Glenn R. Simpson, co-founder of the research firm Fusion GPS, arrives for a scheduled appearance before a closed House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Sunday, President Trump announced the long overdue departure of Dan Coats as Director of National Intelligence and nominated former US Attorney and Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe to replace him. Replacing a creating of Washington, like Coats, with a conservative firebrand like Ratcliffe made a lot of people uneasy. In fact, as my colleague Bonchie noted, all the right people are sweating bullets.

One of the major players in the Russia hoax seems to be in a state of near panic. And by that I mean Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS is the company that was hired by the Clinton campaign, using a law firm as a cutout, and who in turn hired Christopher Steele to compose his dossier and then shopped that dossier around Washington. FusionGPS was involved in setting up the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting between senior Trump campaign officials and the “Russian lawyer,” Natalia Veselnitskaya. Veselnitskaya had actually worked for Fusion GPS and she met with Fusion PS chief Glenn Simpson both before and after the Trump Tower meeting. Simpson kept up his efforts to push the dossier even after Trump had been elected making it very clear that there was more at play here than a mere contract. Either this was a labor of love for Simpson or there was another paymaster lurking behind the scenes.

As has been documented here and elsewhere two reporters are closely associated with pushing Fusion GPS stories and story lines. Ken Delanian of NBC is so blatant that he’s often called “Fusion ken.” Natasha Bertrand of Politico’s stories, in addition to being a cornucopia of NeverTrump nutbaggery, also parallel what Fusion GPS seems to be pushing. So we’ve seen these stories emerge from those sources.

Ken Dilanian, the Fusion GPS-connected NBC reporter who is highly implicated in the Russia collusion conspiracy theory, is tweeting his concern about John Ratcliffe's nomination. pic.twitter.com/bBt80BwjSx

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 28, 2019

NEW: Trump’s new pick to lead ODNI, John Ratcliffe, caught the White House's attention as a vocal critic of the Russia probe.

But Ratcliffe has also worked closely with the man who's been on a 15-year campaign to expose Russian corruption: Bill Browder. https://t.co/7SY2Mi7TdY

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) July 29, 2019

Why, you might ask, aren’t they saying the same thing? My guess is that Bertrand is pushing Ratcliffe as a “Russia hawk” as a way to diminish trust of him among Trump’s inner circle and put him in the same grouping as Coats. Delanian is pushing “he’s a Trump Tool” at Congress and advocacy groups. That one of the reporters closely associated with Fusion GPS is departing from the political conventional wisdom that is settling in about Ratcliffe seems more of an information operation than the reporting we’ve come to expect from her about anything concerning Trump.

Admittedly, they could be working on their own initiative but their relationship with Fusion GPS over the past three years has been both close and undeniable. Why would they suddenly bolt now when it is more important than ever that the role of Fusion GPS is pushing the Russia Hoax be buried deep because if it isn’t a lot of media reputations are going to go down in flames.

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