Hillary Clinton defended the approach that her campaign lawyer, Marc Elias, took to the work of Fusion GPS. | AP Photo/Andrew Harnik Clinton defends campaign funding for research in Steele dossier

Hillary Clinton on Wednesday defended her campaign lawyer’s decision to pay for research that showed up in a salacious dossier about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.

In an interview on “The Daily Show,” Clinton also dismissed any parallels between her campaign’s use of opposition research and Russian election interference that may have benefited Trump.


“I think most serious people understand that,” Clinton said in a clip of an interview with host Trevor Noah that was to air later Wednesday night. “It was research that started (with) a Republican donor during the primary, and when Trump got the nomination for the Republican Party, the people doing it came to my campaign lawyer.”

Clinton defended the approach that her campaign lawyer, Marc Elias, took to the work of Fusion GPS, a research firm that compiled a dossier about Trump before recruiting former British spy Christopher Steele to conduct more research.

Fusion’s work was initially paid for by the Free Beacon, a conservative news site.

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“He said yes,” Clinton said of Elias. “He’s an experienced lawyer, he knows what the law is, he knows what opposition research is.”

Clinton said it was important to note that her campaign didn’t publicize the dossier before the election, and said she was frustrated that voters didn’t know before Election Day that Trump’s campaign was under investigation by the FBI.

“From my perspective, it didn’t come out before the election … and the American people didn’t even know the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign for connections with Russia starting in 2016,” Clinton said.

She added, “The fact of the Trump campaign and investigation into Russia should have come out.”

