The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website bankrolled by hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer, who supported Marco Rubio in the Republican primary last year, originally funded the Steele Dossier The New York Times reports:
“WASHINGTON — The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, initially retained the firm that conducted opposition research on Donald J. Trump — including a salacious dossier that described numerous ties between Mr. Trump and the Russian government — representatives from the website told the House Intelligence Committee on Friday afternoon.
According to people briefed on the conversation, the website hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in October 2015 to unearth damaging information about several Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. Trump. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination.
Mr. Singer initially supported Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. But after Mr. Rubio dropped out of the race, Mr. Singer spearheaded an effort to block Mr. Trump from winning the presidential nomination, drawing Mr. Trump’s ire.”
The WFB and their reporter, Lachlan Markay, were also responsible, in 2014, for posting on the web the previously undisclosed audio of HRC discussing her handling of a child rape case in Arkansas in 1975, as well as dirt on former Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor…
“In May 2014, reporter Lachlan Markay obtained a secret list of donors’ pledges to the progressive Democracy Alliance—something akin to getting the Koch brothers’ political ledgers. A month later, Goodman posted previously unreleased audio of Hillary Clinton candidly discussing her vigorous defense, as a young court-appointed attorney, of an accused child rapist. In October, she uncovered Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor’s college thesis, in which he described school desegregation as a “figurative invasion.” Two weeks later, the Democrat lost his reelection race. Like the Southern Avenger expose, each of these stories was picked up by the mainstream media, a rare accomplishment for a conservative outlet. Taken together, the stories suggest that the Beacon may be poised to break out of the agitprop model of much conservative media to become a real player in hardcore news reporting.”
...making them equal opportunity oppo-research dishers I suppose.