Main Trump-Russia Dossier Source Acquitted of Lying to FBI

Igor Danchenko, a primary contributor to the Trump-Russia dossier, has been acquitted of lying to the FBI regarding his sources for some claims in the document.

After nearly ten hours of deliberation, the jury declared the source, an analyst who compiled the bulk of the dossier drafted by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele and which alleged collusion between former president Trump’s 2016 campaign and Moscow, not guilty on all charges. Danchenko was accused of having made false statements regarding the sources of some information that he provided to a U.K. investigative firm in 2017 that was later passed to the FBI. Special counsel John Durham originally charged the Russian national with five counts of lying to the intelligence agency but one was tossed out Friday.

Danchenko was said to have concealed that he got some information about the Trump 2016 presidential campaign from a Clinton ally named Charles Dolan, and to have fabricated correspondence with a related Trump associate and Belorussian-American businessman named Sergei Millian. The defense argued that Danchenko did make contact with Millian, possibly through an encrypted phone app, to bolster the dossier. Danchenko had told the FBI that he spoke with Millian in an anonymous phone call in July 2016. However, Millian denied that Danchenko consulted him as a source.

Danchenko’s case is expected to be the last connected to Durham’s three-year investigation into the origins of the FBI’s probe into the alleged Russiagate scandal.

After the 2016 election, the dossier was found to have included a number of unverified or erroneous claims. The FBI later used it to justify its surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. During Danchenko’s trial, the FBI came under fire for using the document’s unsubstantiated claims to file a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant application to probe Page.

Through the now-discredited dossier, which was financed by the Clinton campaign through its law firm Perkins Coie, Steele was accused of peddling the Russian election interference hoax to damage Trump’s campaign. Danchenko told the FBI in an interview that even he wasn’t certain of the validity of the contents included in the dossier.

“Even raw intelligence from credible sources, I take it with a grain of salt,” Danchenko said. “Who knows, what if it’s not particularly accurate? Is it just a rumor or is there more to it?”

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