Crime in Progress

How do you investigate corruption when it crosses borders, merges politics with intelligence, and threatens democracy itself? In Crime in Progress, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch—the founders of Fusion GPS—recount their investigation into Donald Trump’s business and political ties, explaining how their work evolved from opposition research into a far-reaching probe of Russian influence, foreign money, and institutional weakness.

The book argues that serious investigative work must marry document-based journalism with human intelligence (Humint), balancing verification with source protection. What began in 2015 as routine political vetting for a conservative client became, by mid‑2016, an alarm bell about foreign interference in U.S. democracy. Fusion’s methodical data gathering and Christopher Steele’s MI6-sourced intelligence aligned—sufficiently enough—to alert law enforcement and later shape public understanding of the Trump‑Russia nexus.

From Public Records to National Security

Fusion GPS treated Trump not as a political icon but as a business system riddled with litigation, licensing deals, and opaque financing. Through Project Bangor, they built a digital archive spanning decades of lawsuits and filings. Patterns emerged: shell corporations recurring across failed ventures, foreign buyers overpaying for real estate, and Deutsche Bank repeating as lender of last resort. When Felix Sater and Bayrock surfaced in the Trump SoHo development, Fusion’s researchers spotted Russian capital threads running through multiple projects. This transition—from domestic business probe to international money network—defined the book’s early momentum.

(Note: This archival method parallels historical investigative models like I.F. Stone’s document-driven work and overlaps with modern open-source intelligence frameworks used by groups such as Bellingcat.)

The Steele Memos and Human Intelligence

Into this structured records environment entered Christopher Steele, a former MI6 Russia expert. His short-term 2016 assignment—interviewing Kremlin-connected contacts—produced field reports that alleged coordination between Trump associates and Russian operatives. Steele’s method emphasized access and discretion: every memo traced the chain of source attribution but carried inherent uncertainty. Fusion viewed these reports as leads to test, not conclusions to print. The contrast between open-source verification and confidential human insight became the book’s defining tension.

Escalation: Leaks and Media Exposure

The dossier’s leak in January 2017 exposed this delicate balance. CNN’s disclosure that intelligence chiefs briefed Obama and Trump triggered BuzzFeed’s decision to publish Steele’s memos in full—unredacted. The fallout was enormous: source safety compromised, Fusion and Steele vilified, and partisan warfare ignited. Journalistic ethics clashed with the dangers of raw intelligence publication, showing how transparency can imperil investigations. Within hours of the leak, both Fusion and Orbis scrambled for legal counsel and personal security.

Institutional Inquiry and Political Backlash

Those leaks fed directly into the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, alongside separate triggers (Papadopoulos’s comments to an Australian diplomat, the DNC hack). But as the inquiry widened, congressional committees—led by Chuck Grassley and Devin Nunes—turned their focus on Fusion GPS itself, using subpoenas and leaks to frame the research as partisan disinformation. The narrative that began as a counterintelligence alarm became ammunition in political theater, illustrating how congressional oversight can act as both protector and destroyer of truth.

From Survival to Public Mission

Facing lawsuits and security threats, Fusion shifted strategy. With help from investigator Daniel Jones, they established The Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP)—a nonprofit designed to continue investigations into foreign interference under a public-interest framework. TDIP allowed Fusion and Steele to pursue global influence research, from European elections to Brexit networks, without the optics of partisan contracting. The firm’s work ultimately influenced parts of Mueller’s probe and several media investigations.

The Book’s Core Argument

Simpson and Fritsch’s thesis is that investigative truth depends on records, corroboration, and protection—but loses power when filtered through political polarization. Whether tracking Manafort’s Cyprus companies or Cohen’s Moscow communications, they show that following the money reveals foreign leverage but that media exposure and congressional warfare can obscure, not clarify, the stakes. The book chronicles how legal attrition, leaks, and partisan distortion transformed a sober inquiry into a survival saga.

Core takeaway

Investigating power demands patience and protection: public records establish patterns; human sources reveal motives; and institutional alliances decide whether truth survives exposure. Crime in Progress teaches you that democracy depends not only on facts uncovered but also on how those facts are handled once politics enters the frame.

Project Bangor was the foundation of Fusion GPS’s investigative architecture. It began with one guiding hypothesis: Donald Trump’s business career, viewed through public records, could reveal patterns of risk and deception overlooked by traditional political coverage. You follow how Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch turned that idea into a fully searchable corporate and legal archive.

A Method for Investigative Precision

Fusion built a modular team—with specialists in state and federal court records, corporate filings, campaign finance disclosures, and international sources. They digitized out-of-print books like Wayne Barrett’s biography of Trump, OCR-scanned filings, and tagged each entry to names, partners, and outcomes. The result: a relational database that made it possible to see systemic behaviors rather than isolated scandals.

For example, Jacob Berkowitz tracked recurring litigation patterns where investors accused the Trump Organization of fraud after high-profile projects failed. That repetition led Fusion to theorize a business model built on publicity, licensing, and exit-through-litigation—a hypothesis testable across dozens of lawsuits.

Findings That Illuminated Hidden Networks

Project Bangor’s document mining exposed Trump’s close financial dependency on Deutsche Bank (repeated lender of last resort), his use of limited equity stakes, and the presence of shell partners like Felix Sater and the Bayrock Group. The infamous Rybolovlev Palm Beach sale (a $95‑million transaction in 2008) became a prism through which Fusion interpreted foreign overpayment as potential financial rescue. These records showed how cash flows from politically connected Russian and Eurasian investors intersected with Trump’s liquidity crises.

Turning Data into Briefing Tools

The team didn’t just amass data—they systematized it for distribution. Fusion created a 105‑page master summary and specialized reports, including a fifteen‑page memo on Russian financial patterns dubbed the “tour de sleaze.” These documents allowed journalists, lawyers, and political clients to act on the research without needing technical training, institutionalizing transparency within proprietary investigation.

Lesson in investigative design

A deep archive transforms suspicion into verifiable pattern. Fusion’s Project Bangor proves that systematic public‑records work—not leaks or tips—is the backbone of credible modern investigation.

Christopher Steele brought the human intelligence dimension that transformed Fusion’s documentary work. A former MI6 officer, Steele conducted interviews through his Kremlin‑adjacent network and condensed findings into the “Company Intelligence Reports.” His background—running MI6’s Russia desk—gave him both reach and credibility but also deep concern for source safety.

Tradecraft and Source Handling

Steele’s system was built around compartmentalization. Every claim came from sources coded A through G, each with specific access. The Ritz‑Carlton story (the infamous alleged kompromat episode) exemplified this approach—multiple intermediaries reported fragments, which Steele contextualized amid broader claims about cultivation of Trump by Russian intelligence.

He viewed himself not as a political operative but as a professional collector responsible for warning authorities when his network indicated a possible threat to national security. That sense of duty explains his decision to brief the FBI’s Michael Gaeta in London and later supply subsequent memos via Rome meetings.

Fusion and Steele: Complementary but Distinct

While Fusion focused on verifiable records, Steele operated in the gray zone of human‑source reporting. Fusion acted as a testing mechanism: they could crossmatch names, timelines, and financial flows against Steele’s field notes. Together, they embodied two investigative pillars—open‑source documentation and classified‑style humint—which, when responsible skepticism is applied, create mutual reinforcement.

Danger and Fallout

When the memos leaked, Steele’s operational world collapsed. The publication of unredacted documents exposed potential informants, leading him temporarily into hiding. The breach illuminated a major ethical tension: public interest versus source protection. Simpson and Fritsch’s panic mirrored that of many former intelligence operatives—publication can kill.

Investigative insight

Human intelligence provides direction but requires rigorous corroboration. Treating it like fact without contextual crosschecking undermines both the safety of sources and the integrity of the findings.

The book’s most detailed chapters teach you how to trace money through offshore labyrinths. Fusion’s team followed Paul Manafort’s and Trump’s intertwined financial networks, revealing how small filings can unravel international laundering schemes. Patient pursuit—not leaks—negotiated the bridge between journalism and law enforcement.

Manafort and Deripaska

Paul Manafort’s consulting for Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska laid a financial foundation for Fusion’s inquiries. When Manafort joined Trump’s campaign, Fusion’s analysts recognized a vulnerability: a man indebted to Kremlin‑linked figures now held strategic political power. The “Surf Horizon” litigation, citing missing $18.9 million in Deripaska investments, illustrated how offshore structures mask leverage.

The Cyprus Trail

Through local partners, Fusion traced twenty‑seven companies tied to Manafort—entities across Cyprus, Delaware, Gibraltar, and Caribbean havens. Records showed Jesand LLC receiving over $10 million funneled from oligarch networks, used to buy U.S. real estate without repayments. These data points later became prosecutorial leads in Mueller’s indictments. A spreadsheet of transactions served as the blueprint connecting investigative research to formal criminal evidence.

Cohen’s Financial and Legal Exposure

Fusion also traced Michael Cohen’s payments and business communications, from efforts to secure Trump Tower Moscow to hush payments to Stormy Daniels. Steele’s Prague allegation remained contested, but the Moscow project documentation confirmed the central thesis: Trump’s orbit maintained active business ties with Russian interests during the campaign, contradicting public denials.

Key takeaway

Tracing offshore money requires persistence, local allies, and triangulation. Every seemingly minor corporate record can reveal the mechanisms of influence—turning investigative journalism into forensic evidence.

Behind the research stood the shifting politics of who paid for it. Fusion’s work began under a conservative outlet, The Washington Free Beacon, and later continued under Democratic counsel Marc Elias at Perkins Coie. That change of client altered expectations for confidentiality and political optics, a turning point in how opponents framed the firm.

Navigating Privilege and Disclosure

Elias structured Fusion’s engagement beneath attorney‑client privilege, hoping to conceal sensitive investigation from campaign politics. Yet Fusion withheld one major fact: their hiring of Christopher Steele. They feared politicizing an intelligence operation. This tactical opacity later fueled conspiracy narratives that the dossier was a “Clinton product,” an oversimplification the authors rebut: Steele never knew the end client, and Fusion divided work for operational safety.

Ethical and Legal Dilemmas

Constructing privilege inside political investigation created conflicting objectives—lawyers desired deniability, investigators pursued exposure, and the public ultimately needed facts. When the FBI’s engagement became public, Fusion faced an impossible balance: protect sources, honor client privilege, and manage political blowback. Their later formation of TDIP illustrated how investigative ethics shift when survival eclipses partisanship.

Lesson in accountability

Investigators must design clear ethical boundaries early—who owns the data, who can disclose it, and what happens when intelligence implicates national security. Ambiguity invites exploitation.

After the dossier’s publication, Fusion GPS and Orbis entered a new phase defined by retaliation, security risks, and financial strain. Their story evolved from investigation into defense—showing how fact‑finding under political hostility can endanger livelihoods and lives.

Security and Threat Response

Steele went into hiding; Fusion’s offices faced infiltration attempts and harassment. Conspiracy theories fueled threats, while the incoming administration signaled intent to discredit them. Glenn Simpson hired defense attorney Bill Taylor and implemented digital and physical security protocols—proof that political investigations become personal security operations when adversaries hold state power.

Legal Attrition

Defamation suits from Alfa Bank oligarchs and Michael Cohen drained resources. Fusion’s expense of nearly $2 million on legal fees illustrated attritional warfare through litigation. At the same time Congress subpoenaed account records (notably Nunes’s TD Bank demand), compounding pressure. Fusion’s creation of TDIP and emergency funding of Orbis’s legal defense were survival maneuvers, not expansion strategies.

Redefining Purpose After Mueller

Mueller’s investigation validated many leads but did not deliver systemic resolution. The authors argue that Barr’s summary distorted the results, allowing lingering doubts to persist. Ultimately, the episode taught them what ongoing democracy defense requires: continued research divorced from campaign cycles and insulated from partisan vulnerability.

Final reflection

Investigating power is inseparable from confronting power. Security, law, and truth all intertwine—and survival itself becomes part of the job description for those who follow the money toward its political source.