One player in the trial, Democratic PR exec Charles Dolan Jr., testified that he lied when he fed information to Danchenko, who was seeking intelligence on the sudden resignation of former Trump 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort.ĭolan told Danchenko in a 2016 email offered as evidence that he would 'dig around' following news of a Trump campaign rupture that resulted in Manafort's departure. In addition to revelations about FBI payments to sources of information, it revealed aspects of the murky world of private intelligence gathering, where information can get chopped up, sourced anonymously, and sometimes repackaged to make it appear firm in intelligence reports clients are willing to pay for. The trial brought an intense focus on the Steele dossier, as Durham took part in parts of the trial personally. testified that he provided information to Danchenko that he saw on TV about Trump campaign intrigue involving Paul Manafortĭanchenko's is the third case brought by Durham, and there is speculation that it could be his last. Defense attorneys argued that Danchenko's response was literally true because they did not talk orally, and the question the FBI agent asked specifically referenced talking. In the count that was tossed out, prosecutors alleged that Danchenko lied to the FBI when he told an agent that he never 'talked' with a Democratic operative named Charles Dolan about the information in the dossier.Īs it turns out, there was evidence that Dolan and Danchenko had discussed the information over email. In an early sign of where things were headed, Judge Anthony Trenga had already dropped a fifth charge in the case before it went to the jury for deliberation. His probe continued under AG Merrick Garland after President Biden took office.ĭanchenko has said he was responsible for a stunning 80 per cent of the raw intelligence that went into the dossier, although he also said he was shocked when he saw how information he provided got stitched together. The trial of Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann also resulted in an acquittal after a two-week trial in Washington, DC. His plea resulted in a sentence of probation. Trump has repeatedly railed about the Russia probe, blasting it as a 'witch hunt' and repeatedly mocking it as 'Russia, Russia, Russia' before and since leaving office.īarr, although quitting in the last weeks of the Trump administration and blasting Trump's election fraud claims since leaving office, had infuriated Democrats while in office for his handling of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.ĭurham's own years-long probe has resulted in a single conviction – of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith for doctoring an email used to justify surveillance. The special counsel appointed under President Trump by former Attorney General Bill Barr has had a mixed record in his years-long probe, which began as an effort to examine the origins of the Russia probe and any FBI misconduct. An FBI handler testified that Danchenko was paid $200,000 over a period of three and a half years Russian analyst Igor Danchenko was acquitted on all charges of lying to the FBI about his sources. The verdict came in a trial that provided a series of revelations about the creation of the dossier as well as the FBI's own information gathering techniques – including testimony that the FBI offered to pay Steele, a former British intelligence officer, $1 million in cash to prove the unsubstantiated allegations within it.įBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified that the bureau made the offer to Steele in 2016 during a meeting in the United Kingdom - but didn't hand over the money because Steele couldn't back up the evidence. He was accused of lying to the FBI as agents sought to verify information included in the infamous dossier, which included salacious and unverified allegations about Trump's alleged conduct in a Moscow hotel room – information Trump repeatedly denied. A jury in Virginia acquitted Russian analyst Igor Danchenko Tuesday on all charges of lying to the FBI in its investigation into the origins of Trump-Russia probe, in a stunning setback for special counsel John Durham.ĭanchenko was a primary source of British spy Christopher Steele's dossier on Donald Trump and Russia ties of people in his circle before the 2020 election.
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