Alleged Source for Steele Dossier Raised Issues With Statements by Another Alleged Source: Official

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—An alleged source for the anti-Donald Trump dossier told FBI agents in 2017 that statements made by another alleged dossier source weren’t accurate, an FBI official testified in federal court on Oct. 12.

Olga Galkina, a Russian citizen and communications adviser, contradicted statements from Igor Danchenko, another Russian national, during an August 2017 interview with FBI agents in Cyprus, FBI official Brian Auten, one of the agents, said.

Danchenko, who has bragged that he was responsible for the bulk of the information in the dossier, told the FBI during interviews in early 2017 that one of his sources was Galkina, prompting agents to travel to meet with her in August 2017.

“We were looking, again, for the material that was attributed to Ms. Galkina coming out of the January 2017 interviews. We wanted to get a sense from Ms. Galkina’s own words or recollections, etc., exactly how she was oriented with respect to her accesses and whether or not the information was accurate,” Auten testified in court in Virginia.

The information Galkina provided was inconsistent in some respects with the information Danchenko provided, according to the official, a supervisory special agent who was involved with both Crossfire Hurricane and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Danchenko’s lawyers objected, leading to a sidebar. Out of earshot of jurors, special counsel John Durham said: “[Auten] and others go, and they interview Ms. Galkina in Cyprus. Ms. Galkina gives some information that’s inconsistent with what Mr. Danchenko had told the bureau. As a result of some of those inconsistencies [government officials] had questions that they then wanted to have [Danchenko’s handling agent] pose to Mr. Danchenko. So that’s where this is going.”

The judge ruled that discussion about the inconstancies should be avoided.

A previous report from the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (DOJ OIG),