by WorldTribune Staff, July 16, 2017

Fusion GPS, which was behind the discredited Trump-Russia dossier authored by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, also set up and participated in the now infamous meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, reports say.

The roles played by the Democrat-funded opposition firm and the Obama administration itself should be the focus of investigations of Russia’s role in the 2016 elections, conservative critics such as Mark Levin say.

Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson abruptly canceled his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled for July 19, after the firm was linked to the Trump Jr.-Veselnitskaya meeting.

Fusion GPS associate Rob Goldstone arranged the June 2016 meeting which included Trump Jr., former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Veselnitskaya and Fusion GPS associate Rinat Akhmetshin.

Manafort’s phone was tapped by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch during the meeting, according to a tweet by former Massachusetts Trump campaign official James Brower and first reported by independent journalist and author Jack Posobiec.

Reports also noted that Veselnitskaya was let into the United States under “extraordinary circumstances” by President Barack Obama’s Justice Department, headed by Lynch.

“If Brower’s tweet is proven correct and Paul Manafort’s phone was being tapped during the meeting – it means Loretta Lynch’s surveillance of Manafort, an American, was done without a FISA warrant,” Zero Hedge noted in a July 14 report.

Zero Hedge added: “This also calls into question the June 27, 2016 ‘tarmac’ meeting between Lynch and Bill Clinton, which would have come after the meeting at Trump Tower.”

Drawing on sources including the New York Times and Washington Post, radio host Mark Levin (via Breitbart) described the case against the Obama administration based on what is already publicly known:

June 2016: FISA request. The Obama administration files a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers. The request, uncharacteristically, is denied.

July: Russia joke. WikiLeaks releases emails from the Democratic National Committee that show an effort to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders from winning the presidential nomination. In a press conference, Donald Trump refers to Hillary Clinton’s own missing emails, joking: ‘Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.’ That remark becomes the basis for accusations by Clinton and the media that Trump invited further hacking.

October: Podesta emails. In October, WikiLeaks releases the emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, rolling out batches every day until the election, creating new mini-scandals. The Clinton campaign blames Trump and the Russians.

October: FISA request. The Obama administration submits a new, narrow request to the FISA court, now focused on a computer server in Trump Tower suspected of links to Russian banks. No evidence is found – but the wiretaps continue, ostensibly for national security reasons, Andrew McCarthy at National Review later notes.

The Obama administration is now monitoring an opposing presidential campaign using the high-tech surveillance powers of the federal intelligence services.

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