Page:House-Intel-Glenn-Simpson-Transcript.pdf/30

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UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
30

And I couldn't find anything that was clearly made up. They had accurate names and events that, while not totally secret, were pretty obscure that turned out to be on target.

We -- you know, they identified -- one memo identified a Russian guy who worked for an NGO called Rossotrudnichestvo, which is -- you know, I didn't know it at the time, but I was able to learn from looking at it that the FBI considers that to be a front for the SVR. So, you know, either the people were extremely knowledgeable about a lot of obscure intelligence stuff or, you know, they -- what they're saying had some credibility.

I'll add that, you know, again, like journalism, British Intelligence methodology is a kind of strict recitation of what sources are saying. And so, you know, I didn't do this -- I've never done this much work with Chris, but in the process of doing this work, you know, I learned a good bit about British Intelligence methodology.

And in a way, it is like journalism, because they are somewhat rigid in reporting what sources in the field are saying, and, you know, they -- they don't do a lot of the -- this is what this guy said, but we don't think it's true or we believe this or we believe that he might have gotten the data wrong. They just -- it's a kind of a here's what they said type report.

So, again, what we were trying to do is evaluate whether the information was credible. Chris is the spy. I'm the ex-journalist, so I defer a lot to his professionalism. From everything I know now and knew at the time, he's an extremely well-regarded professional. And I had no reason -- I have no reason today to change my opinion.

MR. STEWART: Time is up.

UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE