The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump's connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said. 
 
 Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research. 
 
 After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 
 
 Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the company in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS's research into Trump was funded by an unknown Republican client during the GOP primary. 
 
 The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS's research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day. 
 
 Fusion GPS gave Steele's reports and other research documents to Elias, the people familiar with the matter said. It is unclear how or how much of that information was shared with the campaign and the DNC and who in those organizations was aware of the roles of Fusion GPS and Steele. One person close to the matter said the campaign and the DNC were not informed by the law firm of Fusion GPS's role. 
 
 
 
 Former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele compiled the dossier on President Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. (Victoria Jones/AP) 
 
 The dossier has become a lightning rod amid the intensifying investigations into the Trump campaign's possible connections to Russia. Some congressional Republican leaders have spent months trying to discredit Fusion GPS and Steele and tried to determine the identity of the Democrat or organization that paid for the dossier. 
 
 Trump tweeted as recently as Saturday that the Justice Department and FBI should "immediately release who paid for it." 
 
 Elias and Fusion GPS declined to comment on the arrangement. 
 
 A DNC spokeswoman said "[Chairman] Tom Perez and the new leadership of the DNC were not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organization. But let's be clear, there is a serious federal investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, and the American public deserves to know what happened." 
 
 Brian Fallon, a former spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said he wasn't aware of the hiring during the campaign. 
 
 
 
 Marc E. Elias of Perkins Coie represented the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) 
 
 "The first I learned of Christopher Steele or saw any dossier was after the election," Fallon said. "But if I had gotten handed it last fall, I would have had no problem passing it along and urging reporters to look into it. Opposition research happens on every campaign, and here you had probably the most shadowy guy ever running for president, and the FBI certainly has seen fit to look into it. I probably would have volunteered to go to Europe myself to try and verify if it would have helped get more of this out there before the election." 
 
 Some of the details are included in a Tuesday letter sent by Perkins Coie to a lawyer representing Fusion GPS, telling the research firm that it was released from a ­client-confidentiality obligation. The letter was prompted by a legal fight over a subpoena for Fusion GPS's bank records. 
 
 People involved in the matter said that they would not disclose the dollar amounts paid to Fusion GPS but that the campaign and the DNC shared the cost. 
 
 Steele previously worked in Russia for British intelligence. The dossier is a compilation of reports he prepared for Fusion GPS. The dossier alleged that the Russian government collected compromising information about Trump and that the Kremlin was engaged in an effort to assist his campaign for president. 
 
 U.S. intelligence agencies later released a public assessment asserting that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to aid Trump. The FBI has been investigating whether Trump associates helped the Russians in that effort. 
 
 [FBI once planned to pay former British spy who authored controversial Trump dossier] 
 
 Trump has adamantly denied the allegations in the dossier and has dismissed the FBI probe as a witch hunt. 
 
 Officials have said that the FBI has confirmed some of the information in the dossier. Other details, including the most sensational accusations, have not been verified and may never be. 
 
 Fusion GPS's work researching Trump began during the Republican presidential primaries, when the GOP donor paid for the firm to investigate the real estate magnate's background. 
 
 Fusion GPS did not start off looking at Trump's Russia ties but quickly realized that those relationships were extensive, according to the people familiar with the matter. 
 
 When the Republican donor stopped paying for the research, Elias, acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC, agreed to pay for the work to continue. The Democrats paid for research, including by Fusion GPS, because of concerns that little was known about Trump and his business interests, according to the people familiar with the matter. 
 
 Those people said that it is standard practice for political campaigns to use law firms to hire outside researchers to ensure their work is protected by attorney-client and work-product privileges. 
 
 The Clinton campaign paid Perkins Coie $5.6 million in legal fees from June 2015 to December 2016, according to campaign finance records, and the DNC paid the firm $3.6 million in "legal and compliance consulting'' since November 2015 — though it's impossible to tell from the filings how much of that work was for other legal matters and how much of it related to Fusion GPS. 
 
 At no point, the people said, did the Clinton campaign or the DNC direct Steele's activities. They described him as a Fusion GPS subcontractor. 
 
 Some of Steele's allegations began circulating in Washington in the summer of 2016 as the FBI launched its counterintelligence investigation into possible connections between Trump associates and the Kremlin. Around that time, Steele shared some of his findings with the FBI. 
 
 After the election, the FBI agreed to pay Steele to continue gathering intelligence about Trump and Russia, but the bureau pulled out of the arrangement after Steele was publicly identified in news reports. 
 
 The dossier was published by BuzzFeed News in January. Fusion GPS has said in court filings that it did not give BuzzFeed the documents. 
 
 Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that Steele was respected by the FBI and the State Department for earlier work he performed on a global corruption probe. 
 
 In early January, then-FBI Director James B. Comey presented a two-page summary of Steele's dossier to President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump. In May, Trump fired Comey, which led to the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel investigating the Trump-Russia matter. 
 
 Congressional Republicans have tried to force Fusion GPS to identify the Democrat or group behind Steele's work, but the firm has said that it will not do so, citing confidentiality agreements with its clients. 
 
 Last week, Fusion GPS executives invoked their constitutional right not to answer questions from the House Intelligence Committee. The firm's founder, Glenn Simpson, had previously given a 10-hour interview to the Senate Judiciary Committee. 
 
 Over objections from Democrats, the Republican leader of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), subpoenaed Fusion GPS's bank records to try to identify the mystery client. 
 
 Fusion GPS has been fighting the release of its bank records. A judge on Tuesday extended a deadline for Fusion GPS's bank to respond to the subpoena until Friday while the company attempts to negotiate a resolution with Nunes. 
 
 Julie Tate contributed to this report. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 What the Trump dossier says — and what it doesn’t 
 
 Hillary Clinton’s disingenuous dossier outrage 
 
 Trump suggests FBI may have ‘paid for’ dossier alleging Russia ties ||||| WASHINGTON — The presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee paid for research that was included in a dossier made public in January that contained salacious claims about connections between Donald J. Trump, his associates and Russia. 
 
 A spokesperson for a law firm said on Tuesday that it had hired Washington-based researchers last year to gather damaging information about Mr. Trump on numerous subjects — including possible ties to Russia — on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the D.N.C. 
 
 The revelation, which emerged from a letter filed in court on Tuesday, is likely to fuel new partisan attacks over federal and congressional investigations into Russia’s attempts to disrupt last year’s election and whether any of Mr. Trump’s associates assisted in the effort. 
 
 The president and his allies have argued for months that the investigations are politically motivated. They have challenged the information contained in the dossier, which was compiled by a former British spy who had been contracted by the Washington research firm Fusion GPS. ||||| President Trump told FOX Business’ Lou Dobbs on Wednesday that efforts by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to fund research in attempt to smear his presidential candidacy is “disgraceful.” 
 
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 “Don’t forget Hillary Clinton totally denied this. She didn’t know anything. She knew nothing. All of a sudden they found out. What I was amazed at, it’s almost $6 million that they paid and it’s totally discredited, it’s a total phony. I call it fake news. It’s disgraceful. It’s disgraceful, Trump said on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” 
 
 Hillary Clinton recently slammed new reports of her ties to Russia's nuclear energy deals, claiming the corruption allegations have been “debunked repeatedly.” 
 
 The former secretary of state said on C-SPAN Monday that "It’s the same baloney they’ve been peddling for years, and there’s been no credible evidence by anyone." 
 
 Trump said the Clinton camp is now trying to backtrack from the dossier that contained allegations that the Russian government had collected compromising information about Trump and that the Kremlin was engaged in an active effort to assist his presidential campaign. 
 
 “It is very interesting. She denied it. Her own people denied it. Everybody and now they are sort of scooting around trying to figure out what to say,” he said. 
 
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 The House Intelligence Committee announced Tuesday it’s joining the House Oversight Committee in investigating why the Obama administration approved the sale of Uranium One to Russia, giving Moscow control of 20% of U.S. uranium supply, despite a federal investigation that revealed Russian kickbacks and extortion. 
 
 “That’s the real collusion, believe me. There was no collusion on my side, I can tell you that,” Trump said. 
 
 According to the Washington Post, Marc E. Elias, an attorney representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained the D.C.-based firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research that resulted in the infamous and controversial Trump dossier. The dossier contained allegations that the Russian government had collected compromising information about Trump and that the Kremlin was engaged in an active effort to assist his presidential campaign. 
 
 The president noted that the push to connect his 2016 campaign to Russia has always been an excuse by the Democrats for losing the election. 
 
 “When you hear the kind of money they spent, and when you see all of the things about [Tony] Podesta and you see all the relationships that they actually have with Russia,” Trump said, referring to what he called Democratic efforts to link his campaign to Russia. 
 
 Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly investigating the Democratic lobbying group led by Tony Podesta, brother of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. 
 
 The president also continued to hedge on who might be the next Federal Reserve chair as the focus appears to be on Stanford University economics professor John Taylor and current Fed Governor Jerome Powell. 
 
 “I really have it down to two and maybe three people and I think over the next, very short period of time I will be announcing it. It won’t be a shock,” Trump said. 
 
 Trump expressed his admiration for current Fed Chair Janet Yellen but said the decision to select a new head of the central bank is something to which he would like to contribute. 
 
 “You like to make your own mark which is maybe one of the things she’s got a little bit against her, but I think she is terrific. We’ve had a great talk and we are obviously doing great together, you look at the markets,” Trump said. ||||| FILE - In this March 21, 2016, file photo, attorney Marc Elias, one of several lawyers who appeared in the in the case of Wittman v. Personhuballah, stands on the plaza of the Supreme Court in Washington.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this March 21, 2016, file photo, attorney Marc Elias, one of several lawyers who appeared in the in the case of Wittman v. Personhuballah, stands on the plaza of the Supreme Court in Washington. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund a political... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this March 21, 2016, file photo, attorney Marc Elias, one of several lawyers who appeared in the in the case of Wittman v. Personhuballah, stands on the plaza of the Supreme Court in Washington. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund a political... (Associated Press) FILE - In this March 21, 2016, file photo, attorney Marc Elias, one of several lawyers who appeared in the in the case of Wittman v. Personhuballah, stands on the plaza of the Supreme Court in Washington.... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund political research into President Donald Trump that ultimately produced a dossier of allegations about his ties to Russia, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday night. 
 
 The revelation is likely to fuel complaints by Trump that the dossier, which the president has derided as "phony stuff," is a politically motivated collection of salacious claims. Yet the FBI has worked to corroborate the document, and in a sign of its ongoing relevance to investigators, special counsel Robert Mueller's team — which is probing potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign — weeks ago questioned the former British spy, Christopher Steele, who helped compile the claims in the dossier. 
 
 The dossier, which circulated in Washington last year and was turned over to the FBI for its review, contends that Russia was engaged in a longstanding effort to aid Trump and had amassed compromising information about him. Trump has repeatedly dismissed the document as false and in recent days has questioned on Twitter whether Democrats or the FBI had helped fund it. 
 
 Trump has also attacked the findings of the FBI, NSA and CIA that Russia waged a large-scale influence campaign to interfere in the election. The FBI and the CIA have said with high confidence that the effort was aimed at hurting Clinton's candidacy and helping Trump. The NSA found the same with "moderate" confidence. 
 
 The person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential client matters, said the arrangement was brokered by Marc Elias, a lawyer for the campaign and the DNC, and his law firm of Perkins Coie. 
 
 The deal began in the spring of 2016, when the firm was approached by Fusion GPS, the political research firm behind the dossier, and lasted until right before Election Day, according to the person. When Fusion approached Elias, it had already been doing research work on Trump for a client during the GOP primary. The identity of the original client has not been revealed. 
 
 It's unclear what Fusion GPS had dug up by the time law firm hired them in April 2016. According to a copy of the dossier published by BuzzFeed this year, the earliest report from Steele dates to June 2016, two months later. It was not immediately known how much money Fusion received or how many others in the Clinton campaign or DNC were aware that the firm had been retained. 
 
 Elias did not immediately return an email seeking comment, and representatives of Fusion GPS declined to comment. The Washington Post first reported the arrangement. 
 
 Clinton campaign officials did not immediately comment, but in a statement, a DNC spokeswoman said chairman Tom Perez was not part of the decision-making and was unaware that Perkins Coie was working with Fusion GPS. 
 
 "But let's be clear, there is a serious federal investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, and the American public deserves to know what happened," the statement said. 
 
 Former Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said on Twitter that he regretted not knowing about Steele's hiring before the election, and that had he known, "I would have volunteered to go to Europe and try to help him." 
 
 "I have no idea what Fusion or Steele were paid," he wrote in another tweet, "but if even a shred of that dossier ends up helping Mueller, it will prove money well spent." 
 
 According to a letter obtained by the AP Tuesday night, representatives of Fusion GPS reached out to the firm in early March 2016 to express interest in continuing research on Trump it had begun "for one or more other clients during the Republican primary contest." 
 
 At that time, the Clinton campaign was looking toward the general election and was pivoting attention to Trump, the emerging Republican front-runner. The person said Trump, by virtue of his extensive international business dealings, was seen as a natural target for complicated opposition research abroad. 
 
 Perkins Coie then engaged Fusion GPS in April 2016 "to perform a variety of research services during the 2016 election cycle," according to the letter. 
 
 The dossier created a political firestorm in January when it was revealed that then-FBI Director James Comey had alerted Trump to the existence of allegations about him and Russia. Since then, Trump has repeatedly attacked the document and Republicans in Congress have worked to discredit it, even issuing a subpoena that seeks to force the disclosure of Fusion GPS's bank records. 
 
 The letter, sent Tuesday by the general counsel of Perkins Coie to a lawyer for Fusion GPS, was intended to release the research firm from its obligation to keep confidential the identity of the law firm client. 
 
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 Associated Press writers Chad Day and Ken Thomas contributed to this report. 
 
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 Read the letter: http://apne.ws/UK0Ojir ||||| The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended Friday that the Justice Department investigate for possible criminal charges the author of the now-famous dossier alleging the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin during the 2016 election. 
 
 The move by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) marks a major escalation in conservatives' challenges to the FBI's credibility as the agency investigates whether any Trump associates committed crimes. Another Republican, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), joined in the letter to the Justice Department. 
 
 Their letter makes what is called a criminal referral to the Justice Department, suggesting it investigate the dossier's author, former British spy Christopher Steele, for possibly lying to the FBI. It is a crime to lie to FBI agents about a material fact relevant to an ongoing investigation. 
 
 The letter says Steele may have lied to the FBI "regarding his distribution of information contained in the dossier." In response to a lawsuit filed in London, Steele has said he had off-the-record conversations with a handful of news organizations during that period, including The Washington Post. It was not immediately clear how conversations with reporters might be materially relevant to the investigation the FBI was conducting. 
 
 The move by Grassley and Graham was viewed skeptically by some Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, as well as experts in criminal law. 
 
 Steele's role has become a matter of increasingly heated debate, with the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill suggesting his reports were biased, since he was hired with money that ultimately came from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. 
 
 [Clinton campaign, DNC paid for research leading to Trump dossier] 
 
 Steele's allegations — in addition to other information, including intelligence intercepts and an Australian diplomat's account of a conversation with a Trump adviser in a London wine bar — prompted the FBI to open a counterintelligence investigation into Trump associates in July 2016, according to current and former officials. The Australian warning was first reported by the New York Times. 
 
 That investigation has since expanded into a special-counsel probe by Robert S. Mueller III, whose work has led to indictments of two former Trump campaign officials, as well as guilty pleas and cooperation deals from two others. As the Russia probe has heated up, some Republicans have amplified their attacks on Steele's dossier, contending it was a weapon in a political smear campaign they claim was aided by the FBI. 
 
 Steele did not respond to a request for comment. But a lawyer for the consulting firm that hired him, Fusion GPS, had a strong reaction. 
 
 "After a year of investigations into Donald Trump's ties to Russia, the only person Republicans seek to accuse of wrongdoing is one who reported on these matters to law enforcement in the first place," the lawyer, Joshua A. Levy, said in a statement. "Publicizing a criminal referral based on classified information raises serious questions about whether this letter is nothing more than another attempt to discredit government sources, in the midst of an ongoing criminal investigation. We should all be skeptical in the extreme." 
 
 A veteran prosecutor, Peter Zeidenberg, said he had never heard of anything like the Grassley-Graham complaint and labeled it "nonsense" designed to detract from ongoing inquiries into Russian interference in the 2016 election. 
 
 "The FBI doesn't need any prompting from politicians to prosecute people who have lied to them," said Zeidenberg, a federal prosecutor for 17 years. While members of Congress make criminal referrals from time to time, they are usually related to independent congressional investigations, not to material already known to the FBI. "They should stay in their lane," Zeidenberg said of the Grassley-Graham effort. 
 
 Another former federal prosecutor, Justin Dillon, said it was too early to assume the letter was simply a political attack. "Given that we don't know what the basis for the referral is, it seems premature to simply assume it was partisan," Dillon said. "I do find it hard to believe that Grassley and Graham would just make this up out of whole cloth." 
 
 Grassley said in a statement Friday, "If we see what appears to be credible evidence of a violation that should be further investigated based on information from any source, public or non-public, we are going to formally notify the department." 
 
 The top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), said she and other Democrats had not been consulted about the request for a criminal inquiry. 
 
 "This referral is unfortunate," Feinstein said in a statement. "It's clearly another effort to deflect attention from what should be the committee's top priority: determining whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the election and whether there was subsequent obstruction of justice." 
 
 One Republican aide familiar with Judiciary Committee operations said: "It's pretty clear that Grassley and Graham are interested in carrying water for the White House, but that is not reflective of the whole committee. There are members of Judiciary who are upset with Senator Grassley for carrying it so close to the vest." The aide asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. 
 
 Steele was a senior intelligence officer monitoring the Kremlin for Britain's intelligence service, MI6, before he left the agency and established a consulting firm, Orbis. In that role, he worked for a range of clients, including law firms and Fusion GPS. 
 
 The dossier is a compilation of reports he wrote for Fusion GPS between June and late October 2016, plus a final report in December, after the election. Among other things, the dossier alleged that the Russian government collected compromising information about Trump and that the Kremlin was engaged in an effort to assist his campaign for president. 
 
 U.S. intelligence agencies later released a public assessment asserting that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to aid Trump. The FBI has been investigating whether Trump associates helped the Russians in that effort. 
 
 Trump has vigorously denied the allegations in the dossier and has called the FBI probe a witch hunt.
– Funding for research included in the explosive dossier on President Trump's Russia connections came from none other than the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, per reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times. A letter filed in court Tuesday details how research firm Fusion GPS began working in April 2016 for a law firm employed by the Clinton campaign and the DNC to gather damaging information on Trump. According to the letter, Fusion GPS had already been doing research on Trump on behalf of one of the Republican's primary opponents before it was hired by Perkins Coie, the firm of Clinton campaign lawyer Mark Elias. Trump has long slammed the dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele as politically motivated "fake news." In a tweet last week, Trump wondered whether the FBI, the Democrats, Russia, or all three had funded it. He's now expected to repeat conspiracy allegations, though sources tell the Post and the Times that Clinton and DNC officials were unaware of the role of Fusion GPS. The AP reports the FBI has corroborated parts of the dossier, which alleges Russia worked to help the Trump campaign and amassed compromising information on him. Former Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted that if he'd known about Steele's role, he would "have volunteered to go to Europe and try to help him." He added that if the information compiled by Steele helps Robert Mueller's investigation, anything paid to him and Fusion GPS would be "money well spent."