But prosecutors said that when news of the impending charges leaked, the FBI moved to arrest him. In the defense's closing argument, Sears accused prosecutors of being on a "mission to prove a liar" and said they failed to present evidence which "doesn't support their narrative that he's a liar.In one instance, according to federal prosecutors, Danchenko falsely claimed he obtained information from an anonymous caller who indicated that there were "communications ongoing between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and that the caller had indicated the Kremlin might be of help in getting Trump elected."ĭanchenko, appearing in court in an open-collar white shirt and dark pants, had planned to surrender to authorities Thursday as part of an agreement with the government. Sears also emphasized that Danchenko never told the FBI that the caller was definitely Sergei Millian but rather "only said he thought it could be Sergei Millian," and that this reflected his belief at the time. In his closing arguments, defense attorney Sears contended that the phone records did not prove Danchenko did not receive a call since, he said, the call may have come through an internet app - a possibility evidence showed Danchenko mentioned in one of his initial interviews with the FBI. "There was no call with Millian and there was no call with any individual and these phone records prove that," Keilty told the jury in the prosecution's closing argument. Prosecutors allege no call took place, and that Danchenko lied to investigators to stay consistent with what he had told Steele. Danchenko told the FBI he believed the call was placed to him by the then-head of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, Sergei Millian. The four charges remaining against Danchenko surround a phone call he told the FBI he received from an unidentified Russian male in July of 2016 relaying allegations later contained in Steele's dossier. The judge ruled that Danchenko's denial was "literally true" because the communication occurred over email and not via the spoken word. Trenga dismissed one count: the prosecutions' accusation that Danchenko falsely told the FBI that he never spoken with "a long-time participant in Democratic Party Politics" about any allegations included in the dossier. Judge Anthony Trenga to dismiss all five counts in the indictment against Danchenko, saying that Durham did not prove Danchenko lied to the FBI and obstructed its investigation into Trump's alleged Russian ties. The government alleges that false information provided to the FBI by Danchenko was used to renew the bureau's application to continue its secret surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page after Page's visits to Moscow.Īfter the prosecution rested its case Friday, the defense asked U.S. They said Danchenko told a "shifting story" to the agents who were trying to trace the source of the information.
#STEELE DOSSIER INDICTMENTS TRIAL#
On Monday, Durham himself questioned prosecution witnesses and delivered the prosecution's rebuttal at the end of closing arguments.ĭanchenko served as a paid FBI informant from 2017 to 2020, when the bureau was pushed to sever its relationship with him after the Justice Department named him as a source for the Steele dossier.įederal prosecutors had argued during the trial that Danchenko misled the FBI during three days of voluntary interviews in January 2017 about where the dossier's information came from and about his contact with other individuals. We thank these jurors with their hard work and deliberation for reaching the right result."ĭanchenko's trial was the final case of three prosecutions secured by special counsel John Durham in his years-long probe into alleged misconduct by the FBI and intelligence community in their investigation of Trump's ties to Russia. We are happy now that the American public knows that as well. In a statement outside of court after the ruling, Danchenko defense attorney Stuart Sears said, "We've known all along Mr.
In a November 2021 indictment, prosecutors accused Danchenko of misleading FBI agents about his sources of information. He became a primary source to what came to be known as the "Steele dossier," which included explosive and unproven claims about Trump. A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, delivered a verdict of not guilty on all four counts against Igor Danchenko, the Russian national accused of lying to federal investigators about information he collected in 2016 for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele that was included in Steele's now-infamous "dossier" detailing Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia.Ī Washington-based think tank analyst, Danchenko was hired by Steele to contribute intelligence information to Steele's research.
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