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Rh whether they've got a bad business history. And so, you know, you hire someone who specializes in that kind of work. So we specialize in finding records and reading things and digesting large volumes of information.

MR. GOWDY: If I understood your testimony correctly, you don't specialize in political opposition research?

MR. SIMPSON: It's not a major line of business for us. It's, you know, every couple of years, 3, 4, when there's a Presidential campaign we get asked to do stuff. We sometimes get asked to do stuff in California initiatives and other things.

Generally speaking, the market niche that we occupy is not the opposition research niche. I don't think our pricing structure is conducive to getting opposition research business, which is -- generally doesn't pay very well.

MR. GOWDY: Well, given that and given the fact that it's not your niche, why did the Washington Free Beacon approach you about doing the research on candidate Trump?

MR. SIMPSON: Well, one of our, you know, specialties that I think people know is that we are good at business investigations, corporate investigations, and Mr. Trump is a big businessman.

So I can't get into exactly sort of what was said, but -- and, in fact, I don't think I even remember, you know, if l had that kind of information. But I think it's reasonable to interpret that it was because we have a background doing business investigation.

MR. GOWDY: And how long were you employed by the Washington Free Beacon?

MR. SIMPSON: As I said, I think we started in September or October, and UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE