(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) One of the Wall Street Journal reporters behind the disputed story linking President Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein has ties to Fusion GPS, the firm behind the debunked Steele Dossier.
Joe Palazzolo, a self-described “Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter,” previously worked for a news site run by Mary Jacoby, the wife of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson.
Fusion GPS has been under scrutiny for years for creating the Clinton-funded Steele Dossier, which the DOJ used to thwart the first Trump administration.
Palazzolo left MainJustice.com in 2010 to join the Journal.
EXPOSED: The Wall Street Journal’s latest “bombshell” about a Trump-Epstein birthday letter is deeply connected to the discredited Russiagate hoax and Steele Dossier.
Investigative journalist Susan Crabtree reveals that reporter Joe Palazzolo previously worked for Main Justice,… pic.twitter.com/bSvoff63qW
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 18, 2025
Palazzolo and the Journal have faced scathing backlash for publishing a Thursday article claiming, with dubious evidence, that Trump once wrote a “bawdy” letter to Epstein in 2003.
“The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album,” Palazzolo wrote. “It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker.”
Trump swiftly denied ever writing the letter. This did not stop the Journal from running the story anyway, without publishing the letter or even allowing Trump to review it.
Trump is now suing over the matter.
RealClearPolitics correspondent Susan Crabtree first flagged the Fusion GPS link on X.
“Glenn Simpson’s wife started Main Justice and hired Joe Palazzolo. Why is this important? So many of the players in the Russiagate story have connections here. We need to fully disclose all these swampy connections,” Crabtree said Friday in an interview on the Benny Show podcast.
“When the Steele Dossier came out, the reporters it was going to all had connections to Glenn Simpson. There’s a family of reporters, all connected through their wives. I know how this swampy thing goes,” she added.
