Trump had described the dossier as fake news and evidence of a political witch hunt against him.ĭurham’s investigation lost another court battle this year when a federal jury found Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann not guilty of lying to the FBI. In his decision, Trenga said that answer was literally true, because the correspondence was conducted by email.ĭurham defended his charges during the trial, however, arguing that “it would certainly be reasonable to infer” that Danchenko understood the questions about whether he had talked to Dolan to be in a context of general communications.īefore the trial, Trenga also ruled that prosecutors could not present evidence about the most salacious parts of the dossier, including unproven allegations involving Trump and prostitutes at a Moscow hotel alleged to have been bugged by Russian intelligence, an allegation that could have raised the possibility that Trump could be blackmailed. Asked by the FBI whether he had talked to Dolan for the information, Danchenko said no. District Judge Anthony Trenga dismissed a charge related to whether Danchenko had talked with a Democratic operative named Charles Dolan about the contents of the so-called Steele dossier. He then went down the list of how, he said, emails and comments corroborated - not refuted - Danchenko’s claims, such as his travels to New York City to possibly meet with Millian, his uncertainty about Millian’s identity as the anonymous caller and the consistency of the sentiments he expressed in his interview statements.Īfter the government and the defense rested their cases Friday, U.S. “The special counsel’s investigation is committed to proving crime at any cost,” regardless of the government’s own evidence proving his client’s innocence, Sears said. “It was devastating testimony for the special counsel’s case,” Sears said, highlighting the internal pressure the agents might have faced before they provided that testimony. “Steele was trying to burn everything to the ground around him” to prove the allegations in his dossier, Helson testified under cross-examination by Sears. Steele embellished the information he provided,” testimony that bolstered the defense’s argument that Danchenko was blindsided by the published dossier. Helson recalled Danchenko’s being upset about “how Mr. And we thank these jurors for their hard work and deliberation and reaching the right result."ĭurham’s team called several witnesses, including FBI analyst Brian Auten, who revealed the agency offered up to $1 million to Steele if he could provide evidence or sources that would produce "corroborating information that led to a successful prosecution” stemming from the allegations in his dossier - a line of questioning intended to discredit Steele and the FBI's tactics.Īnother witness, FBI Agent Kevin Helson, was Danchenko’s “handler” from 2017 until the Justice Department indirectly revealed his identity as a main contributor to the dossier in 2020. We’re happy now that the American public knows that, as well. In a statement after the verdict, Durham said: “While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service. I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case."ĭanchenko’s attorney, Stuart Sears, said outside the courthouse: "We’ve known all along that Mr.
Millian has denied he was a source of information for the dossier.
The government obtained Millian’s email records, which included messages from Danchenko but no contact information for any apps or references to a purported call between the two men. Prosecutors, using phone records, said the call never happened, while the defense maintained the conversation could have occurred over an encrypted phone app. The FBI used the largely unsubstantiated dossier to support its surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.ĭanchenko, 44, had told the FBI he received some of the information that went into the dossier in an anonymous phone call in July 2016 from someone he thought was the prominent Belarusian American businessman Sergei Millian - a claim the defense argued was always speculative. Prosecutors alleged Danchenko provided false information to the FBI in 2017, when it was trying to verify information in a dossier detailing Trump’s alleged ties to Russia that was compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
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