>A lawyer for the Democrat-connected law firm that commissioned an investigation into President Donald Trump’s links to Russia passed information to the FBI’s top attorney in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election
>James Baker, who served as FBI’s general counsel until he resigned in May, testified to Congress on Wednesday that Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for the firm Perkins Coie, provided documents and electronic media related to Russian meddling in the election
>Perkins Coie is the firm that hired opposition researcher Fusion GPS to investigate Trump. The result of the contract was the infamous but unverified Steele dossier alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government
>Sources familiar with Baker’s testimony to the House Judiciary and House Oversight & Government Reform Committees tell The Daily Caller News Foundation that he said Sussmann approached him for the meeting, which occurred in late summer or early fall 2016. (RELATED: Top FBI Attorney Provided ‘Explosive’ Testimony Regarding Trump-Russia Probe
>The meeting took place before the FBI submitted an application for its first FISA warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. That warrant application, which was granted on Oct. 21, 2016, relied heavily on unverified allegations made in the report authored by former British spy Christopher Steele
>Steele had been hired by Fusion GPS in June 2016 to investigate Trump
>It is unclear exactly what information Sussmann, a former Justice Department prosecutor, provided to Baker and whether any of it related to the dossier. Sources tell TheDCNF that Baker testified that he did not read through the documents. He also testified that the meeting was atypical
>Sussmann, a former cybercrimes prosecutor, led the DNC’s effort to respond to Russian cyber attacks during the 2016 campaign. Sussmann helped hire CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that identified Russia as being behind the intrusion