U.S. SENATE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
INTERVIEW OF: GLENN SIMPSON
TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2017
The interview in this matter was held at the Hart Senate Office Building, commencing at 9:34 a.m.
APPEARANCES:
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE:
Patrick Davis, Deputy Chief Investigative Counsel,
Jason Foster, Chief Investigative Counsel,
Samantha Brennan, Investigative Counsel,
Daniel Parker, Investigative Assistant,
Joshua Flynn-Brown, Investigative Counsel,
Scott Graber, Legislative Assistant/Counsel,
Heather Sawyer, Chief Oversight Counsel,
Jennifer Duck, Staff Director,
Molly Claflin, Counsel,
Lara Quint, Chief Counsel,
APPEARANCES: (Cont'd)
FOR THE WITNESS:
Joshua Levy, Cunningham Levy Muse
Robert Muse, Cunningham Levy Muse
Rachel Clattenburg, Cunningham Levy Muse
INDEX
| Introductions | 5 |
EXAMINATION
| PAGE |
| By Mr. Davis | 11 |
| By Ms. Sawyer | 52 |
| By Mr. Davis | 95 |
| By Ms. Sawyer | 138 |
| By Mr. Davis | 180 |
| By Ms. Sawyer | 227 |
| By Mr. Davis | 260 |
| By Ms. Sawyer | 290 |
| EXHIBITS |
| EXHIBIT | PAGE |
| Exhibit 1 | 11 |
| Exhibit 2 | 30 |
| Exhibit 3 | 138 |
| Exhibit 4 | 196 |
| Exhibit 5 | 205 |
| Exhibit 6 | 261 |
MR. DAVIS: Good morning. This is the transcribed interview of Glenn Simpson. Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein requested this interview as part of the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation of Fusion GPS's activities related to the dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, the Prevezon case, and the Magnitsky Act.
Would the witness please state your name for the record.
MR. SIMPSON: Glenn Simpson.
MR. DAVIS: On behalf of the Chairman I want to thank Mr. Simpson for appearing here today. My name is Patrick Davis. I'm the Deputy Chief Investigative Counsel with the committee's majority staff.
I'll ask everyone else from the committee who is here to introduce themselves as well.
MR. FOSTER: Jason Foster, I'm the Chief Investigative Counsel for Chairman Grassley.
MS. BRENNAN: Samantha Brennan, Investigative Counsel, Chairman Grassley.
MR. GRABER: Scott Graber, Senator Graham.
MR. PARKER: Daniel Parker, Investigative Assistant for Senator Grassley.
MR. BROWN: Joshua Flynn-Brown, Investigative Counsel for Senator Grassley.
MS. DUCK: Jennifer Duck, Staff Director for Senator Feinstein.
MS. QUINT: Lara Quint, Chief Counsel, Senator Whitehouse.
MS. SAWYER: Heather Sawyer, Chief Oversight Counsel, Senator Feinstein.
MS. CLAFLIN: Molly Claflin, Counsel, Senator Feinstein.
MR. DAVIS: The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not apply to any of the committee's investigative activities, including transcribed interviews. There are some guidelines we follow, and I'll go over those now.
Our questioning will proceed in rounds. The majority staff will ask questions first for one hour, then the minority staff will have an opportunity to ask questions for an equal amount of time. We will go back and forth until there are no more questions and the interview is over.
We typically take a short break at the end of each hour, but should you need a break at any other time, please just let us know. And we can discuss taking a break for lunch whenever you're ready to do so.
We have an official reporter taking down everything we say to make a written record. So we ask that you give verbal responses to all questions. Do you understand?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes.
MR. DAVIS: So that the court reporter can take down a clear record, we'll do our best to limit the number of people directing questions at you during any given hour to those whose turn it is. It's also important that we don't talk over one another or interrupt each other to the extent we can help it. That goes for everybody present at today's interview.
We encourage witnesses who appear before the committee to freely consult with counsel if they should choose. You are appearing here today with counsel. Counsel, could you please state your name for the record.
MR. LEVY: Josh levy.
MR. MUSE: I'm Bob Muse and I represent Glenn Simpson.
MS. CLATTENBURG: I'm Rachel Clattenburg.
MR. DAVIS: We want you to answer our questions in the most complete and truthful manner possible. If you have any questions or if you don't understand any of our questions, please let us know. If you honestly don't know the answer to a question or don't remember, it's best not to guess. Just give us your best recollection.
It's okay to tell us if you learned information from somewhere else if you indicate how you came to know the information. If there are things that you don't know or can't remember, we ask that you inform us to the best of your knowledge who might be able to provide a more complete answer to the question.
This interview is unclassified. So if any question calls for information that you know to be classified, please state that for the record as well as the reason for the classification. Then once you've clarified that to the extent possible, please respond with as much unclassified information as you can. If we need to have a classified session later, that can be arranged.
It is this committee's practice to honor valid common law privilege claims as an accommodation to a witness or party when those claims are made in good faith and accompanied by sufficient explanation so that the committee can evaluate the claim. When deciding whether to honor a privilege the committee weighs its need for the information against any legitimate basis for withholding it. The committee typically does not honor contractual confidentiality agreements.
The committee and Mr. Simpson have agreed that this interview is occurring without prejudice to any future discussions with the committee and we reserve the right to request Mr. Simpson's participation in future interviews or to compel his testimony. The committee and Mr. Simpson have also agreed that participation in this interview does not constitute a waiver of his ability to assert any privileges in response to future appearances before this committee.
Mr. Simpson, you should understand that although the interview is not under oath, by law you are required to answer questions from Congress truthfully. Do you understand that?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes.
MR. DAVIS: Specifically 18 U.S.C. Section 1001 makes it a crime to make any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation in the course of a congressional investigation. That statute applies to your statements in this interview. Do you understand that?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes, I do.
MR. DAVIS: Witnesses who knowingly provide false statements could be subject to criminal prosecution and imprisonment for up to five years. Do you understand this?
MR. SIMPSON: Yes, I do.
MR. DAVIS: Is there any reason you're unable to provide truthful answers to today's questions?
MR. SIMPSON: No.
MR. DAVIS: Finally, we ask that you not speak about what we discuss in this interview with anyone else outside of who's here in the room today in order to preserve the integrity of our investigation. We also ask that you not remove any exhibits or other committee documents from the interview.
Once again, the Chairman and Ranking Member withdrew their subpoena of you due to your willingness to provide information in this voluntary interview and document production. However, the extent to which the committee deems further compulsory process necessary will likely depend on your level of cooperation and candor.
Is there anything else that my colleagues from the minority would like to add?
MS. SAWYER: Thank you. We appreciate it. And we appreciate you being here as part of the investigation into the Russian interference into the 2016 election.
I did want to, with agreement of my colleagues, just enter into the record the letter agreement regarding the interview that was sent to your counsel on August 3, 2017. I think my colleague has gone over a number of the parameters that we agreed to, but I think it would be helpful to have this in the record. So we'll go ahead and mark it as Interview Exhibit No. 1 just for identification purposes.
MS. SAWYER: With that, again, thank you for being here.
MR. DAVIS: The time is now 9:40 and we will get started with the first hour of questions.
EXAMINATION
BY MR. DAVIS:
Q. Mr. Simpson, what is your professional background?
A. I have a degree in journalism from George Washington University and I've spent most of my working adult life as a journalist, much of it as an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Prior to that I worked as an investigative reporter at Roll Call Newspaper writing about political corruption, financial crime, terrorism, tax evasion, stock fraud, financial scandals, congressional investigations, government prosecutions, money laundering, organized crime.
Q. And when did you leave the Wall Street Journal?
A. In 2009.
Q. And did you found SNS Global after leaving the Wall Street Journal?
A. That's right.
Q. And how many employees and associates did SNS Global have?
A. There were two partners and in the first part of the time I think we had one employee. No, I'm sorry. We had two employees.
Q. And who were they?
A. We had a research assistant named Margot Williams, M-A-R-G-O-T Williams, and another administrative assistant whose name I don't recall right now.
Q. And who was the other partner?
A. Susan Schmidt was my other partner, former colleague from the Wall Street Journal, and prior to that was an investigative reporter at the Washington Post.
Q. And what was the nature of SNS Global's business?
A. Research, business intelligence.
Q. And what types of clients did SNS Global have?
A. It's a while ago, so it's not fresh in my mind. Other consulting firms, lawyers. I don't specifically remember a lot of them.
Q. And is SNS Global still in business?
A. No.
Q. When did it cease operations?
A. I believe at the end of 2010.
Q. And why did it — why did SNS Global cease operations?
A. Basically my partner and I had different ambitions for what we wanted to do. I wanted to have a brick and mortar office with more resources and staff. Basically I concluded that the work that we were doing required more infrastructure and resources. Basically in modern research you need to have access to a lot of different databases and there's a lot of aspects of the work that are administrative in nature that require things that I wasn't able to do. I prefer to spend my time doing the research. So I wanted to have more of an infrastructure where I could focus on that.
Q. What is Bean, LLC?
A. That's the LLC that is my current company.
Q. And what is your role in Bean, LLC?
A. I'm the majority owner. I guess, you know, we don't have official titles, but I'm generally referred to as the CEO.
Q. Bean, LLC registered Fusion GPS as a trade name in the District of Columbia; is that correct?
A. Yes, it's a DBA.
Q. Why did you choose to use a trade name for Bean, LLC rather than directly name the company Fusion GPS?
A. Because at the time that I was deciding what I wanted to do I was recruiting a new partner and I just needed to set up a holding company while I organized my new business. So I just picked a name. You know, a bean is a seed, a new thing. So I picked that name to begin the process of organizing a new business and didn't want to select an actual DBA, you know, a brand name until I consulted with my new partner. We wanted to mutually — I actually had two partners in the beginning, so there were three of us, and I wanted to make it a group decision.
Q. Is Bean, LLC currently registered in D.C. to conduct business under the trade name Fusion GPS?
A. To my knowledge it is. It should be.
Q. Have any other LLC's or business entities conducted business as Fusion GPS?
A. I don't think so.
Q. Have any other LLC's or business entities received payments for work conducted by Fusion GPS, its employees, or its associates?
MR. LEVY: Are you asking to include subcontractors or are you —
MR. DAVIS: Sure.
MR. LEVY: Does Fusion GPS have subcontractors?
MR. DAVIS: Right. I think that would be part of it, but the other part is: are there other LLC's associated with Bean direct- — with Bean or Fusion directly, not just subcontractors?
BY THE WITNESS:
A. Yes. I mean, the one I think that has come up in some of the correspondence or somewhere, I can't remember where, is another one called Kernel, K-E-R-N-E-L, and that was an LLC that was set up for a book project that never — we never finished — we never did the book. So it's inactive with the current time. Then there's another one that one of my partners manages that's for different types of work, technology, policy, and that type of thing.
Q. What's the name of that one?
A. I think it's Caudex, C-A-U-D-E-X.
Q. And are any other LLC's or types of business entities otherwise associated with Fusion GPS?
A. Those are the only ones I can think of.
Q. And have you been a registered agent, owner, or beneficial owner of any other LLC's or business entities?
A. I own an LLC in Maryland that holds some property that I own.
Q. And what's the name of that LLC?
A. As we sit here, I wasn't prepared for this question, I don't remember the name of it. It was registered fairly recently. Obviously we can get that to you.
Q. So is it correct that Fusion has at times worked with different LLC's based on by project?
A. For most of the history of the company Bean, LLC was the primary entity through which we did business. I'm not sure I totally understand your question. There's this other LLC I mentioned that's fairly recent and there may be other entities, but nothing that I, myself set up, at least not that I can think of.
Q. Anything that your partners would have set up?
A. Not that I can think of.
Q. Does Fusion GPS, Bean, LLC, Kernel, LLC, or any of these other related business entities have any bank accounts outside of the United States?
A. No.
Q. Domestically does Bean, LLC have an account at ?
A. Yes.
MR. LEVY: I don't know that we need to get into bank accounts.
MR. DAVIS: Are you offering a basis for that objection?
MR. LEVY: It's outside the scope of the interview.
MR. DAVIS: Part of the questions we've asked are actions Fusion has taken — interactions Fusion has had and we're trying to define the scope of what Fusion is as a predicate to understanding those answers.
MR. LEVY: Yeah, and he's answering those questions.
MR. FOSTER: He answered yes to the question.
BY MR. DAVIS:
Q. Where is Fusion GPS's physical office, if any?
A. DuPont Circle.
Q. Is it, if I recall correctly, 1700 Connecticut Avenue, Northwest?
A. That's the address, yes.
Q. Is it Suite 400?
A. It is.
Q. How many employees and associates does Fusion GPS currently have?
A. Roughly a dozen.
Q. Who are they?
A. Do you want their names?
Q. Yes, their names.
A. is a partner in the business; is a partner in the business; , , is a partner in the business. Another one of our managers is Another one of our manager is , and he is a l. We have several analysts whose names are ; ; whose previous position I don't recall; whose former position I don't recall; who previously was with I think ; who's our administrative person. There may be one or two others whose names I don't recall.
Q. Is anyone who was an employee or associate of Fusion GPS in 2015 or 2016 no longer with the company? And if so, who?
A. Not that I can think of.
Q. In general, what is Fusion GPS's business?
A. We primarily are a research, strategy, consulting firm.
Q. And what types of clients has Fusion GPS had?
A. It runs the gamut from corporations to law firms, various investment funds, people involved in litigation.
Q. And roughly how many active clients —
MR. LEVY: Did you finish? I don't know if he finished.
MR. DAVIS: I'm sorry.
BY THE WITNESS:
A. It's hard to categorize them all. Those are some of the main types of clients we have.
Q. And roughly how many active clients did Fusion GPS have in 2016?
A. That's difficult for me to answer. You know, over ten I would say, but it's hard for me — beyond that I would be guessing.
Q. Does part of Fusion GPS's business involve attempting to have media outlets publish articles that further the interests of your clients?
A. Yeah, you could — I mean, generally speaking, we are — generally we tend to respond to inquiries more than try to push things, but, you know, we work with the press frequently.
Q. And has Fusion GPS ever provided information to journalists in order to encourage them to publish articles or air stories that further your client's interests?
A. Yes.
Q. And has Fusion GPS provided information to journalists or editors in order to discourage them from publishing or airing stories that are contrary to your client's interests?
A. Well, what we — we're a research company. So generally what we do is provide people with factual information. Our specialty is public record information. So if we get an inquiry about a story and some of the information that a reporter's presuming is incorrect and we give them correct information, that may cause them to not write the story.
Q. Has Fusion GPS ever had arrangements with clients in which the amount of Fusion's compensation was dependent on getting articles published or stories aired?
A. Not that I can recall.
Q. Has Fusion GPS ever had arrangements with clients in which the amount of Fusion's compensation was dependent upon preventing articles from being published or stories from being aired?
A. No, I don't think so, not to my recollection.
Q. To the best of your knowledge, has anyone associated with Fusion GPS ever told clients or prospective clients that the company could find and distribute information or take other actions in order to encourage government agencies to initiate an investigation?
A. Could you restate that?
Q. To the best of your knowledge, has anyone associated with Fusion GPS ever told clients or prospective clients that the company could find and distribute information or take other actions in order to encourage government agencies to initiate an investigation?
MR. LEVY: Within the scope of this interview?
MR. DAVIS: In general. I'm not asking about any particular case.
MR. LEVY: Hold on. Let's — let me just talk to my client about that and get back to you on that. I just want to understand the facts so we can evaluate whether it's appropriate to discuss that here if such a predicate for the answer exists.
MR. FOSTER: Do you want to take a break?
MR. LEVY: Sure.
MR. FOSTER: Let's go off the record. It's 9:55.
(A short break was had.)
MR. DAVIS: We'll go back on the record. It's 10:02.
BY MR. DAVIS:
Q. After conferring with your counsel, are you able to answer the question?
A. Yes. Could you just state it one more time.
Q. Sure. To the best of your knowledge, has anyone associated with Fusion GPS ever told clients or prospective clients that the company could find and distribute information or take other actions in order to encourage government agencies to initiate an investigation?
A. The word "associated" is really vague. I'm not sure I know what you mean by that. I can speak to my own practices and the practices of the people who work at my company.
Generally speaking, when we do a research project for a new client and they ask us — you know, they explain, you know, what situation they're involved in, if it's a lawsuit, for example, or some other dispute, a lot of what we do is related to disputes, they say — you know, we say we will conduct an open-ended inquiry that's not goal directed and the results of the research will guide whatever decision you want to make about how to use it.
So the range of possibilities with, you know, research are you could file a lawsuit, you could put it in a court filing, you could take it to a government agency, you could give it to Congress, you could give it to the press, but you don't really prejudge, you know, how you're going to use information until you know what you've got.
So we generally don't let our clients dictate sort of the — you know, the end result of things because we don't think that's an intelligent way of trying to do research and, you know, a lot of what we do is decision support. Your clients are frequently trying to make a decision about how they want to proceed, whether they want to — you know, if someone thinks they've been defrauded, you can file a lawsuit, you can go to the police. You would decide that based on what you find out about the, you know, evidence of a fraud. So that's generally the way we do it.
Q. To the best of your knowledge, has Fusion GPS ever had an arrangement with a client in which the company was specifically tasked with getting government agencies to initiate an investigation?
A. I would — to the best of my recollection, we don't have any agreements like that we would put into writing generally for the reasons I stated in answer to the previous question. In the course of, you know, dealing with a client we might talk about whether, you know, something was worthy of a government investigation and talk about how that could be done. There's any number of scenarios there that might come under discussion, but, as I say, that's generally not how we frame a project.
Q. Has Fusion GPS ever had arrangements with clients in which the amount of Fusion's compensation was dependent on government agencies initiating an investigation?
A. We've been in business since 2010, so seven years is a fairly long time, but as I say, not to my recollection. I just can't be categorical because we've done a lot of work over the last seven years.
Q. So I'm going to move on now to some questions about Prevezon Holdings and the Magnitsky Act. I want to sort of generally make it clear when I refer to you or to Fusion, I mean not just you personally, but all employees and associates of Fusion GPS and its component LLC's and legal entities as well as any contractors or subcontractors. If it's not clear to you who I'm referring to in the question, please just ask and I'll clarify.
Similarly, I'm going to refer to Prevezon and Magnitsky, M-A-G-N-I-T-S-K-Y. When I refer to those together, I mean all matters related to the Justice Department's lawsuit against Prevezon Holdings Limited, as well as all matters related to efforts with the media, government officials, and campaigns to overturn the Magnitsky Act, prevent the passage of the global Magnitsky Act, remove the word Magnitsky from either law, the Russian ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children, research on Mr. Magnitsky himself or Mr. Browder, Hermitage Capital Management and its affiliated companies. So I'm generally putting those under that umbrella. If you need me to clarify for any specific question, just ask.
MR. LEVY: You obviously said a lot there.
MR. DAVIS: I did.
MR. LEVY: And so on a question-by-question basis out of fairness to the witness, I just want to make sure that he has the ability to ask clarification, of course, as questions arise.
MR. DAVIS: Right. That's what I would be asking you to do.
MR. LEVY: Even now, quite frankly, I'm not sure I can recall everything that you baked into the term that you're going to use.
MR. DAVIS: Feel free to raise questions about any particular question we ask.
MR. LEVY: Okay.
BY MR. DAVIS:
Q. Mr. Simpson, what was Fusion GPS's role in the Justice Departments's litigation against Prevezon Holdings?
A. We were retained by Baker Hostetler in the spring of 2014 to do litigation support, and under the heading of litigation support was things related to discovery, locating witnesses, answer questions from the press, gathering documents, pretty much, you know, a conventional understanding of litigation support.
Q. And to whom did Fusion GPS report in the course of this work?
A. Baker Hostetler. The partner in charge was Mark Cymrot, C-Y-M-R-O-T, who's a partner in the Washington office and former Justice Department prosecutor.
Q. Did Mr. Cymrot provide instructions to Fusion GPS during the course of the work?
A. Mr. Cymrot regularly instructed us in how we were to go about doing discovery and various other tasks, yes.
Q. And for a portion of that case at least Mr. Cymrot was the attorney of record for Prevezon Holdings; is that correct?
A. For the entirety of the time that I worked on the case he was — I believe he was the attorney of record.
Q. And did you understand the instructions you received from him to be originating from his client, from Prevezon Holdings?
A. The ultimate direction, of course, would have been from the ultimate client, but the client was outside the United States for most of its time. So, you know, a lot of instruction came from him and he was the person who formulated the legal strategy, undertook all of the legal efforts to work the case.
Q. And when did Fusion GPS cease working on the Prevezon Holdings case?
A. I can't say exactly. It was mid to late 2016.
Q. Which of Fusion's associates and employees have worked on the Prevezon or Magnitsky issues?
A. For the most part it was myself and one of my analysts, . There may have — from time to time issues may have come up about trying to find records or other issues where I conferred with or enlisted someone else in the office, but I don't specifically recall.
MR. FOSTER: To follow up on the previous answer, you said mid to late 2016 is when the investigation ended, generally speaking. Do you have any records that could refresh your recollection about the exact date at a later time?
MR. SIMPSON: I'm sure we do, yes. I am — we have a division of labor and I don't do a lot of things like invoicing. So this is not going to be my strong suit.
MR. FOSTER: But you could figure it out later for us?
MR. SIMPSON: We maintain books and records.
MR. FOSTER: Could you maybe just describe quickly what kind of record would constitute the end of the engagement?
MR. SIMPSON: That's a good question. You know, in some cases there's no specific termination letter. So I don't know whether there's a termination agreement or termination letter in this case. I mean, generally speaking, you know, when we stop billing the case is over.
(Exhibit 2 was marked for
identification.)
BY MR. DAVIS:
Q. I'd like to introduce an exhibit. It's one of two privilege logs that your attorneys provided us. This will be Exhibit 2.
Mr. Simpson, on the third page of this document, the last two entries appear to be e-mails sent on October 27, 2016 from Peter Fritsch to Mark Cymrot CC'g you. To the best of your recollection, was Fusion GPS still working for Mr. Cymrot on — still working for Baker Hostetler on the Prevezon case as of the date of this e-mail?
A. I don't know.
Q. The privilege asserted was attorney work product. Do you know what the basis of that was?
A. Well, it was a legal —
MR. LEVY: This is a judgment that his lawyers made and any knowledge he would have about whether it was attorney work product or not likely would come from communications with counsel, which obviously are privileged.
BY MR. DAVIS:
Q. Did Fusion ever work with subcontractors on its Prevezon or Magnitsky efforts?
A. Yes.
Q. Who were they?
MR. LEVY: Just to clarify that, your question was — can you repeat the question, please?
MR. DAVIS: Sure. Did Fusion ever work with subcontractors on its Prevezon or Magnitsky efforts?
MR. LEVY: What do you mean by "Magnitsky efforts"?
MR. DAVIS: I mean all matters related to the efforts with the media, government officials, and campaigns — or campaigns to overturn the Magnitsky Act, prevent the passage of the global Magnitsky Act, remove the word Magnitsky from the law — from either law, as well as the Russian ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children.
MR. LEVY: And you were also asking about subcontractors for Prevezon as well?
MR. DAVIS: I'm asking whether Fusion ever worked with subcontractors on those issues.
BY THE WITNESS:
A. Well, I object to the question the way the question is framed. You've sort of built into the question the sort of inference that we were doing something other than working on a legal case, and there's extensive public record, documentation in Pacer of the work that we did and it was a legal case. So I don't — it's going to be difficult because it's really hard for me to answer questions where you lump in all these things that other people were doing and impute them to me.
Q. Let's break them down by category.
A. Let's do that.
Q. Did Fusion ever work with subcontractors — did Fusion ever hire subcontractors as part of its legal work on the Prevezon case?
A. Yes.
Q. And whom did you hire?
A. I think the primary, possibly only one was a guy named Edward Baumgartner. There may have been others. I just don't recall.
Q. And what type of work did Mr. Baumgartner undertake for Fusion?
A. Discovery mostly, helping locate witnesses. He speaks Russian. So he would work with the lawyers on gathering Russian language documents, gathering Russian language media reports, talking to witnesses who speak Russian, that sort of thing. He may have dealt with the press. I just don't remember.
MR. FOSTER: What is his professional background?
MR. SIMPSON: He has a degree in Russian.
MR. FOSTER: So his primary role was as a Russian speaker? Is he a private investigator? What does he do?
MR. SIMPSON: He runs a consulting firm like me and deals with issues more in Ukraine than Russia, but in both. Yeah, he was doing Russian language things. The case revolved around, centered on events in Russia. So a lot of what we needed to find out were things that were in Russia or there were documents in the Russian language. I don't speak Russian, I've never been to Russia. So it would be ordinary course of business for me to identify a specialist who could supply me with that kind of specialized expertise.
BY MR. DAVIS:
Q. And how did you come to hire him for this engagement?
A. I met him on a previous engagement and I was impressed by his knowledge of the region and his general abilities.
MR. FOSTER: What was the previous engagement?
MR. LEVY: We're not going to get into prior engagements. It's outside the scope.
MR. FOSTER: Generally speaking, what was it?
MR. SIMPSON: It was something involving Russia.
MR. FOSTER: A little more specifically speaking.
MR. SIMPSON: It's my understanding that I was not required to talk about my other cases at this interview.
MR. DAVIS: Again, it's a voluntary interview and you are not under compulsion to answer any questions, but, again, the extent to which you cooperate will help the committee members evaluate whether further compulsory process is necessary.
MR. LEVY: He's been answering questions and we're here all day for you.
MR. SIMPSON: I'm here to cooperate.
BY MR. DAVIS:
Q. Did anyone from Fusion ever work with other subcontractors hired by Baker Hostetler for the Prevezon case?