The announcement came a day after a federal judge had given an unnamed bank more time to respond to the congressional panel's subpoena to Fusion GPS, the research outfit that hired a former British spy to compile a dossier on presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative online publication backed by billionaire Republican mega-donor Paul Singer, said on Friday it was the original funder of the Fusion GPS project to compile opposition research on multiple Republican presidential candidates, including Trump.

Trump and other Republicans have alleged that Russians paid Fusion GPS for research on their own dealings with the president and his campaign.

But the Free Beacon said all the material it was provided came from public sources and that the effort was separate from a former British spy's dossier of allegations of Russian financial and personal links to President Donald Trump's campaign and associates.