Crossfire Hurricane FBI Analyst Battered by Both Sides in Danchenko Trial

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Russian business analyst Igor Danchenko may be the defendant, but the government’s first witness called to testify against him often appeared to be the one on trial during the first two days of often confounding and dense deliberations delving into the dusky origins of the debunked Steele Dossier.

FBI supervisory counterintelligence analyst Brian Auten was on the stand for more than nine hours on Oct. 12 and 13 before U.S. Eastern District of Virginia Judge Anthony Trenga.

Auten, who supervised analysts in the 2016 Crossfire Hurricane investigation, was grilled by both the defense and the prosecution after being presented with emails and other documents he did not know of, or failed to pursue, while probing Danchenko’s alleged role as the primary “sub-source” in funneling salacious concoctions about former President Donald Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign to former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who went on to compile 17 discredited “reports” included in the dossier.

The Steele Dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and orchestrated by FusionGPS, a Washington, D.C.-based “strategic intelligence” firm implicated in a range of alleged skullduggery on behalf of Clinton and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 campaign.

Danchenko, a Russian national and Virginia resident, is charged with five counts of making false statements to Auten and FBI special agent Stephen Somma during three January 2017 interviews. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, which could carry a 25-year prison sentence if convicted.

According to Auten, Danchenko lied to him and Somma in concealing his contacts with Charles Dolan, Jr., a longtime Democrat “operative,” Clinton family associate, and billionaire founder of Cablevision and HBO who is now senior vice president of kglobal, which describes itself as “a full service communications and creative agency based in Washington, D.C., with clients around

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