MR. LEVY: I am not the witness, but generally speaking it's not good to speculate.
MR. SIMPSON: I think what I would like to say, to be clear to everybody, is that we treated this information with a great deal of care. And we did that for a lot of different reasons, but among other things, because we thought this was a real national security issue, and because we thought that if it was just put out there in the way it was put out that people could get hurt and that people literally risked their lives to tell us some of this stuff, and that there was a lot of security issues around it. So I was very upset when it was published.
BY :
Q Prior to the publication on January 10th, how many journalists would you estimate that you talked to either with Mr. Steele or separately related to this information?
A I mean again I would be guessing.
Q In this case I am asking for an estimate based on your best recollection.
A I am not going to guess, but I will say that again, the depiction of this document as having been peddled around town, it wasn't peddled around town by me. And if someone was peddling it, it was without my knowledge and against my wishes. And to the extent that we discussed some of the information in the dossier, I would say it was, you know, a relatively small number of reporters.
Q Would you estimate it as more or less than 10?
A I mean it's really hard for me to guess, but you know, it's a low number like that.
Q You mentioned that you felt this information had sort of national
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
