When Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) had his turn to quiz former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III during a hearing Wednesday morning, he came armed with what he seemed to think was a smoking gun: that neither Glenn Simpson nor Fusion GPS were mentioned in the Mueller report. Most Americans no doubt shared Mueller’s apparent confusion about the line of questioning: He said he was not familiar with Fusion GPS, a private strategic intelligence firm, and that Simpson, the organization’s founder, was outside the scope of his investigation. Yet as the hearings wore on, Republican lawmakers returned again and again to Simpson and Fusion GPS, treating them like household names. And for conservatives on a steady diet of right-wing media, they are: the linchpins of a conspiratorial witch hunt to impeach President Trump.
Nicole Hemmer
