The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) paid Igor Danchenko, the source of the most salacious claims in the fraudulent “Steele dossier,” as a “confidential human source” (CHS) during the years President Donald Trump was under investigation.
A filing unsealed Tuesday by Special Counsel John Durham in his prosecution of Danchenko for lying to the FBI notes that he was the source for former British spy Christopher Steele in his compilation of the “dossier” — including the claim that there was a so-called “pee tape” of Trump cavorting with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel and asking them to urinate on a bed on which then-President Barack Obama had slept. Many prominent Democrats — including 2019-20 impeachment counsel and current congressional candidate Daniel S. Goldman — promoted the claims, and proclaimed that a “pee tape” actually existed.
Durham claims that Danchenko was listed as a CHS by the FBI during “Operation Crossfire Hurricane,” its investigation of Trump’s supposed “collusion” with Russia. He remained a CHS during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s fruitless inquiry.
One observer, writing at the “technofog” blog on Substack, speculated that Danchenko may have been retained as a paid CHS to keep him from revealing that the FBI (and Mueller) knew the information in the “dossier” was false, even as the FBI used it to obtain electronic surveillance warrants on Trump foreign policy aide Carter Page, who had not done anything wrong.
Danchenko had once worked as a Russia analyst at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, together with Fiona Hill, a national security expert who was later called as a witness against Trump in the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry.
Durham is accusing Danchenko of lying to the FBI to protect Charles Dolan Jr., a communications consultant with close ties to the Clintons. He is also accusing Danchenko of lying to the FBI about communications with Sergei Millian, who was then president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, and whose supposed evidence helped convince the FBI to seek a surveillance warrant against Carter Page. Dolan is expected to be a witness in Durham’s prosecution against Danchenko.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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