Page:Simpson-transcript-redacted.pdf/171

Glenn SimpsonPage 171 really front and center now in the election. I can't remember whether the intelligence community had come out with their statement, but, you know, there was a lot of concern in Washington and in the U.S. about whether there was a Kremlin operation to interfere with our election and there was a lot of debate throughout this period about whether they were trying to help Trump or just trying to cause trouble. But there wasn't much debate that they were up to something.

So, you know, I'm dealing with Chris on the underlying reporting and by this time my concern, you know, was — I was very concerned because Chris had delivered a lot of information and by this time we had, you know, stood up a good bit of it. Various things he had written about in his memos corresponded quite closely with other events and I began, you know, to view his reporting in this case as, you know, really serious and really credible.

So anyway, we were working on all of that and then he said, hey, I heard back from the FBI and they want me to come talk to them and they said they want everything I have, to which I said okay. He said he had to go to Rome, I said okay. He went to Rome. Then afterwards he came back and said, 1-800-FOR-DEPO