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Rh and large law firms. And most of our work is not election-related, it has to do with fraud and corruption investigations and policy disputes and high-dollar litigation.

MR. GOWDY: Were you hired by a person or entity in either 2015 or 2016 to do research into then-candidate Donald Trump?

MR. SIMPSON: Yes, we were. We were hired around October, September-October of 2015.

MR. GOWDY: By whom?

MR. SIMPSON: The Free Beacon has been publicly stated as the client or identified to the committee as the client, and I can confirm that.

MR. GOWDY: All right. I'm going to be asking you questions even though there's been public reporting. I don't want anybody in the media to take any offense, but sometimes they're right, sometimes they're not right. So --

MR. SIMPSON: I can agree with that.

MR. GOWDY: So in this instance, we can all celebrate the fact that they were correct. You were hired by the Washington Free Beacon?

MR. SIMPSON: That was the client, yes.

MR. GOWDY: All right. And what were your instructions? What were you asked to do?

MR. SIMPSON: I -- that's I think covered -- our client relationships are confidential, and so I can't get into what anyone specifically told me. I think I can speak more broadly and say that it was an open-ended look at Donald Trump's business career and his litigation history and his relationships with questionable people, how much he was really worth, how he ran his casinos, what kind of performance he had in other lines of work.

It was a very broad unfocused look, which is the way we do our business. UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE