A judge is allowing prosecutors to move forward with their criminal case against an analyst who provided key details for a flawed dossier on ex-President Donald Trump, although the judge called his decision “an extremely close call.”
Lawyers for Igor Danchenko asked a judge Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to dismiss all five charges against him. He’s accused of lying to the FBI about how he obtained the information that ultimately made its way into the “Steele dossier,” a report that purported to detail connections between Trump and Russian intelligence and helped fuel a full-fledged FBI investigation called “Crossfire Hurricane” in the months leading up to the 2016 election.
The dossier famously suggested that Russians had compromising information on Trump regarding salacious sexual activity he allegedly engaged in at a Moscow hotel.
The indictment alleges Danchenko lied about the credibility of his sources when in reality his primary source was actually a Democratic operative named Charles Dolan with ties to Trump’s opponent in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton.
The indictment says the FBI could have better judged the veracity of the Steele dossier had it known that a Democratic operative who volunteered for Clinton was the source of much of the dossier’s information.
Danchenko’s lawyers argued Thursday that all the charges should be dismissed because Danchenko’s answers to the FBI were technically true, if not necessarily illuminating.
Specifically, Danchenko denied that he “talked” to Dolan about the allegations in the dossier. In reality, Danchenko had discussed the accusations in an email with Dolan, but never spoke with him in an oral conversation. |
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