The second trial out of Special Counsel John Durham’s years-long investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe begins this week with Igor Danchenko, the Russian national who served as the primary sub-source for the anti-Trump dossier, in court fighting five counts of making false statements to the FBI.
Danchenko pleaded not guilty last year to lying about the source of information that he provided to ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele for the dossier, which contained salacious and now-debunked allegations against former President Donald Trump.
Durham charged Danchenko last year. The charges stem from certain statements Danchenko made to the FBI relating to the sources he used in providing information to an investigative firm in the United Kingdom related to the dossier.
Danchenko served as the primary sub-source for Steele’s dossier, which was commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through law firm Perkins Coie.
The dossier served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page — something Justice Department's Inspector General Michael Horowitz revealed in 2019.
The Justice Department admitted in 2020 that the FISA warrants to surveil Page, when stripped of the FBI's misinformation, did not meet the necessary legal threshold and never should have been issued.
Judge Anthony Trenga of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia is presiding over the Danchenko case. Trenga ruled last month that he wouldn’t dismiss Durham’s indictment of Danchenko but said it would be a difficult trial for the special counsel.
Jury selection is set to begin Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Durham, in a filing unsealed last month, revealed that the FBI paid Danchenko to be a confidential human source for the FBI from January 2017 through October 2020.
Danchenko had been the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation from 2009 to 2011.
That FBI investigation into Danchenko focused on his contacts with suspected Russian intelligence officers and reported attempts to facilitate payments for classified information.
Durham has indicted three people as part of his investigation: Danchenko in November 2021, Michael Sussmann in September 2021 and Kevin Clinesmith in August 2020.
Sussmann, after a weeks-long trial, was found not guilty of making a false statement to the FBI in June. Sussmann had allegedly brought information to FBI General Counsel James Baker on Sept. 19, 2016, and allegedly claimed that he was not doing work on behalf of any client but rather bringing the data as a citizen concerned with national security.
Clinesmith pleaded guilty to altering an email about Carter Page to say that he was "not a source" for another government agency even though Page has said he was a source for the CIA.
The Justice Department relied on Clinesmith’s assertion as it submitted its third and final renewal application in 2017 to eavesdrop on Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Clinesmith pleaded guilty and in 2021 was sentenced to 12 months probation and 400 hours of community service.
Sources have told Fox News that Durham’s investigation is ongoing.
Durham was tapped in 2019, shortly after special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller announced his findings, by Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the origins of the FBI’s original investigation into the Trump campaign, which had led to the appointment of Mueller as special counsel.
Mueller, who was appointed as special counsel in May 2017, spent nearly two years and $30 million investigating whether Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Mueller’s investigation yielded no evidence of criminal conspiracy or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 presidential election.
In October 2020, Barr appointed Durham as special counsel to ensure that he would be able to continue his investigative work — regardless of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
