Durham presents new evidence on day 2 of Danchenko trial

Special Counsel John Durham presented fresh evidence Wednesday in his prosecution of Igor Danchenko, bolstering allegations that the Russian analyst lied to FBI agents during their investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

The trial in an Alexandria, Va., federal courtroom is expected to be Durham’s final prosecution in his probe into the origins of “Crossfire Hurricane” — the name given to the FBI’s investigation into potential Trump-Russia collusion. It’s a critical moment for Durham as the probe has largely fallen short of expectations from Trump allies that it would reveal a conspiracy against the former president.

Danchenko was the primary sub-source of the infamous Steele dossier — a collection of reports alleging salacious rumors and conspiracies about Trump’s ties to Russia. The defendant has pleaded not guilty to five counts of lying to the FBI about who his main source of information was for his contributions to the dossier and the nature of his communications with an individual he claimed to use as a source.

Durham on Wednesday continued the questioning of the government’s first witness, Brian Auten, an FBI supervisory intelligence analyst who interviewed Danchenko in January 2017, when the Russian analyst allegedly lied to the bureau. Auten revealed in his testimony on Tuesday inconsistencies in information Danchenko provided to FBI agents regarding his communications with Sergei Millian, a Belarusian-American businessperson who had connections to the Trump Organization and Trump associates during the 2016 campaign.

The special counsel provided further evidence during questioning Wednesday to support his claim that Danchenko made a false statement to the FBI when he told the bureau he received an anonymous call from a person he believed to be Millian in July 2016. Durham showed email exchanges between Danchenko and Russian journalist Dimitry Zlodorev — sent a month after Danchenko supposedly received the anonymous phone call — where the defendant told the journalist he’d had difficulty making contact with Millian. Danchenko in one email asks Zlodorev to help him get in contact with Millian.

Durham also brought into evidence a LinkedIn message that Danchenko sent to Millian about a month after he allegedly received the phone call. Danchenko makes no mention in the message about the phone call or meeting in New York — which Danchenko told FBI agents he and the anonymous caller had made plans to do.

Auten testified that Danchenko never provided these exchanges to the FBI, but that they would have been important and could have possibly informed the bureau’s next steps in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation had they received the records.

Durham also raised a line of questioning with Auten to support his accusation that Danchenko lied to the FBI about his main source of information for his contributions to the dossier. The defendant is charged with lying by telling the FBI he hadn’t “talked” to Democratic operative Charles Dolan when the two had in fact exchanged emails. The government asserts that Dolan was actually Danchenko’s primary source for information he contributed to the dossier.

Durham on Wednesday presented email exchanges between Danchenko and Dolan where the defendant directly asks Dolan for any “rumor” or “allegation” about the resignation of former Trump campaign Chair Paul Manafort, who had come under fire for his ties to Russia. Danchenko also said in the email that he was working on a related project against Trump.

Auten also testified that Danchenko never mentioned Dolan over the course of three interviews FBI agents conducted with him in January 2017.

During cross examination, Danchenko’s attorney, Danny Onorato, established that Auten had given positive statements regarding his client when meeting with the Office of Inspector General in 2018, around when the Durham team had begun its probe.

Onorato also presented a July 2016 email from Millian that indicated he was meeting with Trump allies, which Auten said he had not seen before and had not been shown to him by Durham’s team. The FBI agent said it would have been helpful if the bureau had obtained that email record to better analyze whether the anonymous phone call Danchenko received had been from Millian.

Onorato’s cross examination of Auten was set to continue Wednesday after a lunch recess.