think it was somewhere in the transition period.
MR. SCHIFF: I'm sorry, the -- oh, your transition period.
MR. SIMPSON: Yeah, between --
MR. SCHIFF: Well, the convention was in July, I believe.
MR. SIMPSON: The convention was in July, but Paul Manafort surfaced with the Trump campaign in like March.
MR. SCHIFF: So if you would go through with us some of the Russia-related things that concerned you that you learned in that first phase while you were doing work for the Free Beacon, as best you can recall.
MR. SIMPSON: Well, the Bayrock, the funding of Bayrock was, I think, much of what we initially were concerned about and focused on. The company seemed to have some sort of funding source from either Russia or the former Soviet Union that was opaque. So we spent a lot of time looking at the people around that and their backgrounds and why Mr. Trump would be in business with them. So that was one of the major issues.
Another one that I think surfaced in probably the early winter was the amazing number of people from the former Soviet Union who had purchased properties from Mr. Trump, including Dmitry Rybolovlev, who purchased a derelict estate at an extreme markup in Florida. And a number of other people bought into his properties.
We also looked at his trips and marketing activities in Russia. And I think all of that came up, you know, during the first phase of the project.
MR. SCHIFF: You mentioned that you'd done a lot of work as a journalist in terms of Russian organized crime, financial crimes, organized crime more generally. What can you tell us about how the Russians launder their money and
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
