And from the start, he seemed to tip his hand politically by publicly disagreeing with the finding by the Justice Department’s inspector general that the FBI had a legitimate basis to open an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. After all, he was appointed to his post by William Barr, Trump’s attorney general. There is no question that Durham’s inquiry is viewed by some with suspicion. A lawyer who represented Danchenko, a onetime analyst at the Brookings Institute, said at a court hearing that his client planned to enter a plea of not guilty but a judge told him to do so at a future arraignment. On Thursday, John Durham, the special counsel appointed to investigate the FBI’s probe into ties between Trump and Russia, charged operative Igor Danchenko with lying to the FBI about his work on the dossier and allegedly fabricating some information that appeared in it.
But this week, it may have been dealt a death blow when the operative used by Steele to gather material for the dossier was indicted. Since BuzzFeed published Steele’s reports in 2017, many of the dossier’s key claims have failed to materialize or have been shown to be false. Steele described his professionalism as an intelligence-gatherer to George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and then doubled down on some of the dossier’s most salacious allegations, asserting, among other things, that the infamous “ pee tape” involving Trump may be still out there, just waiting to be found. Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer Photos: Getty Images AP/ShutterstockĬhristopher Steele, the former MI6 spy who compiled the notorious dossier during the 2016 campaign alleging ties between Donald Trump and Russia, made a splash a few weeks back when he gave his first interview about it. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty.Left to right, President Trump, Igor Danchenko, and Christopher Steele. Two months ago, Durham charged an attorney who represented the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, Michael Sussmann, with making a false statement during a meeting with the FBI’s top lawyer about allegations related to ties between Trump and Russia. FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty last year to a false-statement charge for altering an email sent to a colleague as part of efforts to seek a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. Restoration crews were on site Wednesday morning with pumping equipment in a bid to resolve the issue.ĭanchenko is the third person to be charged by Durham. The incident rendered several spaces in the building unusable for the time being. Wednesday’s hearing took place in a courtroom two floors below Trenga’s usual one, due to a flood from a burst pipe.
STEELE DOSSIER INDICTMENTS FREE
Prosecutors did not seek to change the Russian citizen’s bail conditions Wednesday, so he will remain free on bond. At his first court appearance last week, he was wearing slacks and a dress shirt after he was abruptly arrested when a plan to allow him to self-surrender was upended by what a prosecutor called “a press leak” about the case.Īt that hearing, a magistrate judge decided not to put Danchenko on GPS location monitoring after prosecutors said it could wait for a day.
STEELE DOSSIER INDICTMENTS TRIAL
That trial is expected to run for two months, according to the lawyer who represented Danchenko at hearings last week and Wednesday, Christopher Schafbuch.ĭanchenko wore a suit and tie for Wednesday’s session. Keilty said a “vast” amount of classified information is also involved, which will require security clearances and other special precautions.Īnother challenge is that Schamel is currently defending a client in a pharmacy fraud trial in Greeneville, Tenn. “We believe that discovery is going to be fairly extensive,” Assistant Special Counsel Michael Keilty told Trenga, an appointee of President George W. Trenga set a trial in the case for April 18, but there were immediate indications that the pretrial proceedings in the case could drag out due to the need to produce a large volume of documents about the underlying investigation.
Danchenko has been unfairly maligned by these false allegations.” From the moment he was inappropriately revealed, he has been the focus of unrelenting politically motivated attacks,” Schamel said. Danchenko’s identity and tarnish his reputation while undermining U.S.
“For the past five years, those with an agenda have sought to expose Mr. Danchenko was a key source for the so-called dossier on Trump prepared during the 2016 campaign by former British spy Christopher Steele.ĭanchenko’s lead attorney, Mark Schamel, issued a statementthis week suggesting that the charges against his client are false and infected with politics.
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