Page:Simpson-transcript-redacted.pdf/306

Glenn SimpsonPage 306 connections to the Trump organization and we did an open source investigation of him. We found a picture of him with Donald Trump and another real estate investor in Florida. We've discovered that's not his real name or at least not the name he came to the United States with and that before he became a real estate broker he was a linguist and translator. Speaking generally, people with advanced training in linguistics are oftentimes involved in intelligence matters, but I don't know whether he is or isn't. Various reporters became interested in him because he was boasting about his connections to the Trump organization in the Trump campaign. So we got lots of inquiries about who was he, was he a spy, you know, that sort of thing.

Q. And did you make a determination whether or not he had actual ties to the Trump campaign?

A. Well, some of the — yes. I mean, he was — I think he's Facebook friends with Michael Cohen. I'm sorry. It was some social media connection. It was either Twitter friends or Facebook friends. It was public information. We took it from that that they did know each other. I guess we gradually learned of Michael Cohen's role in the Trump campaign as opposed to in the Trump 1-800-FOR-DEPO