Conservative 'Washington Free Beacon' commissioned and funded first half of salacious dossier

Conservative news site "Washington Free Beacon" told the House Intelligence Committee Friday that they were behind the commissioning and funding of the anti-Donald Trump dossier by Chris Steele.

The New York Times cited the Free Beacon as having funded the project with Fusion GPS in the fall of 2015 as Trump was beginning his campaign. The funding of it lasted until Spring 2016, when it became obvious Trump was the GOP nominee. At that point, it was picked up by the Democratic National Committee.

The arrangement between the two companies went into researching many GOP candidates as part of news stories. Sources claimed that at the time Russia was not a focus of the dossier.

and focus on the fact that the dossier was funded for several months by Democrats.

The Free Beacon is funded primarily by billionaire Paul Singer, who runs a New York hedge fund. However, an associate of Singer's said that he was not aware that Steele was involved in the dossier until January 2017, when the dossier was made public.

Singer supported Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) until he dropped out. After that, Singer became a leading funder of the "Never Trump" efforts to block him from the GOP nomination.