As Special Counsel John Durham’s long-running Trump-Russia collusion probe is winding down, it looks like he is laying the blame on Russian analyst Igor Danchenko and asserting the FBI was duped by him rather than being guilty of misconduct.
Danchenko, who is a key player in the anti-Trump dossier, allegedly lied to FBI officials and instigated their outrageous behavior that resulted in the agency attacking the Trump campaign in 2016, according to prosecutors in opening statements at Danchenko’s trial on Tuesday.
“The Steele dossier caused the FBI to engage in troubling conduct. The defendant’s lies played a role in that conduct,” prosecutor Michael Keilty asserted in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia, according to The Washington Times.
Danchenko is a U.S.-based Russian analyst. He provided information for the dossier that included salacious and unverified accusations against Trump in actions worthy of Russian intelligence. He is now on trial for five counts of lying to the FBI and the agency will lay the blame on him, distancing itself from culpability in the matter. If convicted, Danchenko could get up to five years in prison for each count.
According to Durham’s team of prosecutors, Danchenko deliberately misled the FBI on how he came by the information for the dossier. It was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele who was offered $1 million by the FBI to corroborate allegations made in the dossier, an FBI official testified Tuesday. Steele was unable to do so, never receiving the $1 million, and would not even divulge source names, according to Fox News.
So the FBI offered to pay Steele before determining he was a liar, and then offer to pay and did pay Danchenko after confirming he was a liar. Great.
— FoiaFan (@15poundstogo) October 12, 2022
Steele was initially paid by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign to put together the dossier.
Keilty appeared to let the FBI off the hook by claiming that they relied on Danchenko’s lie to launch a “historic investigation” of Trump.
It had been hoped that Durham would eventually expose Democrats and the FBI, as well as other intelligence agencies, for attempting to sabotage former President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and undermine his presidency.
Danchenko’s attorneys claim he did not lie to the FBI. They claim that the agency was vague when asking their defendant questions.
“The questions weren’t asked properly, and that’s not his fault,” defense attorney Danny Onorato stated at the trial.
This exchange between Durham and Danchenko’s defense reveals quite a lot. Danchenko’s defense are trying to play the ‘plausible deniability’ game, pretending like Danchenko was not wittingly involved in any sort of conspiracy with the FBI to frame Trump. pic.twitter.com/Yp1S6Bkh3w
— Steve Schultz (@SchultzLSteve) October 11, 2022
The indictment against Danchenko accuses him of lying about how he obtained information for the dossier. At issue here is his reliance on information from Democratic operative Charles J. Dolan, a public relations executive with close ties to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Defense attorneys are arguing in court documents that charges against Danchenko should be dropped because his answers to non-specific questions from FBI agents were “literally true.” It amounts to word games. In one instance, Danchenko denied speaking with Dolan because he communicated with the Clinton operative through email exchanges.
He is also accused of lying about his contact with Sergei Millian, a former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. Danchenko claims he spoke with Millian in July 2016 and that he told him the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to win the election. That exchange found its way into the Steele dossier.
Can we talk about how FBI tried to off their own counterintel CHS @SergeiMillian, offered $1 mil to Steele to collaborate the pee pee dossier and had a Russian spook Danchenko who wrote the dossier on the payroll? Can you say FBI was behind a coup attempt on a duly elected POTUS?
— Merc (@JustDrew8055) October 12, 2022
The indictment alleges that the conversations never took place and that the information given to Steele was false.
In turn, Danchenko’s attorneys claim the information was given to him during an anonymous phone call from someone he thought was Millian. The lawyers assert that the government can’t prove that the defendant made a false statement if he believed it was true.
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