Pointing to Mueller, Source Tries to Dismisses Durham’s False Statement Charges

Igor Danchenko is seeking to dismiss the false statements charges brought against him by special counsel John Durham, in part by implying that special counsel Robert Mueller failing to unearth those alleged lies is proof that they weren’t lies.

Danchenko, the alleged main source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier, was indicted last year with five counts of making false statements to the bureau in 2017, and Durham has said the comments were about the information Danchenko provided to Steele for the dossier. Danchenko has pleaded not guilty.

“Between January and November 2017, Mr. Danchenko not only answered every question to the best of his ability, even when asked to speculate, but also provided emails and contact information for other potential sources of information in the [Steele] Reports,” Danchenko’s attorneys told the court on Friday. “The investigation into the Reports was ultimately completed by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III, in or about November 2017 and the Special Counsel’s office closed its entire investigation into possible Trump/Russia collusion in March 2019.”

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded Danchenko undermined Steele’s unfounded claims of a “well-developed conspiracy” between former President Donald Trump and Russia. Mueller’s 2019 investigation “did not establish” any criminal Trump-Russia collusion.

Danchenko’s legal team argued: “Approximately thirty-four individuals were charged by Mueller’s office, including several for providing false statements to investigators. Mr. Danchenko was not among them. To the contrary, not only did investigators and government officials repeatedly represent that Mr. Danchenko had been honest and forthcoming in his interviews, but also resolved discrepancies between his recollection of events and that of others in Mr. Danchenko’s favor.”

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Mueller repeatedly refused to discuss the dossier in 2019 after his report was released.

“The Justice Department has asserted privileges concerning investigative information and decisions, ongoing matters within the Justice Department, and deliberations within our office,” Mueller told Congress, adding, “For example, I am unable to address questions about the opening of the FBI’s Russia investigation, which occurred months before my appointment, or matters related to the so-called ‘Steele Dossier.’ These matters are the subject of ongoing review by the Department.”

Horowitz’s December 2019 report on FISA abuse unearthed problems with the Trump-Russia investigation that Mueller either did not find or did not make public and concluded the FBI’s investigation was filled with serious missteps and had concealed exculpatory information from the FISA court. Horowitz criticized the bureau for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page and for the bureau’s “central and essential” reliance on Steele’s dossier.

Horowitz said Danchenko’s January 2017 interview with FBI officials “raised doubts about the reliability of Steele’s descriptions of information.”

According to Durham’s false statements charges, Danchenko anonymously sourced a fabricated claim about Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to longtime Hillary Clinton ally Chuck Dolan, who spent many years, including 2016, doing work for Russian businesses and the Russian government.

Durham’s indictment also says the Steele source lied about Sergei Millian, an American citizen born in Belarus who moved to the United States in the early 2000s and founded a trade group called the Russian American Chamber of Commerce in the USA.

The special counsel said Danchenko falsely told the FBI that in late July 2016, he had received a phone call from Millian wherein he claimed Millian told him about a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between Trump and Russians and further claimed that Millian had agreed to meet with him in New York. Durham said that, in reality, “Danchenko never received such a phone call or such information” from Millian and that Millian never agreed to meet up with him, saying Danchenko had “fabricated” these claims.

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“For nearly a year, from January 2017 through November 2017, Mr. Danchenko sat through numerous voluntary FBI interviews and provided hours of truthful information to the government,” Danchenko’s lawyers argued Friday, adding, “These equivocal and ambiguous answers were prompted by fundamentally ambiguous questions, are literally true, and are immaterial as a matter of law.”

FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten was among those who interviewed Danchenko in 2017. Whistleblower allegations also emerged last month that Auten opened an assessment in Aug. 2020, which was used by FBI headquarters to label accurate information about Hunter Biden as false.