Two of the four court-approved warrants were later deemed invalid.ĭurham appeared to break new ground on the well-trodden topic of the dossier, with his revelation about the $1 million offer to Steele.
#FBI INFORMANT TRUMP CAMPAIGN SERIES#
Those FISA warrants were roundly criticized in a 2019 report from the Justice Department inspector general, which exposed a series of errors, flaws and omissions. Durham highlighted how the FBI kept using information from the Steele dossier to bolster its case for probable cause to secure the warrants - even after the FBI came up empty in its efforts to corroborate Steele's claims. Later, Durham spent a decent chunk of time showing jurors the warrant applications that the FBI submitted to surveil Page. He said the bureau "should have uncovered" Danchenko's alleged lies, "but never did."
#FBI INFORMANT TRUMP CAMPAIGN TRIAL#
Keilty said in opening statements that the trial would cover the FBI's "troubling conduct" regarding the Page surveillance. After three years, Durham only secured one conviction of a low-level FBI lawyer.īut his team used the Danchenko case Tuesday to put the FBI on trial, in some ways, and air some of the bureau's dirty laundry for all to see. The judge told the jury that Onorato's assertions about the supposed immunity deal "need to be clarified" because the deal provided Danchenko partial immunity.ĭurham was appointed in 2019 by former Attorney General Bill Barr to find government misconduct in the Trump-Russia probe. Durham later asked District Judge Anthony Trenga to admonish Onorato. "Think about that while you consider the government's case."Īfterward, during a courtroom break, Keilty and Onorato got into a visible argument. he just lied to you," Onorato told the jurors. Specifically, Onorato took issue with Keilty's comment that Danchenko was offered immunity during some of his FBI interviews. Things got heated when Onorato accused Keilty of lying in his own opening statement.
He told jurors that Durham wants them to "defy common sense, logic and reality" and to "rewrite the dictionary" to convict Danchenko. "This case is about protecting the functions and integrity of our institutions," Keilty said.ĭanchenko's lawyers torched Durham during their own opening statements, accusing him of trying to dupe the jury into a conviction.Īttorney Danny Onorato criticized the prosecution's "convoluted theory" of the case, and told jurors that Durham will "try to convince you that his truthful answer was somehow false." "Those lies mattered," Keilty said, because the FBI was essentially duped by Danchenko, and then included his inaccurate information in applications submitted to a judge to secure the Page wiretaps. Specifically, Danchenko's alleged deception tainted surveillance warrants that the FBI sought against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in 20. Prosecutor Michael Keilty said Danchenko's alleged lies "corrupted" the functions of the FBI. In opening statements, prosecutors said Danchenko "fabricated a source" and "concealed a source" in his interviews with the FBI in January 2017, where investigators were furiously trying to "corroborate or refute" the details of the Trump-Russia dossier. His trial kicked off Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.ĭurham, a Trump-era prosecutor who is looking for misconduct in the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, handled most of the in-court arguments on Tuesday and personally questioned Auten on the witness stand - a rare move for a special counsel and former US attorney. Danchenko has pleaded not guilty to five counts of lying to the FBI about his sourcing for some information that ended up in the dossier. The cash offer was made during an overseas October 2016 meeting between Steele and several top FBI officials who were trying to corroborate Steele's claims that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to win the election.įBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified that Steele never got the money because he could not "prove the allegations."Īuten also said Steele refused to provide the names of any of his sources during that meeting, and that Steele didn't give the FBI anything during that meeting that corroborated the claims in his explosive dossier.Īuten was testifying at the criminal trial of Igor Danchenko, a primary source for Steele's dossier, who is being prosecuted by special counsel John Durham. (CNN) - Shortly before the 2016 election, the FBI offered retired British spy Christopher Steele "up to $1 million" to prove the explosive allegations in his dossier about Donald Trump, a senior FBI analyst testified Tuesday. The FBI offered retired Steele "up to $1 million" to prove the explosive allegations in his dossier about Donald Trump. Former UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele arrives at the High Court in London in July 2020.
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