WASHINGTON — California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein told The Daily Caller that Fusion GPS lawyers asked her to release company co-founder Glenn Simpson’s testimony transcript.
She released the testimony Tuesday before consulting with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, which she told TheDC she regrets. Feinstein is the top Democrat on the committee.
“We were written to by the lawyers of the company asking that it be released, and the reason, of course, is because it has been used by rumor and innuendo and falsity so much that the time came for people to see exactly what was said,” Feinstein said.
She said Wednesday that she felt “pressured” to release the transcript, though she later denied saying that.
FEINSTEIN says she’s sorry to Grassley for not giving him a headsup about the release of the Fusion GPS transcript. “I meant to tell him, and I didn’t have a chance to tell him, and that concerns me,” she told us. “I just got pressured, and I didn’t do it.”
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“The one thing I regret is that I didn’t have a chance to talk to him before,” she told TheDC, when asked about Grassley. “I’ve looked for him. I want to apologize for that. And I will apologize for it.”
She continued, “And I think in these hearings more should be released than held back, because when you hold something back it gives all of the people who have an axe to grind an opportunity to grind that axe to a fine edge, and they do. But if the facts are out, then that isn’t a problem.”
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Feinstein would not say if she thinks Fusion GPS’s bank records should be released.
“The concern I have is you want other people to voluntarily comply, it’ll make them nervous,” Grassley told reporters Wednesday in response to Feinstein’s actions. “And the other thing —
they’re giving everybody we want to talk to, they know what the questions are going to be.”