The publication of the infamous dossier resulted in the death of at least one person, a lawyer for opposition research firm Fusion GPS told a Senate committee last year.
The comment, from Fusion GPS lawyer Joshua Levy, was made during an Aug. 22 Senate Judiciary Committee interview with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson.
A transcript of that interview that was released by committee Democrats on Tuesday shows that Levy instructed Simpson to avoid discussing sources for the dossier because an unidentified person had already been killed over the salacious document.
“It’s a voluntary interview, and in addition to that he wants to be very careful to protect his sources. Somebody’s already been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier and no harm should come to anybody related to this honest work,” Levy told Jason Foster, an investigator for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
Foster had asked Simpson what steps he took to assess the credibility of sources used in the dossier, which was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
Fusion GPS hired Steele in Spring 2016 to investigate Donald Trump’s business activities in Russia. Fusion was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.