His attorney said he would plead not guilty. The false statements were allegedly made on five different occasions, from March 2017 to November 2017, according to the indictment unsealed Thursday.ĭanchenko was arrested Thursday morning and appeared in court in Virginia later in the afternoon. Washington - A Russian analyst who worked with Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer behind a controversial dossier about former President Donald Trump and Russia, has been indicted on federal charges of making false statements to the FBI, according to the Justice Department.Ī federal grand jury charged Igor Danchenko, a 43-year-old Russian national living in Virginia, with five counts of lying to federal investigators about the sources of information he provided to Steele's firm, which was then included in the dossier passed to the FBI. Lindsey Graham, have described Danchenko as a “Russian agent,” which Danchenko has forcefully denied.New documents give more information on Steele Dossier source 01:57 And allies of Trump, including Republican Sen. In fact, much of what was in the Steele dossier remains unproven, if not determined to be false. Cohen continues to insist the claim was nonsense, and no meaningful evidence that it took place has ever emerged. The dossier also suggested that Trump’s longtime former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, made a trip to the European city of Prague to further Trump’s links to Russia. The Steele dossier claimed that the hotel "was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras” and suggested that “Russian authorities” had taken advantage of Trump’s “personal obsessions and sexual perversion” to obtain compromising material on him-an allegation that gave rise to the legend of the infamous, and possibly imaginary, Trump pee tape.Īs recently as October, Steele said he thinks the pee tape “probably does” exist but that Russia hasn’t needed to release it yet. The dossier-which was prepared by former British spy Christopher Steele-alleged that Trump had once paid Russian sex workers to perform a show for him that involved urinating on a bed at the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow, which former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama had supposedly slept in. Trump has publicly exhorted Durham to go after his political enemies and to find crimes among those responsible for launching the investigation into his ties to Russia. Specifically, the indictment accuses Danchenko of covering up his relationship with a public relations executive and “longtime participant in Democratic Party politics,” whom the indictment describes as the real source of “one or more” allegations in the dossier.ĭanchenko’s arrest comes as part of the special counsel’s inquiry into the Russia investigation, which officially began last year, shortly before Trump left office and is being led by U.S. During interviews as part of the FBI probe into Trump’s connections with Russia-known as “Crossfire Hurricane”-Danchenko allegedly misled agents about how, and when, he received some of the information that ended up in the dossier. On Thursday, Danchenko was taken into custody in Virginia for allegedly lying to the FBI, according to an unsealed indictment filed in federal court. Danchenko was the primary researcher on what’s become known as the Steele dossier-a litany of allegations against the former president and his campaign, namely that they conspired with Russian intelligence to defeat Hillary Clinton.
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