Page:Simpson-transcript-redacted.pdf/86

Glenn SimpsonPage 86 instructions. We spoke on the phone about various areas of interest. For example, when Paul Manafort was elevated to running the campaign, we talked about Paul Manafort and his long history of dealings with Russian oligarchs. So it's more of a collaboration than, you know, sort of manager-employee kind of relationship. You know, we would talk about things that were interesting to us and that seemed to be — you know, needed to be (indecipherable).

Q. So is it fair to describe it as you would collaboratively discuss potential topics to explore?

A. Yes, I think that's fair.

Q. And did you conduct any of the actual research yourself?

A. Well, I think it's important to understand we were doing in my company, you know, all kinds of research, including lots of Russia research, and part of what you do when you get information from someone outside the company who's specifically looking at a discrete set of questions or issues is you add it to the stuff you've already gathered. So we did all kinds of stuff on public information about Donald Trump's business trips to Russia and 1-800-FOR-DEPO