By CAROLINE DOWNEY | National Review
U.S. Attorney John Durham (United States
Attorney's Office, District of Connecticut/Wikimedia)
The primary researcher behind the Steele Dossier, a collection of unsubstantiated opposition
research linking the 2016 Trump campaign to the Kremlin, was arrested by
federal authorities Thursday.
Russia analyst Igor Danchenko’s indictment stems from the
federal probe led by John Durham, the special counsel tapped by the Trump
administration to audit the Russia investigation for malfeasance,
anonymous individuals with direct knowledge of the matter told the New York Times.
In the months following the 2016 election, it was
determined that many of the claims made by former British intelligence agent
Christopher Steele, who hired Danchenko, were either unverified or erroneous.
The dossier created the collusion allegation that Trump “accepted a regular
flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other
political rivals.”
Steele was later accused of peddling a hoax of Russian
election interference to undermine Trump’s campaign with his dossier, which was
funded by the Clinton campaign through its law firm Perkins Coie.
Perkins Coie employed Clinton campaign lawyer and former
federal prosecutor Michael Sussmann, who Durham also recently charged for
allegedly making a false statement to the FBI concerning the Trump
Organization’s use of a secret server to communicate with Kremlin-connected
Russian bank Alfa Bank.
In February, Durham issued a subpoena to collect
documents associated with Danchenko’s former employment at the Brookings
Institution, where he worked for five years. During this tenure, he faced
a counterintelligence inquiry into whether he was a Russian agent.
Danchenko rejected this idea in an interview with Times in
2020. “I’ve never been a Russian agent,” he said. “It is ridiculous to suggest
that. This, I think, it’s slander.”
During an interview with the FBI, Danchenko cast doubt on
some of the contents of the dossier, suggesting that he himself was skeptical
of the material presented.
“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?”
However, the FBI reportedly did not relay Danchenko’s
doubt to the Justice Department. A 2019 investigation conducted by the DOJ
inspector general called out the FBI for relying on information from the
dossier in spite of Danchenko’s admission that some of the details were
somewhat speculative.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/main-steele-dossier-researcher-arrested-in-durham-probe/
