Nigel Farage handed WikiLeaks' Julian Assange 'a thumb drive' of data during secret meeting: Fusion GPS founder

Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and vocal supporter of Donald Trump, held a secret meeting with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London—and handed the WikiLeaks founder “a thumb drive” of data, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson told Congress.

Simpson, whose company compiled the salacious Trump-Russia dossier alleging collusion between the president and officials linked with the Kremlin, said—under oath—that a source told him Farage handed over a cache of data to the WikiLeaks founder. Simpson also suggested the former UKIP leader visited Assange on more than one occasion, despite a spokesman insisting the pair only met once in March 2017.

“I’ve been told and have not confirmed that Nigel Farage had additional trips to the Ecuadoran [sic] Embassy than the one that’s been in the papers and that he provided data to Julian Assange,” Simpson told the House Intelligence Committee, according to a transcript released Thursday.

Assange’s WikiLeaks played a pivotal role in the 2016 presidential election, selectively releasing damaging emails from people close to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and the DNC in the lead-up to the election. Assange has denied that WikiLeaks was working as an agent of the Russia government, but US intelligence officials are investigating the degree to which the self-described transparency organization worked with the Kremlin.

As the Sun reports, Simpson told House intel members that WikiLeaks is the middle man to a "somewhat unacknowledged relationship" between Trump and the UKIP party.

"And so I have formed my own opinions that there was a somewhat unacknowledged relationship between the Trump people and the UKIP people and that the path to WikiLeaks ran through that,” Simpson said. “And I still think that today."