free beacon commissioned a firm called fusion gps, co-owned by a former wall street journal reporter named glen simpson to conduct opposition research on donald trump during the republican primaries. now, the free beacon said in a statement that this research, snars they knew, had nothing to do with the dossier that you were just talking about that was written by this former british intelligence operative, christopher steele. and in fact, i confirmed this week through my reporting that steele was not hired by fusion gps until after the democrats and hillary clinton and the dnc began picking up the tab for fusion during the general election. now, all that said, this is opposition research, brian. it s utterly unremark alk. it happens in every presidential campaign. it happens in campaigns for county commissioner. the only thing that s unusual about this is we ve never had a presidential candidate with such an international entangle wants, particularly with a foreign adversary. and s