dollars with the apparent assistance of Sechin and Sechin's people. And subsequently, received a report from a Russian emigre who is familiar with these events that that was -- there were political or corruption aspects to that.
So, as my understanding of what I think has been happening developed, I began to think, again, about all of this, and I am now very suspicious that he was deliberately overpaying. And, I mean, what we have seen over the last couple of years that, as sort of cynical and conspiracy minded as I am, I am still shocked by all kinds of things that have happened here, including the Trump Tower meeting. And what we have seen is that a number of oligarchs have left Russia in recent years who seem to still be doing the bidding of the Kremlin. And to some extent, they like to have an image as someone who is on the outs with the Kremlin, but when you look closely, they are not. And you know, when we looked at Rybolovlev's plane travel, you could see that he was going to Moscow all the time, and that all his legal problems went away, and that there was questions about whether he really did get ripped off in these art deals or whether he just said he got ripped off as a way of accounting for all the money that's missing. So I am now of the view that that transaction is suspicious.
MS. SPEIER: And the additional $50-plus million that Donald Trump received was for what purpose?
MR. SIMPSON: I don't know. I mean -- you mean the profit from that?
MS. SPEIER: Right.
MR. SIMPSON: Trump just claimed it was one of his great business deals. He just claimed he talked him into paying double, which was odd, because the market was going south at that point.
MS. SPEIER: You indicated that beyond the dossier and the Christopher
UNCLASSIFIED, COMMITTEE SENSITIVE
