‘Smear,’ ‘So-Called’ Investigation: Networks Ignore And Spin Steele Dossier Indictment

Although the most lurid allegations of the Steele dossier about alleged connections between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia received saturation coverage for more than two years, the legacy media have largely ignored the indictment of the dossier’s prime source. When they have covered Special Prosecutor John Durham’s indictment of Igor Danchenko for lying, they have referred to it as a “smear,” a “so-called” investigation, or proof that the dossier has been “further vetted.”

On Wednesday, November 3, John Durham issued a 39-page indictment of Igor Danchenko, a U.S.-based Russian citizen who formerly worked at the left-of-center Brookings Institution. Fiona Hill introduced Danchenko to Christopher Steele, who was hired by the Democratic National Committee to compile a dossier of allegations about the Trump campaign’s ties to Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Danchenko created such unfounded rumors as claiming that future President Trump once hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on a Moscow bed where Barack Obama had slept. The indictment says Danchenko was responsible for “the allegation that there were communications ongoing between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and that … the Kremlin might be of help in getting Trump elected.”

Based on Danchenko’s alleged inside sources, the FBI wrote that there was “a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between [the Trump campaign] and the Russian leadership,” because Vladimir Putin “feared” Hillary Clinton. And the FBI used the dossier to petition for four successive warrants to spy on Trump campaign official Carter Page. But that all turned out to be false.

Although Danchencko told the FBI that he obtained his information from Russians with direct knowledge of the allegations, an American public relations executive named Charles Dolan Jr. has stepped forward as the source of the misinformation. Durham has charged Danchenko with five counts of making false statements to federal investigators; the Russian could face a fine and up to five years in prison for each of the five counts.

While the allegations led to hours of banter on CNN and MSNBC, the refutation took virtually no time. The networks’ prime time hosts, who have led their broadcasts with in-depth coverage of congressional subpoenas against former Trump administration officials, have all but ignored the Danchenko indictment.

The most recent coverage came on Friday afternoon when Nicolle Wallace, the host of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” who claimed the indictment merely meant the Steele dossier was being “further vetted.”

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