The Trial of Igor Danchenko: Day One
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Background:
“Igor Yurievich Danchenko is the third individual whom Special Counsel John H. Durham has indicted as part of his investigations into the origins of Crossfire Hurricane, the Mueller Special Counsel, and whether any individual, government official or not, engaged in any wrongdoing as relates to the 2016 Presidential Campaigns and the President Trump Administration.
Beginning in March 2016, Danchenko was hired by former MI6 Intelligence Officer Christopher Steele to work for Orbis Business Intelligence and to investigate Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Michael Cohen, and others in or associated with the Trump Campaign. The goal being to establish some basis for the accusations of Russian Collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign. Information that Danchenko provided was placed into the Steele Reports or Company Reports.
He became Steele’s Sub-Source.
Some of that information would later be used as part of FISA warrant applications targeting Carter Page and the Trump Campaign.”
For a preview of this case, read this substack:
Danchenko is now charged with five counts of willfully and knowingly making a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement or representation to the FBI.
With the trial transcripts in hand, courtesy of Badlands Media, let’s dig in.
This trial is taking place in Alexandria, Virginia before United States District Judge Anthony J. Trenga.
For the Prosecution side of things, Special Counsel John H. Durham is joined by Assistant Special Counsel Michael T. Keilty, and Department of Justice Trial Attorney Brittain Shaw. Paralegal Specialist Kori Arsenault and FBI case agent Ryan James are seated at the rear table.
On the Defense side, Igor Y. Danchenko is represented by Stuart A. Sears and Danny Onorato of Schertler, Onorato, Mead & Sears. They are assisted by three paralegals, Charlie Tent, Grace McMahon, and Matt Milzman.
Fun fact, this is the same law firm that represented Hillary For America in the Michael Sussmann case.
Before the prospective jurors are brought in for voir dire, the Judge ask both counsels if there are any issues they want to raise. There are some, and in the arguments over them we get our first explosive reveals and previously unknown details of this case and the actions/inactions of players in the Spygate saga.
Durham first asks that the sealed witness list be unsealed.
He next brings up several issues with the motions in limine,
“There's one remaining motion that needs to be resolved, and that relates generally to the failure of Mr. Danchenko to provide certain documents. A second issue that we'll discuss with counsel relates to the scope and testimony to be permissible regarding the previous investigation of Mr. Danchenko in connection with the counterespionage case. A third issue that we mentioned briefly to counsel this morning -- we had received some translations of documents from counsel as late as last night or early this morning that we want to be heard on. Because similar to Your Honor's ruling on evidence that the government had sought to present, as well as hearsay, there are emails related to Mr. Zlodorev. There are some emails that we understand the defense would like to offer between Mr. Millian and Mr. Zlodorev that, we think, are surely hearsay and are not properly raised to the Court. The last issue has to do with a particular dossier report. It's generally referred to and most easily referred to as 2016/95. In that connection, that particular report relates to Source E, who is identified as Sergei Millian, and the parties have open issues relating to how much of that report should probably be admitted. So there's some consensus, but there are still differences.”
So, the Defense has failed to provide certain documents, the permissible scope and testimony as regards the previous counter intelligence investigation from 2009-2010 needs to be defined, Durham just got translations of some documents last night(!), and there is disagreement between counsels as to how much of a particular dossier report (2016/95) should be admitted.
Defense raises an issue having to do with emails between Charles “Chuck” Dolan Jr and Danchenko. Sears tells Judge Trenga,
“Through our own research and what, I think, Mr. Dolan would say as well is that was all public information when he provided it to Mr. Danchenko. We found a series of articles leading up to August 20, which is when that email was sent, that go into every detail that was in the email that Mr. Dolan sent.
So from a defense perspective, we want to show that all of this information was, in fact, publicly available. We would like to admit those articles.”
Sears continues,
“Two exhibits that we intended to rely on that were government exhibits no longer appear on the government's exhibit list. I don't have the numbers because -- (Counsel confer.) There might be three, I'm told….
One is Amtrak records… that show that Mr. Danchenko was, in fact, in New York from July 25th to the 28th -- or from the 26th to the 28th, which is the time when he was under the impression that he was going to meet with whoever was the anonymous caller…
There's also a July 28, 2016, Facebook message that Mr. Danchenko sent to his then wife at the time where he's in New York. He sends a photograph of some giraffes at the Bronx Zoo and says, "Another meeting tonight." And that was, from our perspective, the night that he was supposed to meet with Sergei Millian or the person he believed was Sergei Millian.”
Mr Onorato then raises another issue,
“Your Honor, along those lines, the government was seeking to introduce an email -- and they still are -- on July 26 between Mr. Millian and Mr. Zlodorev. They had one more email in that chain originally in their exhibits, and they've excised the last email from that chain. So as a rule of completeness matter, we would like to show the jury what Mr. Zlodorev told Mr. Millian about Mr. Zlodorev's relationship with Mr. Danchenko at the time.”
Durham tells the judge that he is “very confident that we can work these out. We can offer those same exhibits…”
Well, that’s nice of him.
The court next moved into discussion of jurors to strike based on their answers to the questionnaire. I don’t want to get into the details of the jurors themselves or their answers. For obvious reasons, I feel it best to avoid providing too much information about them so I am electing to not provide any.
I do want to note a comment by Durham during these discussions that he expects this trial will likely go into next week.
The Judge then decides to take things back to the issues raised moments ago. Durham wants clarification on what they can say about the previous counter intelligence investigation and how to describe it. Here is what he wants to say,
"There was an investigation. The investigation was closed because, again, the FBI mistakenly thought Mr. Danchenko had left the country. So it wasn't resolved," or, in the alternative, "There was an investigation that was conducted, and it wasn't resolved,"
Sears, for the defense, waffles back and forth a bit before finally saying they don’t want this investigation mentioned at all.
Turning to Durham, the judge asks for his response, which is the first BOOM of the day, in my opinion.
Danchenko was not only known to the FBI, he was known to SIA Brian Auten!
The FBI thought they were tracking Danchenko, thought he left the country. They gave it six months or so and then gave up. Wow.
Igor Y. Danchenko was known to the FBI and known specifically to FBI Supervisory Intelligence Agent Brian Auten, who was inquiring about Danchenko by name to the Baltimore office some two years after the case was closed. I’m very curious as to why he was doing that at that time. Why was Auten looking at the Danchenko file in 2012?
The judge says he will rule on this before opening statements.
Another issue raised has to do with a specific Steele, or Company, Report. Report 2016/95 or Report 95, which is Government Exhibit 109.
An interesting exchange happens and the heart of it is whether Danchenko was attributing all of the information in the report to Source E, meaning Sergei Millian, or only a portion of it. Defense says agents were not clear enough in their questioning of Danchenko. That is going to be a theme in this trial and was in their Motion to Dismiss. Defense’s best argument against counts two through five is that Danchenko gave truthful answers to ambiguous questions.
The judge says he will have to rule on this within the context of the agent’s testimony. What agent? Danchenko’s handling agent!
Next is the issue of the emails. Some them having to do with Danchenko’s emails to Millian and the rest are emails exchanges with Charles Dolan. Defense doesn’t think these should be admissible because Danchenko was never specifically asked for them by the agents interviewing him. However, Durham argues that, “It was made abundantly clear…”
And on the Dolan emails, Durham argues similarly and goes further.
Defense counsel is, of course, against these emails coming in and argues that this is, “charging a false statement case by affirmative representation but then trying to backdoor a concealment theory, which would be very difficult to prove in this case because there was no duty to disclose.”
Durham easily rebuffs this argument by offering another bombshell.
Danchenko had an immunity agreement, which he violated by not “[making] full and complete disclosure of information” that he was being asked for by the agents.
The final issue before voir dire begins is that of some translated (from Russian to English) emails between a Mr. Zloderev and Mr. Millian. Durham was not provided these emails until 12:01am, nine hours or less before stepping into the courtroom for this first day of the trial. Defense wants to offer the emails at trial, Durham argues they are hearsay.
Judge Trenga wants to consider these issues and rule on them later, but some guidance will be given before opening statements.
Voir Dire aka Jury Selection begins after a short recess and a jury is seated by Noon. Judge Trenga informs counsels that while he is not making a definitive ruling the issues discussed in the morning session, he does not want the prior counter intelligence investigation or failure to produce evidence mentioned in opening statements. He also does not want the matter of publicly available articles mentioned.
After lunch the jury is brought in and seated. The Judge gives his preliminary instructions to the jury and then it’s time for Opening Statements.
Assistant Special Counsel Michael Keilty presented the Opening Statement for the Prosecution. Here are some key lines that stood out to me.
Here is the materiality of the lies.
The Immunity Agreement was presented to Danchenko at the January 2017 meeting. All Danchenko had to do was be truthful and forthcoming about the information he provided for the Reports and where he got it.
Following those three days of interviews and the offer of the agreement, Danchenko was made a CHS.
Danchenko did provide useful information to the FBI, but he also could not provide corroboration of the information he provided to Steele and he lied about his sourcing.
The “why are we here?” explanation gets into the FISA warrants on Carter Page and the materiality of Danchenko’s lies.
Danchenko told Dolan that he was “was working on a very important project against Donald Trump.”
Dolan will be testifying in this case.
Four FBI agents are going to testify about Dolan.
FBI intelligence analyst Brittany Hertzog prepared a report on Dolan and figured out his connections to the Russian government and to Danchenko.
Agent Helson wanted to interview Dolan, but the FBI never did. If Danchenko had not lied about Dolan, the FBI may have taken steps to interview him.
And before you think Assistant Special Counsel Keilty is giving a pass to FBI with the above statement, he follows up with this line.
The Special Counsel is not gonna let the FBI or anyone else off in this case or Crossfire Hurricane or the FISAs on Page or anything else that the Special Counsel order from AG Barr authorizes Durham to investigate. Piece by piece, step by step, Durham is going to investigate, account for, and prosecute criminal acts.
Mr. Onorato, counsel for the Defense, then offered their Opening Statement, which I will present when Defense begins their case in chief.
After opening statements and the jury being excused, Durham raised an issue with the Judge in regards to Mr. Onarato’s accusation that Mr. Keilty had lied in his opening statement.
Judge Trenga did not budge, much to Onorato’s chagrin.
Mr. Onorato pressed further, and Judge Trenga would have none of it.
First witness up for the Special Counsel is FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten.
After explaining his education and some of his work history, what his job is with the FBI, Durham began questioning Auten about Crossfire Hurricane. When it began, how it was structured, who reported to who, etc.
On the analyst side, Auten reported to Moffa. Moffa reported to Priestap.
Auten’s operational side counter part was Pientka.
Pientka reported to Strzok. Strzok reported to Priestap.
Priestap reported to McCabe. McCabe reported to Comey.
Auten’s understanding was that everything was being reported to Director Comey.
Next, we get into the origins of Crossfire Hurricane.
Based on a “suggestion” given to them by a friendly foreign government, they opened a FULL investigation and inside of that FOUR MORE FULL investigations. This allowed them to access more powerful investigative tools, like FISA.
Auten was helping “lead the analysts” on Crossfire Hurricane and all four of the investigations under it.
A FISA warrant on Carter Page was sought very early on.
They couldn’t get a FISA warrant on Papadopoulos, but they tried.
Auten does not recall any discussions of trying to get a FISA warrant on Manafort or Flynn.
But they did get one on Carter Page. Thanks to the false information Danchenko fed to Steele, which the FBI received in the form of the Steele Dossier on September 19th, 2016.
Durham now starts asking Auten to explain to the jury who Christopher Steele is.
Durham now gets into the FISA application on Page.
Getting at the materiality issue here.
Durham gets Auten to admit that they were not able to corroborate or confirm the information that they put into the FISAs on Carter Page!
FBI searched their systems and conferred with other agencies.
They were not able to corroborate the allegations!
Auten went with other agents to interview Christopher Steele.
They met with Steele in early October 2016.
Even for $1,000,000.00, Steele could not verify the information in his own reports!
This fully destroys the Steele Reports, fully exonerates Trump of the allegations, and fully exposes how incredibly corrupt it was for the FBI to pursue FISA warrants and investigations based on these Reports. Which they did. Even after this meeting. The FISA was taken to the FISC just weeks later DESPITE this interview with Steele!
Nothing. Steele could provide no corroborative information whatsoever.
Durham then turns to questioning Auten about the other reason they met with Steele: to identify the sourcing of the information in the Reports.
Interesting exchange there. Durham wanted those specific questions and answers on the record, to inform the jury that the FBI was trying to get at Steele’s sourcing, meaning Danchenko, and the sourcing was important to them. The follow up of “Any doubt in your mind about that?” Hmm. Would have liked have seen Auten’s face and heard his voice when he answered that one.
What the next line of questioning reveals is flabbergasting.
This is known to people who have studied Spygate, that FBI took information to FISC and got a warrant to spy on Carter Page without knowing who the source was for that information. But to see it admitted to by SIA Auten under questioning from Durham crystallizes it.
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FBI knew in early October that the source of the reports, Steele, could not corroborate the info. Even for a million bucks. Yet, they took piece of that same info to the FISA court and got a warrant on Page, and they surveilled Page and his contacts, while still trying to identify the source of the info! It was until December that they arrived homed in on Danchenko.
Millian came up prior to FBI meeting Steele, which means prior to Danchenko being identified as the source. Good thing to take note of. My mind immediately goes to wondering if this is a factor in Danchenko trying to point back to Millian later in the interviews.
There’s something here, but I don’t know what. Yet.
Steele did provide the names of some people for the FBI to look into.
Now, Durham is going to drive home the FISA abuse.
FISA abuse admitted to, on the stand, by FBI SIA Auten.
Auten can't remember specifics, but Durham does. He has the receipts.
This is the document that was at issue earlier in the morning.
Side bar is called.
There are two versions of this document, one from Prosecution and one from Defense.
With one version decided on and submitted into evidence, Durham displays it on a screen for the jury to see and asks Auten to read it.
Huge admissions right there. Durham is driving this FISA abuse into the record. And he is going to drive it in some more.
Back to Millian now.
Sergei Millian was at one time a CHS for the Atlanta Field Office. That’s a bombshell revelation.
Durham goes onto to inquire about what Auten knew about Millian, establishing for the record and for the jury that Millian was president of the Russian American Chamber of Commerce (RACC), was a Trump supporter, and also that a file had been opened on Millian. He had been investigated and that investigation had closed without charges being brought.
Durham asks more questions to Auten about Millian to nail down that Millian’s name was only brought up by Steele, in the October 2016 interview and by Danchenko in the January 2017 interview.
Now, Durham goes back to FISA, asking Auten to look at the binder in front of him and reference a specific exhibit.
Exhibit 1205, a redacted version of the FISA warrant on Carter Page is entered into evidence. The exhibit is then displayed on a monitor for the jury and witness to see.
Durham asks Auten when the renewals were. He remembers the dates roughly, so Durham refreshes his memory with Government's Exhibit 1206, 1207 and 1208. This gets the specific dates into the record and Durham has Auten confirm that the information from Dossier, which was not corroborated, was carried into each and every application.
Government's Exhibit 1206, 1207 and 1208 are then entered into evidence.
And now we get to the identification of Danchenko as the source.
Remember the issue raised in the morning about the prior counter intelligence investigation? How the judge wanted to wait until Durham got to that point with the witness?
We have arrived.
That is one hell of a stopping point. I hope it made an impact on the jury. Was probably also a good time to give them a break after all they had just heard.
When the break is over and court is back in session Durham starts getting at the details of the three days of interviews in January 2017. Danchenko was interviewed by Agent Auten and Agent Steve Somma. Somma was the case agent who was handling the Carter Page case at that time. Additionally, there was someone from the National Security Division present each day. On the first day is was David Laufman, on the second day is was Richard Scott. Danchenko’s lawyer was also present.
An immunity letter was offered and Durham, of course, has it. Government Exhibit 118. It is signed by Laufman, Danchenko, and his counsel Mark Schamel. The date is January 24th, 2017.
The letter is entered into evidence.
The letter is displayed on a screen for the jury to see and Durham asks Auten to read it for them.
Durham wants to highlight the requirements of this agreement make sure the jury understands it. And he is using Auten to do it.
And Danchenko did violate this immunity agreement.
Durham continues questioning Auten about letter for a little while longer before getting into the details of the three day interview in January 2017. Asking about the setting, what questions were asked, whether or not Danchenko spoke English (he did), did he ever appear to be confused by the questions (he did not), establishing that Danchenko was aware that some of his information and analysis was in the Steel Dossier, etc. This is all key to establishing and heading off any Defense argument that Danchenko did not understand what was being asked of him.
Then, Durham brings up some LinkedIn messages Danchenko sent in 2020. In the messages admits something to a person named Anastasia.
October of 2020 is when Danchenko’s status as a CHS was terminated. This could be why.
Durham brings up Danchenko’s role as a CHS next. Auten testifies that he was not involved in that process, but recalls talk of it after the January 2017 interviews. The Operations side of things would have been the group who recruited Danchenko as a CHS and Auten is on the Analysts side of the structure.
Auten describes the phases of Crossfire Hurricane as 1.0 (up until November 2016), 2.0 (December 2016-March 2017), and 3.0 (March 2017 onward). Danchenko entered as CHS during what Auten calls Crossfire Hurricane 2.0. He was a CHS for the Washington Field Office, originally handled by Agent Somma, but was handed over to Agent Helson after Somma was moved to New York.
Agent Helson’s specialty was Russian Counterintelligence.
Durham bringing up that after Danchenko was made CHS they were still asking him about the allegations in the dossier and never got anything corroborative out of him.
Durham now starts asking about Agent Amy Anderson. Auten testifies that Adnerson came on the team with the transition into the Mueller Special Counsel. Her specific task was what they called “dossier validation.” Agent Anderson was assisted by intelligence analysts Brittany Hertzog.
Moving along, Durham begins asking about the alleged 10-15min phone call between Danchenko and some one he “believed to be Sergei Millian.”
Auten states that the conversations with Danchenko about this phone call and the emails was “peculiar” and “inconsistent”
Durham informs Judge Trenga that this is a good stopping point and Day One of the Danchenko Trial is complete.
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So meticulous. Thanks for this, Just Human.
Hard to know where to start - cause this is like a drink from a fire hose. Great stuff.
Zot