What we learned from Durham's Danchenko investigation

Jerry Dunleavy

October 22, 07:43 AM October 22, 07:43 AM

Special counsel John Durham's investigation was dealt a blow earlier this week with a second not-guilty verdict, but his trial against Igor Danchenko revealed a host of new details about the FBI’s deeply flawed Trump-Russia investigation — and left some questions unanswered.

Danchenko on FBI payroll

Danchenko was on the FBI's payroll as a confidential human source from March 2017 to October 2020 before he was charged in November 2021 with five counts of making false statements to the bureau.

FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten, who testified during the trial, was one of the agents who interviewed Danchenko in January 2017, and he was there when the Justice Department provided Danchenko with partial immunity.

FBI agent Kevin Helson, who was the handler for Danchenko while he worked as a paid informant for the bureau, sought to reward Danchenko lucratively.

Helson made an October 2020 request to pay Danchenko a lump sum of $346,000, and his testimony revealed that would have brought the total amount the Russian lawyer and analyst had been paid by the bureau over a few years up to a total of $546,000. The lump-sum payment request was denied.

DURHAM REVEALS MUELLER WAS INVESTIGATING TRUMP DOSSIER

It was revealed during the trial that Auten was inquiring about Danchenko through the Baltimore field office in 2012, so when Danchenko was identified by the FBI as former British spy Christopher Steele’s main source by December 2016, he was already known to at least one Crossfire Hurricane member.

Steele dossier unverified

Auten said neither Danchenko nor Steele ever provided corroborating information for the dossier. The analyst revealed the FBI had offered Steele an incentive of up to $1 million if he could prove the allegations of collusion in his dossier, but the FBI analyst said the former MI6 agent was unable to corroborate the claims following the October 2016 meeting. Auten and multiple other FBI officials testified during the trial that neither Steele nor Danchenko was ever able to back up any of the dossier’s claims, and Auten also testified that other U.S. intelligence agencies looked into the dossier's claims, but none could confirm them.

Auten and others would feed questions about the dossier to Helson to ask Danchenko, but Helson testified that the dossier-related questions “dwindled” as time went on. He said Danchenko never provided any corroboration for the dossier claims.

Helson admitted he knew nothing about the dossier when he was made Danchenko’s handler. He also testified he told Danchenko to delete messages and “scrub” his phone. He said he believed 80% of the dossier’s contents came from Danchenko, adding that “it was a significant majority of the dossier.” Danchenko bragged in private messages that 80% of the dossier’s “raw intelligence” and 50% of its “analysis” came from him.

Mueller investigated the dossier

Durham’s trial against Danchenko revealed that Robert Mueller’s special counsel team was investigating the discredited Trump dossier despite congressional testimony from Mueller that Steele and his dossier were outside his purview, but the team couldn't corroborate a single key claim.

Amy Anderson, a supervisory special agent, and Brittany Hertzog, a former FBI intelligence analyst, both testified that, as members of Mueller’s team specifically tasked with scrutinizing the dossier, they believed the FBI should interview and further investigate Charles Dolan, a longtime ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton, partly due to his business connections with Danchenko and with Russian business and government officials.

The Mueller team members also testified that they were concerned about Dolan’s links to Danchenko’s friend Olga Galkina, who had been identified as a subsource for Danchenko related to the dossier, although she denies being such a source. Galkina was interviewed by the FBI in Cyprus in August 2017, but she was very hesitant about speaking about Dolan.

Despite Dolan’s potential dossier links through Danchenko and Galkina, as well as his associations with Russian officials, Anderson and Hertzog said their efforts to investigate Dolan were shut down by their Mueller team superiors. Auten said Steele had brought up Dolan during the October 2016 meeting as being among people who might be knowledgeable about the dossier allegations.

Danchenko suspected as a Russian spy

A member of the FBI's Human Intelligence Validation Unit suggested Danchenko may have been part of Russian intelligence services, according to court testimony, and Durham highlighted how Helson apparently did not do his due diligence in looking into the Russian analyst’s background before signing him up as a confidential human source.

Durham got Helson to admit that he submitted paperwork in early 2017 on Danchenko, which wrongly stated there was no derogatory information available on the Steele dossier source. In reality, it has been revealed that Danchenko was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation for being a potential national security threat from 2009 to 2011. The inquiry unearthed links between the defendant and Russian intelligence officers.

Helson nevertheless testified that, from 2017 through 2020, Danchenko had provided assistance in 25 ongoing FBI investigations and contributed to at least 40 intelligence reports. The FBI agent testified that these investigations and reports largely or entirely related to combating Russian malign influence.

Durham's loss and what remains unanswered

According to Durham, Danchenko anonymously sourced a fabricated claim about Trump 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort to Dolan. But the judge threw out that charge before the jury could decide on it.

Durham also accused Danchenko of lying to the FBI about a phone call he claims he received from someone he believed was Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born U.S. citizen and businessman whom the Steele source had said told him about a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between former President Donald Trump and the Russians — which the special counsel says is false. Danchenko was found not guilty of those charges.

Auten revealed that “Mr. Millian at one time had been a source” for the FBI.

It appears Durham may be done with his criminal charges, raising questions about how the FBI agents and officials involved in the Trump-Russia investigation's wrongdoing will be held accountable.

The special counsel is expected to submit a final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who vowed to make it public.