What evidence links Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign or DNC to Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele?
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Executive summary
Clear, documentable links tie the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee to Fusion GPS: campaign counsel Marc Elias of Perkins Coie retained Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research, Fusion GPS in turn subcontracted Christopher Steele, and payments flowed through Perkins Coie — a chain reported by major outlets and memorialized in an FEC settlement [1] [2] [3] [4]. At the same time, many substantive allegations in Steele’s memos remained unverified and were later discredited in parts, and Fusion GPS, Steele and Perkins Coie have denied wrongdoing even as the campaign and DNC accepted a civil FEC penalty for disclosure errors [3] [2].
1. The paper trail: Perkins Coie retained Fusion GPS on behalf of Clinton campaign and DNC
Contemporaneous reporting established that Marc Elias, a lawyer for the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS in April 2016 to continue opposition research on Donald Trump — a client relationship first reported by The Washington Post and subsequently echoed across outlets [1] [5] [6]. Multiple news organizations reported that payments from the campaign and DNC flowed to Perkins Coie and from there to Fusion GPS, creating a traceable conduit linking the political clients to the research firm [3] [4] [5].
2. Subcontracting Steele: Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele to produce the memos
Once hired by Fusion GPS, the firm engaged Orbis Business Intelligence and its principal, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, to investigate alleged ties between Trump and Russia; Steele then produced a series of memos — the document later called the Steele dossier — which Fusion GPS provided to Elias and others [7] [8] [1]. Major outlets reported that Steele’s reporting began in June 2016 after Fusion GPS was working for Perkins Coie on behalf of its political clients [7] [1].
3. Financial confirmations and regulatory follow‑up: FEC settlement and fines
In 2022 the Federal Election Commission closed an inquiry by securing a conciliation that required the Clinton campaign and the DNC to pay civil penalties totaling roughly $113,000 for misreporting payments tied to the research — acknowledging that the campaign and DNC paid a law firm which then hired Fusion GPS, though the campaign did not admit legal wrongdoing [2] [3] [4]. Media summaries and the AP emphasized that more than $1 million moved from the Clinton campaign and DNC to Perkins Coie and then to Fusion GPS for opposition research, a flow that drew sustained scrutiny [3] [4].
4. What the reporting shows — and what it does not
Reporting across outlets is consistent on the key transactional facts: Perkins Coie was paid by the campaign and DNC, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, and Fusion GPS hired Steele, who authored the memos [1] [5] [9]. What the sources do not establish — and therefore cannot be asserted here — is that the campaign directed Steele’s specific allegations or that the Clinton campaign validated the dossier’s most sensational claims; multiple fact‑checking and investigative reports later found many of Steele’s central allegations unverified or discredited [3] [8].
5. Competing narratives, denials and contested conclusions
Fusion GPS, Steele and Perkins Coie have denied unlawful conduct, and the FEC dismissed related complaints against individual contractors while only fining the campaign and DNC for disclosure reporting issues; meanwhile conservative outlets and critics have portrayed the dossier and its funding as evidence of a political “dirty trick,” while mainstream outlets framed the funding trail as ordinary opposition research with problematic reporting consequences [3] [4] [10] [11]. Investigations and lawsuits since 2016 have produced mixed findings: some sources and legal actions faulted the dossier’s reliability and parts of the investigative chain, while other official reviews did not conclude that the campaign committed prosecutable offenses beyond reporting violations [3] [7].
6. Bottom line and unresolved gaps
The provable evidence is transactional and documentary: Marc Elias’s Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS using campaign and DNC funds, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, and Steele produced the memos now known as the Steele dossier — facts reported by The Washington Post, AP, CNN, BBC and summarized in FEC action [1] [2] [3] [9]. What remains debated and outside the settled documentary record is the accuracy of Steele’s allegations and the degree to which the campaign knew or approved each substantive claim in the memos; those substantive judgments rely on separate investigative findings and source assessments, not on the clear payment and hiring trail captured in the reporting [8] [3].