Igor Danchenko trial: Anti-Trump dossier source found not guilty in Russia investigation trial

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ALEXANDRIA, Virginia A jury has found Russian national Igor Danchenko not guilty on four false statements charges, declining to convict him for the allegations that the main source of British ex-spy Christopher Steele had lied to the FBI about his sourcing for the discredited anti-Trump dossier.

The jury reached their decision on Tuesday after less than two days of deliberations, delivering John Durham another defeat in his long-running investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators after the special counsel lost another false statements case against a Clinton campaign lawyer in May.

According to Durham’s November 2021 indictment, Danchenko anonymously sourced a fabricated claim about Trump 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort to Charles Dolan, a Clinton ally who spent years, including 2016, doing work for Russian businesses and the Russian government, but in a blow to Durham’s case, the judge threw out that charge before the jury could decide on it. Durham’s indictment also alleged Danchenko lied to the FBI about a phone call he claims he received from someone he believed was Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born U.S. citizen and businessman the Steele source had said told him about a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between then-candidate Donald Trump and the Russians, which the special counsel said is false.

DURHAM SLAMS FBI FOR BOTCHING TRUMP-RUSSIA INVESTIGATION IN CLOSING DANCHENKO ARGUMENTS

Igor Danchenko leaves the Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, on Nov. 4, 2021.
Igor Danchenko leaves the Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, on Nov. 4, 2021.

Danchenko briefly appeared outside the federal courthouse with his wife and legal team after the verdict was handed down, though he did not speak.

“We’ve known all along that Mr. Danchenko was innocent,” Danchenko lawyer Stuart Sears said in a brief statement. “We’re happy now that the American public knows that as well. We thank these jurors for their hard work and deliberations in making the right call, and that’s all we have at this time.” Sears declined to take questions from reporters.

Durham released a statement by email. “While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service,” the statement said. “I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case.”

The verdict came after Durham took aim at the FBI in the closing stages of his trial on Monday.

Addressing the “elephant in the room” at the trial, Durham made it clear that he believed the FBI had botched up its Trump-Russia investigation but that lies told to the bureau about Steele’s dossier still mattered.

Durham said that “the FBI mishandled the investigation at issue” and that “the FBI didn’t do what they should have done” in the inquiry, bluntly saying that “the FBI failed here.” He said the jury did not have to “feel bad for the FBI agents” and stressed that his special counsel team “is not here to defend the FBI’s handling” of the dossier.

The special counsel also offered up possible options on the FBI’s botching of the Trump-Russia investigation, rhetorically asking if the FBI was “simply incompetent,” “working in coordination,” “or whatever.”

The trial has revealed that Danchenko was on the FBI’s payroll as a confidential human source from March 2017 to October 2020 before he was charged in November 2021 with five counts of making false statements to the bureau. He has pleaded not guilty.

JUDGE IN DURHAM-DANCHENKO CASE DISMISSES ONE OF FIVE FALSE STATEMENT CHARGES

The trial also revealed the Justice Department provided Danchenko with partial immunity in January 2017. The immunity arrangement called for “complete and truthful testimony” from Danchenko. The agreement indicated that “your client must answer all questions regarding the subject matter of this investigation and must not withhold information” and that Danchenko was not supposed to “falsely implicate any person” nor attempt to shield or protect anyone. Durham said the agreement was void if Danchenko lied, which the special counsel says he did.

FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten, who testified during the trial last week, was one of the FBI agents who interviewed Danchenko in January 2017. He revealed the FBI had offered Steele an incentive of up to $1 million if he could prove the allegations of collusion in his dossier, but the FBI analyst said the former MI6 agent was unable to corroborate the claims.

FBI agent Kevin Helson, who was the handling agent for Danchenko, testified that the dossier source went on to become a key part of the FBI’s efforts to combat Russian influence in the United States despite never being able to corroborate any of the dossier.

Helson made an October 2020 request to pay Danchenko a lump sum of $346,000, and his testimony revealed that would have brought the total amount the Russian lawyer had been paid by the bureau over a few years up to a total of $546,000. The lump sum payment request was denied.

A member of the FBI’s Human Intelligence Validation Unit also suggested that Danchenko may have been part of Russian intelligence services, according to court testimony, and Durham highlighted how Helson apparently did not do his due diligence in looking into the Russian analyst’s background before signing him up as a confidential human source.

The Danchenko verdict comes after Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann was found not guilty in May. The Clinton-allied attorney had been charged in September 2021 by Durham after reportedly concealing his two clients, Neustar chief technology officer Rodney Joffe and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, from FBI General Counsel James Baker when he pushed debunked allegations of a secret line of communication between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa-Bank during a September 2016 meeting.

But a jury found Sussmann not guilty of the false statement charge following a trial.

Durham has obtained just one guilty plea, from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted he falsified a document during the bureau’s efforts to renew surveillance authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act against Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Clinesmith’s wrongdoing was revealed in Horowitz’s December 2019 report on FISA abuse.

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If Danchenko is indeed Durham’s final criminal case, then his report will come next. The special counsel is reportedly working on finishing a lengthy set of findings laying out his investigation’s conclusions, which will be handed over to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Garland testified to the Senate last October that “with respect to the report, I would like as much as possible to be made public — I have to be concerned about Privacy Act concerns and classification, but other than that, the commitment is to provide a public report, yes.”

“There will be no political or otherwise undue interference with the Durham investigation,” Garland also vowed.

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