John H. Durham, the special counsel looking into the origins of the Russia investigation, had accused Igor Danchenko of lying to the F.B.I.
-
Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have “>10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Give this articleGive this articleGive this article
Two F.B.I. agents have testified that Igor Danchenko, who became a paid confidential source, had provided the bureau with valuable information.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Igor Danchenko, an analyst who provided much of the research in a notorious dossier of unproven assertions and rumors about former President Donald J. Trump and Russia, was acquitted on Tuesday on four counts of lying to the F.B.I. about one of his sources.
The verdict was another stinging defeat for the special counsel, John H. Durham, who was appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr three years ago to investigate the F.B.I.’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
Mr. Trump and his supporters have long insisted the inquiry would prove a “deep state” conspiracy against him, but after pursuing various baseless theories, Mr. Durham never found and charged one. Instead he developed two narrow cases accusing people involved in outside efforts to scrutinize purported links between Mr. Trump and Russia of making false statements.
The first of those cases ended in an acquittal of the defendant, Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with Democratic connections. The trial against Mr. Danchenko is expected to be the last of Mr. Durham’s prosecutions, and the special counsel is expected to submit a final report to the Justice Department this year summarizing his findings.
The jury deliberated for a day before finding Mr. Danchenko not guilty.
The accusations against Mr. Danchenko, an analyst who was born in Russia, centered on two of his sources for the salacious claims and unsubstantiated assertions in the so-called Steele dossier, which said that Mr. Trump and his 2016 campaign were colluding with the Russian government. After BuzzFeed published the dossier in 2017, public suspicions of Mr. Trump escalated, but it has since been discredited.
In closing arguments on Monday, a prosecutor working for Mr. Durham asserted that Mr. Danchenko had clearly lied to the F.B.I. His false assertions had a material effect, the prosecutor added, pointing to part of the dossier that the F.B.I. had cited to bolster applications to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser with ties to Russia.
“This defendant’s lies caused intensive surveillance on a U.S. citizen,” said the prosecutor, Michael Keilty, an assistant special counsel.
In his own remarks, Mr. Durham sought to broaden the case, telling jurors that “the whole house of cards of the dossier crumbles” under the weight of the evidence.
But the defense said the government’s own evidence showed that Mr. Danchenko did not lie. The lawyer, Stuart A. Sears, characterized Mr. Danchenko as a valuable and honest asset to the F.B.I. who unwittingly became embroiled in a politically charged investigation. Mr. Durham, he said, was intent on proving crimes “at any cost” and presumed Mr. Danchenko guilty from the start.
“He’s trying to help the F.B.I., and now they’re indicting him for it,” Mr. Sears said.
Mr. Trump and his supporters have falsely sought to conflate the dossier with the official investigation into Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia, but the F.B.I. did not open the inquiry based on the dossier and the final report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, did not cite anything in it as evidence.
The F.B.I. pointed to several claims in the dossier in applying to wiretap the former Trump campaign adviser. An inspector general’s investigation uncovered that the bureau had continued to do so after talking to Mr. Danchenko without telling a surveillance court that there was reason to doubt the dossier’s credibility.
The dossier was political opposition research indirectly funded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee. They paid a law firm, which paid a research firm, which in turn subcontracted to a firm run by Christopher Steele, a former British spy. Mr. Steele hired Mr. Danchenko to canvass contacts in Russia and Europe about Mr. Trump’s business dealings in Russia.
Mr. Danchenko conveyed rumors that Mr. Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, and that Russia had a blackmail tape of Mr. Trump with prostitutes in a hotel room in Moscow. But during an interview with the F.B.I., Mr. Danchenko said that he had first seen the dossier when BuzzFeed published it and that Mr. Steele had exaggerated his statements, portraying uncorroborated gossip as fact.
The F.B.I. made Mr. Danchenko a paid confidential source and he disclosed how he had learned about the rumors. While he did not provide information corroborating the dossier, the trial has shown that the bureau found his network of contacts valuable for identifying Russian influence operations in the United States.
But in November 2021, Mr. Durham charged Mr. Danchenko with making false statements to the F.B.I. about two of his sources for claims in the dossier.
The special counsel said he had lied when he said he never “talked” to Charles Dolan, a Democratic lobbyist, about anything in the dossier even though Mr. Dolan had emailed him information about office politics in the Trump campaign that appeared in the dossier.
The counsel also accused Mr. Danchenko of lying four times to the F.B.I. when he repeatedly said that he believed a person who had called and provided information without identifying himself was likely Sergei Millian, a former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.
The trial, which began last week, concluded much earlier than anticipated, after the judge overseeing the case excluded much of the material that Mr. Durham had wanted to showcase, including the purported blackmail tape.
Mr. Durham faced additional setbacks during the trial. Two witnesses for the government, both F.B.I. agents, seemed to undermine the prosecution’s case during their testimony, including by saying what Mr. Danchenko had told them about not having “talked” to Mr. Dolan about Trump campaign office politics was “literally true” since it was an email.
On Friday, Judge Anthony Trenga dismissed the charge concerning Mr. Dolan before it could go to the jury, saying Mr. Durham had failed to present sufficient evidence.
Mr. Danchenko told the F.B.I. that he had received that call in late July 2016, and that he had arranged to meet that person in New York that month. That person did not show up, Mr. Danchenko has said.
The prosecution stressed that traditional phone records did not show evidence of such a call, but the defense emphasized that it could have unfolded over an app.
The prosecution also pointed to an email Mr. Danchenko had sent to Mr. Millian that made no mention of an earlier call or missed meeting, but an F.B.I. agent later testified that it was reasonable for an email to omit such a reference if he believed the caller was seeking anonymity.
Linda Qiu reported from Alexandria, Va., and Charlie Savage reported from Washington. Adam Goldman contributed reporting from Alexandria, Va.
/
Source: nytimes.com
