A jury acquitted a Russian researcher accused of lying to the FBI about his role in the creation of a discredited dossier about former president Donald Trump.
Danchenko contributed explosive details to a document dubbed the “Steele dossier” that alleged ties between Trump’s 2016 election campaign and Russia.
The acquittal of Danchenko dealt another blow to Trump-era Special Counsel appointee John Durham. Trump’s Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham to investigate the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” probe into whether members of Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia.
Trump supporters held hope that Durham would uncover some kind of sweeping conspiracy within the FBI and other government agencies to derail Trump’s candidacy. But the three-year investigation has failed to produce any evidence that met even some of these expectations.
The case against Igor Danchenko marked the third, and potentially final, a case brought by the special counsel John Durham as part of his investigation into how the FBI conducted its own inquiry into the collusion allegations.
Jurors acquitted Danchenko on four charges, with the jury reaching its verdict after roughly nine hours of deliberations over two days. The judge had thrown out the fifth charge earlier in the case.
His acquittal marked a massive setback for Durham. The first two cases brought forth by Durham ended in an acquittal and a guilty plea with a sentence of probation.
The Danchenko case was the first one to do a deep dive into the origins of the Steele Dossier.
The Steele dossier is a compendium of allegations that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. Most famously, it alleged that the Russians could have blackmail material on Trump for interactions with prostitutes in a hotel in Moscow.
Trump has long called the dossier fake news and a witch-hunt.
Danchenko, a Russian-born researcher who resides in Northern Virginia, was indicted by Durham’s office in 2021 on five counts of making false statements to FBI agents in 2017 about the sources of information he provided to former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
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