Analyst who aided Russia dossier is charged with lying
WASHINGTON » A Russian analyst who contributed to a dossier of Democratic-funded research into ties between Russia and former President Donald Trump was arrested on charges of lying to the FBI about his sources of information, among them a longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton.
The case against Igor Danchenko is part of special counsel John Durham’s ongoing investigation into the origins of the FBI’s probe into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia had conspired to tip the outcome of that year’s presidential campaign.
The indictment, the third criminal case brought by Durham and the second in a twomonth span, is likely to boost complaints from Trump allies that wellconnected Democrats worked behind the scenes to advance suspicions about Trump and Russia that contributed to the FBI’s election-year investigation.
The case does not undercut investigators’ findings that the Kremlin aided the Trump campaign — conclusions that were not based on the dossier, which was barely mentioned in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. But the indictment does endorse a longstanding concern about the Russia probe: that opposition research the FBI relied on as it surveilled a Trump campaign adviser was marred by unsupported, uncorroborated claims.
The five-count indictment accuses Danchenko of making multiple false statements to the FBI when interviewed in 2017 about his role in collecting information for Christopher Steele, a former British spy whose research into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia was financed by Democrats.