President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign paid private investigators more than $5,000 in December to conduct “research consulting,” according to a new financial filing. The payment went to Confidential Global Investigations, a sleek corporate investigations company that reportedly employs former agents of intelligence services around the world, including Russia’s KGB and Israel’s Mossad. According to its website, CGI’s services range from individual background checks to “surveillance, covert intelligence gathering, and deep web due diligence.” Robert Seiden, a former Manhattan prosecutor who founded the company, specializes in tracking down foreign, particularly Chinese, executives of companies that have allegedly defrauded American investors. “CGI’s team,” its website boasts, “includes the former head of INTERPOL, the former deputy head of New York State Homeland Security, staff of the NYPD counter-terrorism team, former FBI, CIA, and IRS agents as well as numerous experts from the private sector.”

—Lachlan Markay