- the past, and up until 2016.
- Q So it was -- so you do recall seeing something at that
- meeting -- and again, I just want to try to -- I am trying to
- figure out what part of the dossier that you --
- A Yeah.
- Q -- believe you may have seen. First you have testified
- that you believe it was part of the dossier, or at least a page of
- the dossier. Was there -- was it only one page, or how many pages
- do you believe you saw?
- A I just seem to recall seeing sort of a -- you know,
- probably a page. And I don't recall specifically what I saw on
- it.
- Q Okay. And I am trying to understand, too, how did you
- know -- or how do you know, reflecting back on that time, that it
- was part of the dossier?
- A Good question. I am guessing that -- I mean, just the
- look of it, looked similar, the way the headers were and
- everything else. And the tenor of the type of arguments that were
- made, looked similar. But I don't have specific recollections of
- what was on that particular page.
- Q So Director Comey has previously testified to the
- salacious and unverified character of -- or the substance of the
- dossier. Did anything immediately stand out to you, when you saw
- what you saw? Even though you don't recall exactly the substance
- of that page of the dossier, did anything stand out to you as
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- salacious?
- A No.
- Q What exactly, again -- and I know you have already
- explained in part, but what exactly again stood out to you based
- off of that one page of the dossier that you saw?
- A I am sorry, I don't recollect the specifics that were on
- that page. It was along the same tenor of what he was saying
- verbally.
- Q And you understand that that was -- the page that you
- saw was the result of Christopher Steele's research?
- A That was my understanding at the time, yeah.
- BY MR. SOMERS:
- Q Can I just ask you a couple and -- and I apologize
- before I ask these questions whether they were asked before
- because they are kind of basic questions.
- Are you currently doing any research on Trump and Russia?
- A Why don't you --
- Q Paid research on Trump -- currently doing any paid
- research on Trump --
- A The reason I am hesitating is because it is hard to do
- anything without mentioning Trump, if you will excuse me. I am
- doing -- I am doing cyber -- cyber threat intelligence research.
- That is my current job. And I will do things like, you know what
- is being said in the Russian press and by Russian officials about
- the latest round of sanctions, for example. And so I will
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- summarize and analyze what I see as Russian responses. And
- naturally it involves their understanding of how Trump will
- enforce the sanctions, their discussions of the midterm elections,
- and what effect that might have on the sanctions and things like
- that.
- Q But nothing specific to connections between Trump and
- Russia?
- A I don't -- I don't think so, no.
- Q And you testified before that I believe the dates were
- October 2015, roughly, September 2016, you did work for Fusion GPS
- on Trump/Russia connections. Did you do any work after September
- 2016 for someone other than Fusion GPS on Trump and Russia?
- A I mean as part of my cyber threat intelligence research,
- I wrote about Russian information operations in connection with
- their -- their hacking of the DNC.
- Q But no direct research on Trump and Russia -- Russian
- connections between Trump and those in the Trump campaign, or
- Trump family and Russia?
- A I mean, I wrote about people who expressed support for
- Trump, Russians who expressed support but not Trump's direct
- dealings with them. Does that distinction make sense?
- Q I think I understand what you are saying.
- A Uh-huh.
- Q Have you ever done any work for the Penn Quarter Group?
- A No.
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- Q Daniel Jones?
- A No.
- BY MR. BREBBIA:
- Q Can I -- little bit related.
- This might make you happy. Leaving out the Fusion work of
- 2016 --
- A Okay.
- Q -- setting that aside, during the course of your career
- working for private-sector entities, had there come a time when
- you obtained information during your work that you thought I
- should share this with the FBI? Had that ever occurred?
- A I -- I mean, no. I would say not.
- Q Leaving out the vehicle by which you would have
- transmitted it, had you ever provided information to the FBI?
- A No.
- Q Okay. But in the fall of 2016, there did come a time
- when you decided the information you had obtained in the course of
- your work with Fusion GPS, that that should go to the FBI?
- A Yes.
- Q Thank you.
- Mr. Somers. Again, I am going to apologize again if this was
- already asked earlier. Did you ever talk to any journalists about
- the Trump/Russia research you were doing?
- Ms. Ohr. No.
- BY MR. BREITENBACH:
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- Q Had you ever done, to your knowledge, any other
- opposition research on other Republican candidates?
- A No.
- Q Had you ever done any oppo research on Democrat
- candidates?
- A No.
- Q Going to the actual research product that you performed
- during that year, can we sort of narrow down and try to understand
- what exactly the results of your research product include. So you
- had indicated that you -- you broadly reviewed family members of
- President Trump and President Trump, and those that we have
- mentioned, like General Flynn and Manafort, people within the
- Trump orbit. What were the eventual results once you
- handed -- was there a final product that you handed over to Fusion
- GPS, once you completed your time employed by that company?
- A There were ongoing products. So, small reports every
- few weeks, and ongoing chronologies.
- Q Are you aware whether it was ever compiled into one
- single report?
- A I am not aware of what happened to it after.
- Q Can you talk a little bit about the substance of what
- you found?
- A I did research on a lot of different people. So I -- I,
- for example, did a report on Trump's various visits to the Soviet
- Union and Russia over the years and the deals that he tried to
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- undertake, and with whom and what the background of those people
- were, things about the Miss Universe Pageant and who was there.
- Q I suppose, was there anything in your research
- that -- beyond -- beyond open-source research that you found, was
- there anything in the research that raises a red flag for you?
- A What do you mean "beyond open-source research" that I
- found?
- Q Well, let me rephrase.
- Based off of your research, was there anything that raised a
- red flag for you?
- A As I said, many of the transactions and business
- relationships appeared to have the kinds of hallmarks that, you
- know, others have said could be hallmarks of money laundering, and
- not that I am an expert on money laundering, but suspicious
- transactions, for example, the Rybolovlev thing which happened
- many years before.
- If I recall correctly, Mr. Trump bought it for a -- a very
- small amount of money and relatively quickly resold it to
- Mr. Rybolovlev for a large amount of money, which seemed
- suspicious.
- Q Okay. So you are getting -- you are giving, every 3
- weeks or so, final, interim products, I would say, it sounds like.
- A Yeah, yes.
- Q Is that a good characterization?
- A Yeah.
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- Q So based off the interim products, you were consistently
- getting more and more research performed. In terms of a red flag,
- so to speak, your -- do you have a final impression, based off of
- all of those interim products?
- A A final impression --
- Q A final impression of your own research?
- A I came to the conclusion that -- that Mr. Trump's
- dealings with Russian business people were very concerning, that
- they seemed to show a disregard for -- disregard for staying
- within the law, I guess I could say. I don't have any evidence
- to -- that would stand up in court. I am not, you know, a legal
- person. So by saying they are concerning, that is about as far as
- I could go with my open-source research.
- Q Okay, and was any of the -- were any of those
- concerns -- you indicated you are not aware whether those
- concerns -- you are not aware of the entity to whom those concerns
- were passed? Meaning, somebody hiring Fusion GPS for that
- particular research performed by you?
- A I was -- I don't recall being told explicitly who was
- funding my research at any given time.
- BY MR. BAKER:
- Q What would you do in your research if you found
- something that said, this happened, fact one, and then something
- that contradicted that, a fact two? How would you reconcile or
- test each other against the other for purposes of your reporting?
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- A Yeah, good question. Yeah, I mean, that is obviously
- something that happens all the time for anyone who does
- investigations, right? And I would look at the -- first of all,
- try to trace any story or claim back to its source, and that often
- takes a lot of time, evaluate the source, see if they seem to be
- believable, if they had research to know what they were talking
- about, had direct evidence, and in the end, you know, have to make
- assessments about which is more believable.
- Q Would you assign a degree of confidence to a particular
- reporting that you provided?
- A I know that there are these degrees of confidence that
- are often applied. I am not sure I ever explicitly said with
- moderate confidence, or whatever, but I hope it was clear that,
- you know, while this is -- I may not have used a word, confidence,
- but I hope that I clarified the degree to which I had any
- confidence in what I was finding.
- Q You indicated very early on that you had worked under
- the general umbrella of U.S. Government jobs. Have you ever
- worked for a U.S. Government organization in a capacity other than
- a research capacity, where you are looking at past events? Did
- you ever work for a government entity where you were
- providing realtime information on things?
- A And you -- when you say "working for a government
- entity," you were understanding that I was an independent
- contractor, right?
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- Q Yes.
- A Yes. And my -- yes, my independent contractor work
- involved at times doing current research.
- Q In addition to the shared email account, did you have an
- email account that was uniquely yours?
- A I had a Gmail account but very rarely used it.
- Q How did you bill for your time?
- A I would add up -- I mean, I would just keep notes to
- myself of how many hours I spent, and then I turned in an invoice.
- Q And you said you got leads sent to you?
- A Mostly verbally when I was meeting with Jake or --
- Q Are there any email records that still exist that have
- particular leads on them that you were assigned, or records that
- indicate particular things you billed for?
- A Or records that indicate particular things I billed for?
- I mean, I have records of my research. Is that what you mean?
- Q I would be interested in any records that exist, either
- particular assignments you got, or leads you got, via email and,
- therefore, created a record, or billing that you sent in for
- particular projects or time spent on a particular fact you were
- verifying.
- A Yeah, yeah. I still have the emails where I sent in the
- invoices, and usually I would just say "latest report for Jake,"
- you know, that sort of thing.
- Q And does Jake still work at Fusion GPS?
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- A As far as I know.
- Q Okay.
- BY MR. PARMITER:
- Q Ms. Ohr, thank you for coming today. Just one final
- question. Do you know who Christopher Steele reported to at
- Fusion GPS?
- A No.
- Q Thank you.
- Mr. Breitenbach. I actually have one more final question.
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- [2:40 p.m.]
- Mr. Breitenbach. I actually have one more final question.
- BY MR. BREITENBACH:
- Q Who owns the research that you performed for Fusion GPS?
- A I guess they own it.
- Q Fusion GPS or their client?
- A Oh, that's a good question. I don't recall signing
- anything that explicitly said who owns it.
- Q Do you still possess the research that you performed?
- A Yes.
- Q Would you be willing to share that with the committee?
- A I guess so.
- Mr. Breitenbach. Thank you. I think we're up on time.
- (Recess.)
- Ms. Sachsman Grooms. All right. Thank you. Let's go back
- on the record. The time is 2:50.
- BY MS. SACHSMAN GROOMS:
- Q I just wanted to go back through something that I think
- you've touched on in a number of different rounds a little bit
- piecemeal, and it got a little confusing to me, and so I just
- wanted to walk through and clarify it. It's about the Mayflower
- meeting. So you went to the Mayflower meeting with your husband
- to meet up with Christopher Steele and his associate. Is that
- right?
- A Yes.
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- Q And it was a breakfast?
- A Yes.
- Q And you left the breakfast at some point so that
- Christopher Steele and your husband could speak privately. Is
- that right?
- A Yes.
- Q And you were gone for some period of time. Do you have
- an understanding of how long that was or --
- A I don't know, 15-20 minutes maybe, I don't know. I
- don't know.
- Q Do you recall what you did at that point?
- A I went to the restroom and then I went out into the
- lobby and waited.
- Q Was it at the end or the beginning?
- A End.
- Q And during that meeting, it was my understanding, that
- Christopher Steele expressed to you -- Christopher Steele
- expressed to you that he had deep concerns about Donald Trump's
- relationship with Russia. Is that accurate?
- A Yes.
- Q And that he wanted that to be communicated in some way
- to the FBI, I assume. Is that right?
- A That was my understanding.
- Q Do you recall if he explicitly said that, or if that was
- just your understanding?
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- A I don't recall what was explicitly said.
- Q I think at some point you explained that there was a
- page of a piece of paper that he showed to you. Is that accurate?
- A Yeah, a page of a document. And I don't remember if it
- was paper, or on a laptop.
- Q Do you recall why he was showing a page of a document?
- A My understanding, which I don't know if this is why his
- intention was just to show that he's been doing research, and that
- his research had led him to these concerns.
- Q Do you recall whether you stopped and read the document
- when he showed it to you or if he was sort of flashing you a piece
- of paper to show you that he was doing research?
- A I wouldn't make any guesses about his intentions. My
- recollection is seeing very briefly something like one page. I
- can't -- I don't remember exactly how many lines I saw, but yeah.
- Q Do you remember whether you read it at the time?
- A I recall looking at it, but as from my previous
- discussion, I don't currently recall what happened to be on that
- page.
- Q I understand, but do you recall whether at the time you
- actually read the document, or you just looked at it and sort of
- skimmed it over?
- A As I recall, it was more skimming than reading.
- Q And I think you explained that you had seen,
- essentially, the formatting of the document?
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- A Yeah. Yes.
- Q And that the formatting of the document looked similar
- to the formatting of Christopher Steele's other work product that
- you later saw in the dossier. Is that accurate?
- A If I recall correctly. Yes.
- Q I think you've said that that page might have ended up
- in the dossier. Is it also possible that that document that he
- showed you is just the way he formats his work product?
- A It's very possible, because I don't have any clear
- understanding of whether that particular page ended up as-is in
- the dossier, whether it was a first draft, it could have been.
- Q And did he give you the document to take?
- A I don't recall receiving anything. I personally did not
- receive anything, and I don't recall Bruce receiving -- whether he
- received anything.
- Q Okay. At that meeting?
- A At that meeting.
- Q Okay. So he just showed you something, you skimmed it,
- and then you gave it back?
- A To the best of my recollection.
- Q And you don't recall whether he was showing you a piece
- of paper in a hard copy or a computer screen?
- A Right.
- Ms. Sachsman Grooms. Thank you. That helps. That's all I
- had. Oh, I'm sorry, let me do one more.
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- BY MS. SACHSMAN GROOMS:
- Q You mentioned that, at some point, somebody from Fusion
- GPS told you that they were giving you a tip that was based off of
- a source that was a Ukrainian source, Serhiy Leshchenko. Is that
- right?
- A Yes. That they were -- that they were giving me some
- information that had originated with him in some way.
- Q Do you recall whether that information related to Mr.
- Manafort?
- A What I'll say is that at the time -- at the same
- meeting, if I recall correctly, that his name came up, this piece
- of paper that lists Mr. Manafort's flights was given to me, and
- I'm not -- I don't recall exactly right now whether they said this
- particular piece of paper comes from Mr. Leshchenko or not.
- Q Okay. I think in the previous round, you said that you
- weren't reading emails from Mr. Steele that came to your husband
- through the joint email account, but obviously, you read this one
- email. So I just wanted to clarify what you were talking about?
- A Yeah, there is a distinction here because from
- Mr. Steele, no messages came to our joint account, from
- Mr. Simpson occasionally messages came to our joint account.
- Q I apologize, that's my mistake between two different
- people.
- A Uh-huh.
- Q And I think in the last round, someone may have
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- described that you worked for Fusion GPS until December of 2016,
- and as part of a question, it was my understanding that you ended
- your work in September 2016. Is that right?
- A And if someone did say that, and I didn't catch it, I
- apologize, I ended in September of 2016.
- Q Great.
- Ms. Sachsman Grooms. Thank you. I think that's all we have.
- Thank you.
- Mr. Somers. I think that's all we have. Thank you for
- coming in and coming in voluntarily. We appreciate your time
- today.
- Ms. Ohr. Thank you.
- [Whereupon, at 3:00 p.m., the interview was concluded.]
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- Certificate of Deponent/Interviewee
- I have read the foregoing ____ pages, which contain the correct
- transcript of the answers made by me to the questions therein
- recorded.
- _____________________________
- Witness Name
- _____________________________
- Date
- COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
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