Federal authorities arrested the primary researcher behind Steele Dossier. This is a collection unsubstantiated opposition research that links the 2016 Trump campaign to Kremlin.
Russia analyst Igor Danchenkos was indicted by John Durham, the federal probe that was led by John Durham. He was the special counsel who was tapped by Trump to audit the Russia investigation into malfeasance. Anonymous individuals with direct knowledge of this matter told The New York Times.
Many of the claims made in the months after the 2016 election by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, were either untrued or incorrect. The dossier suggested that Trump received regular intelligence flows from the Kremlin on his Democratic and other political opponents.
Later, Steele was accused of selling a hoax about Russian election interference to undermine Trump's campaign with his dossier. This dossier was funded through Perkins Coie by the Clinton campaign.
Perkins Coie hired Michael Sussmann (a Clinton campaign lawyer) who was also a former federal prosecutor. He was also recently accused of making a false statement about Trump Organizations use a secret server to communicate to Russian-connected bank Alfa Bank.
Durham issued a subpoena in February to collect documents related to Danchenkos's former employment at Brookings Institution. Danchenkos worked there for five years. He was also subject to a counterintelligence investigation into whether he had been a Russian agent during this tenure.
In a 2020 interview with Times, Danchenko refuted this idea. He said that he has never been a Russian agent. This is absurd. This is slander, I believe.
In an interview with FBI agents Danchenko questioned some contents of the dossier. This suggests that he was skeptical of the information.
Danchenko stated that even raw intelligence from reliable sources, I take it with caution. It's possible that it is inaccurate. Is this a rumor?
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The FBI, however, reportedly didn't relay Danchenkos doubts to the Justice Department. The FBI was criticized by the DOJ inspector General for using information from the dossier to support its investigation in 2019. This was despite Danchenkos' admission that some details were speculative.
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