Russian analyst charged with lying to the FBI about the Steele dossier was a paid informant for the bureau, court filing reveals
- Igor Danchenko previously pleaded not guilty to five counts of making false statements to the FBI over his Steele dossier work
- His indictment alleges that he knowingly lied to federal agents
- A Tuesday court filing in John Durham’s Russian interference probe accuses Danchenko of being recruited as a paid informant of the FBI in March 2017
- Durham said their ‘source relationship’ ended in October of 2020
A Russian analyst who was charged with lying to the FBI about the infamous Steele dossier had been a paid informant for the bureau, a court filing claimed on Tuesday.
Igor Danchenko was allegedly recruited as an FBI mole in March 2017 – about three months after the bureau began investigating him and the gossip-filled dossier he helped create.
It’s also more than four years before he was indicted for lying to federal investigators about information he gave to former British spy Christopher Steele.
Steele used information from Danchenko, among other sources, to compile a dossier with sordid details that accuse Donald Trump of being in Vladimir Putin’s pocket.
The dossier was used to launch the FBI’s investigation of the Trump 2016 campaign’s alleged links to Russia, known as Crossfire Hurricane.
Much of the dossier has since been debunked.
In late 2021, Danchenko pleaded not guilty to five counts of making false statements to the FBI relating to sources for the material that wound up in the dossier.
His charges were announced by Special Counsel John Durham, who former Attorney General Bill Barr had appointed to investigate the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe.
‘From January 2017 through October 2020, and as part of its efforts to determine the truth or falsity of specific information in the Steele reports, the FBI conducted multiple interviews of the defendant regarding, among other things, the information that he had provided to Steele,’ Durham said in his Tuesday court filing.
Igor Danchenko was indicted on five counts of lying to the FBI over the information he gave to former British spy Christopher Steele, and pleaded not guilty to each
‘In March 2017, the FBI signed the defendant up as a paid confidential human source of the FBI.’
Durham claimed the FBI ended the ‘source relationship’ with Danchenko in October 2020.
Steele compiled a now-debunked dossier that helped the FBI launch its investigation of the Trump 2016 campaign’s links to Russia
‘The defendant lied to FBI agents during several of these interviews,’ the filing states.
Danchenko’s indictment accuses him of knowngly making the false statements.
It’s not immediately clear if Danchenko was giving the FBI information on Trump or other topics.
Among the most salacious claims Danchenko is responsible for in the debunked dossier is Russia’s alleged possession of a videotape where Trump was joined in a Moscow hotel room by prostitutes who proceeded to pee on a bed that was once slept on by Barack and Michelle Obama.
His indictment states that federal agents were not able to ‘confirm or corroborate’ most of the allegations Danchenko made that made their way into the dossier.
Durham’s investigation has been ongoing for three years and produced low-level charges for just three people – Clinton-linked lawyer Michael Sussman, former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith and Danchenko.
Clinesmith pleaded guilty to altering an email used to seek a surveillance warrant on a former Trump campaign staffer. He received a light sentence of 12 months of probation and 400 hours of community service.
Sussmann was acquitted of lying to the FBI in May of this year.
Danchenko’s could face up to 25 years in prison if indicted on all five counts.
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