An analyst who was a source for the infamous 2016 “Steele dossier” that contained allegations against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump has been arrested on charges stemming from special counsel John Durham’s investigation.
Specifically, Danchenko was charged with misleading FBI officials about the sources of the information he provided to former UK spy Christopher Steele. He was interviewed multiple times by FBI officials in 2017 as they attempted to corroborate the allegations in Steele’s dossier.
According to the indictment, Danchenko’s alleged lies “were material to the FBI because ... the FBI’s investigation of the Trump Campaign relied” on the dossier to obtain warrants to surveil former Trump aide Carter Page.
“The FBI ultimately devoted substantial resources attempting to investigate and corroborate the allegations contained in” the dossier, including whether Danchenko’s sub-sources were reliable, the indictment states. The dossier and information provided by Danchenko “played a role in the FBI’s investigative decisions and in sworn representations that the FBI made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court throughout the relevant time period.”
The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of Justice and Danchenko lawyer Mark Schamel for comment.
Danchenko provided information to Steele, who was hired by Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. Fusion GPS was, in turn, retained by law firm Perkins Coie on behalf of the Democratic National Committee.
Steele’s memos, collectively known as the Steele dossier, alleged that Trump had colluded with Russian intelligence officials to help him defeat then-candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. However, Trump has long panned the allegations in the dossier as a long-running “witch hunt” designed to discredit his presidency and suppress his reelection chances.
Numerous claims in the dossier turned out to be false, triggering criminal, congressional, and inspector general investigations into how the reports were used for the basis of a surveillance campaign targeting Trump campaign officials.
Steele gave the dossier to the FBI, which then used it as the basis for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court order to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. In 2019, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s Office released a lengthy report that criticized the FBI’s processes in handling the surveillance of Page.
Danchenko is now the third person who has been charged in connection to Durham’s probe. In September, Durham’s office charged former Perkins Coie attorney Michael Sussmann, alleging that he gave false information when he spoke with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in 2016. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty to a charge of lying to the FBI.
Prosecutors involved in Durham’s probe said during a court hearing last month that they’re planning to call Baker, who now works for Twitter’s legal department, to testify in the Sussmann case. The indictment against Sussmann alleges that he lied to Baker when he provided data that linked the Trump Organization to a Russian bank.