Steele dossier source Igor Danchenko acquitted of lying to FBI in latest Durham trial
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A key source for the salacious and discredited Trump-Russia dossier was acquitted by a federal jury Tuesday, in a case that nevertheless produced several bombshells about the FBI’s handling of its probe into the 45th president’s 2016 campaign.
Despite Danchenko’s acquittal, the trial produced a series of revelations about the FBI — including testimony from a bureau analyst that it had offered Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy who compiled the dossier, $1 million in October 2016 to make its outrageous claims against Trump stick.
The trial also revealed that Helson and other agents did no due diligence on Danchenko’s background when a simple check would have revealed suspicions of his role in Steele’s project.
“Don’t feel bad for the FBI agents,” Durham told the jury on Monday during closing arguments. “There are things that they didn’t do that they quite clearly should have done.”
Trump White House veterans lamented the verdict, with former White House press secretary Sean Spicer calling it “unbelievably disappointing.”
“We’ve been waiting and waiting and told to hold our breath, there’s more coming — just be patient, be patient,” Spicer said on his Newsmax show “Spicer & Co.” “This is — I don’t even think disappointing does justice to how bad this is.”
Ric Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence, argued in a tweet that the verdict doesn’t exonerate the government officials who pushed falsehoods about alleged Trump-Russia collusion.
“Danchenko and the FBI both lied in and about the Steele dossier,” Grenell wrote. “They made outlandish claims that never materialized. A jury saying that Danchenko didn’t lie doesn’t clear up how the lies were pushed by our government.”
Kash Patel, a former chief of staff to Trump’s last acting defense secretary, tweeted “the two tier system of justice is here to stay,” while Devin Nunes, the former top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee and current CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group shared a meme of the jurors as smiling Hillary Clinton clones.
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