Alabama evangelical Christians who supported Mr. Moore over appointed Sen. Luther Strange in the GOP primary should know that they have now made a conservative Supreme Court nominee less likely if Justice Anthony Kennedy retires in 2018. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins will hold the balance of judicial confirmation power, and watch the media lobby them in waves.
.. The Alabama result shows that Mr. Bannon cares less about conservative policy victories than he does personal king-making. He wants to depose Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader even if it costs Republicans Senate control. GOP voters, take note: Mr. Bannon is for losers.
A Harvey Weinstein Operative Played Another Role
Woman said to work undercover for the film mogul identified as also having dogged an insurer’s critic
“Diana Filip,” Israeli undercover operative, meet “Diana Ilic.”A private investigator reported to be working undercover on behalf of film mogul Harvey Weinstein was identified by two people as the same woman that The Wall Street Journal reported over the summer had used a different alias to wring information out of a critic of a large U.S. insurer.
The woman in the Journal article had given her name as “Diana Ilic.” The New Yorker, in an article published Monday about Mr. Weinstein’s use of private investigators to counter probes into his alleged sexual abuse, named “Diana Filip” as a pseudonym used by an operative for Black Cube, an Israeli investigative firm... The email address “Diana Ilic” used with Mr. Irons linked to a domain name established a few days before the meeting. The London address for her consulting firm turned out to be a mailbox drop.
Russia Probe Puts Focus on Washington Research Firm
Fusion GPS settles with a House committee over subpoena for it to reveal its records
Before its emergence on the national stage, Fusion GPS was a low-profile firm made up of several ex-Wall Street Journal reporters.
The firm’s co-founder, Glenn Simpson, was a veteran investigative reporter who left the paper in 2009—citing declining support of investigative reporting by the newspaper industry.
One day after quitting the Journal, Mr. Simpson spoke at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, describing his post-journalism career as an effort “to try and see if we can’t pioneer yet another new model to keep investigations going, keep doing things in the public interest.” Mr. Simpson said he hoped that people in the business world who saw corruption would come forward and be sources for his research.
Mr. Simpson formed a short-lived company called SNS Global LLC. In late 2010, Mr. Simpson founded a new firm called Fusion GPS with Peter Fritsch, a Wall Street Journal alumnus.
.. “It’s funny because this is probably a bit of what most folks think opposition research entails, but it’s really nothing like the kind of research typically employed on political campaigns these days,” said Mike Phillips, a former Democratic opposition researcher who now runs a company called Vigilant that provides political research and intelligence tools. “Opposition research is typically about combing through public records and identifying and vetting key issues, not hiring James Bond to poke around in Eastern Europe.”
Clinton Campaign and Democratic Party Helped Pay for Russia Trump Dossier
Fusion GPS began working for the law firm, Perkins Coie, in April 2016. Written by the firm’s managing partner Matthew J. Gehringer, the letter said that Fusion GPS had already been conducting the research “for one or more other clients during the Republican primary contest.”
.. Fusion GPS was started by three former Wall Street Journal employees.