The Trial of Igor Danchenko: Day Two
Danchenko is in the courtroom, but the FBI is on trial.
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To the surprise of no one who has been following Durham’s career and his work as a Special Counsel, the famed Punisher showed up on the first day of the trial and put FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten through a painful afternoon of grilling on the witness stand. He wasn’t done with Auten just yet, though. Auten is back on the stand for Day Two.
Before the witness and jury are brought in, there are some issues that counsels need to discuss with the judge. It concerns emails and other messages that Defense would like to get admitted, but the only way they can get them in easily is if Danchenko actually takes the stand. Judge Trenga, after hearing arguments form both sides finally say,
“Well, the question is whether the present sense exception for forward-looking information as an exception to the hearsay rule trumps the rule against admissibility of exculpatory statements by a defendant absent his testifying.”
The most interesting discussion, to me, is that of Millian. It seems that while Millian is willing to speak with the Special Counsel, he is not willing to come to the United States to testify for fear of the safety of his family and even Durham does not know where he actually is!
Quite a curious situation. Something else interesting about Millian that came up before this particular exchange.
And this really caught my eye.
Millian is quite the enigma in all of this, in my opinion. Don’t want to dive into that at this time, but I have previously offered some thoughts on him. If you are interested in them, they are here.
FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten is back on the stand. Durham resumes questioning him about the three days of interviews with Danchenko back in January of 2017.
Durham present Auten with Exhibit 100 to refresh his memory.
Danchenko first told them that it was two emails and then a phone call. The next day, he says it was one email, a phone call, and then another email much later in September after the phone call. These kinds of errors should be glaring to an investigator. They betray that the person they are interviewing cannot keep his lies straight.
But the agents did not follow up on this.
Durham now inquires about what was reportedly said on that 10-15min phone call.
During the January interview, Danchenko provided the FBI with a single email, in Russian, regarding Millian. There were other emails, though. Danchenko never volunteered them to the FBI and Auten, or apparently any other agent he worked with, had bothered to acquired them. Auten was not aware of them until preparing for this trial.
But guess what? John H. Durham has them.
Now Durham has Auten read the email, which Auten has never seen before and which neither the Crossfire Hurricane teams nor the Mueller Special Counsel teams bothered to acquire from either Danchenko or Millian.
Millian never responded to this email.
The importance of this email has to do with the meeting in New York and had the FBI bothered to obtained it from either Danchenko or Millian, they would, or should, have found another indicator that Danchenko was not being honest with them.
This is point out to the jury that Danchenko did not indicate to Millian that he could be contacted by some other app such as Facetime, Whatsapp, etc.
Now Durham is going to have Auten read the other email. It is from Sergei Millian to Dmitri Zlodorev and dated July 26th, 2016. That would be five days after the Danchenko to Millian email that Auten read moments ago. There are two parts, a forwarded messaged from July 21st and a response on July 26th.
The forwarded message is the Danchenko email to Millian. Durham has Auten read the translation of the email into the record.
Did the FBI not even bother to find out if Millian was even in the United States during the time he would have allegedly met with Danchenko in New York?
Correct. They did not bother to find out.
Now Durham has Auten read the response from Zlodorev to Millian.
So, Dmitri Zlodorev is the link between Danchenko and Millian. I think we are getting closer to finding the answer as to how Danchenko became aware of Millian and why he tried to contact him and then lied about making contact with him.
And now, another email, dated August 18, 2016. Not late July 2016 as Danchenko had told the FBI in the January 2017 interviews. This one Auten has seen before.
The only means of contact that Danchenko provided to Millian were his phone number and email address.
The next exhibit contains messages between Danchenko and Zlodorev. Who, as we just saw, was also communicating with Millian. The messages are in Russian and dated August 24-25, 2016. Danchenko provided these messages to the FBI in January 2017.
Durham has Auten read the translation of these messages.
“Sergei doesn’t respond.”
Boom.
Now, time for Durham to cement the significance of these emails.
Again, the only means of communication that Danchenko provided to Millian are his email address and his phone number. Defense will later argue that perhaps Millian contacted Danchenko by some other means. Durham knows this and that is why he is establishing these facts now.
Durham soon moves to asking Auten about Chuck Dolan. He has Auten go back over some of his testimony from yesterday in regards to how Dolan first came up in conversation with Steele back in October 2016. He also, through questioning of Auten, reminds the jury of the importance of discovering the sources and connecting them to the information in the dossier. Turns out, the FBI at least had “[developed some information]” on Dolan between October 2016 and January 2017.
Turns out, the FBI at least had “[developed some information]” on Dolan between October 2016 and January 2017. Good job guys…
Never mind. I have probably “developed” more information on Dolan in the past three weeks than this Crossfire Hurricane did in three months. Pfft.
Recall that immunity agreement from yesterday. Danchenko would be violating it by not providing this information to the FBI.
Nobody bothered to talk about Dolan during those three days of interviews. Curious, that.
Danchenko did tell the FBI about the Moscow conference in June 2016. He just left out Dolan’s name and the FBI didn’t bother to ask him questions about Dolan, even though Steele had given them that name.
Durham wants to connect this information back to the what Auten and his team were supposed to be focused on so that the jury understands the significance of these answers.
Durham now grabs a binder of exhibits: emails and business records of KGlobal.
Defense filed a motion in limine against some of the records and is going to object when those specific records are offered. The record they REALLY don’t want to come in is the one where Dolan says he thinks Danchenko might be KGB or a Russian agent.
The exhibit is an email from Danchenko to Dolan on August 19th, 2016. (that would be two months before FBI met Steele and five months before FBI interviewed Danchenko, btw).
But wait, there’s more!
Now Durham presents Dolan’s response to the above email.
Next email from Dolan to Danchenko.
And now Danchenko’s reply.
That is quite an admission from Auten and Durham is going to drill into it.
If you read my substack previewing the trial, then you know that Dolan has been working in the Democratic Party for DECADES and specifically working for the CLINTONS. That is how the goals of Danchenko and Dolan align. They are both working to damage Trump and help Clinton.
Durham does not make this connection explicitly, but his series of questions allow the jury to make them on their own. His point in questioning Auten is to expose the ineptitude of their handling of Danchenko while also evidencing a clear line of, not just communication, but cooperation on matters of information gathering against Trump between Dolan and Danchenko.
To crystallize this: Democratic Operative and Clinton Crony Chuck Dolan and Russian Lawyer/Brookings Institution Apparatchik Igor Danchenko were working together to dig up dirt on President Trump and members of his campaign. They were working together to come up with information that could be used by Steele in his Dossier.
And the FBI never did the simple investigative work to figure this out.
Durham now begins work to introduce the jury to Olga Galkina. In 2016, Galkina, a friend of Danchenko since they went to school together in Perm, was working in Cyprus at XBT Holdings SA, a web-services company which operated Webzilla internet hosting. XBT is owned by Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev. Gubarev is mentioned in the dossier as a “hacking expert.”
Galkina was the source for the claim that Webzilla played a key role in the “hacking” of the Democratic National Committee in early 2016. She was also the source for the erroneous claim that Michael Cohen, one of Trump’s lawyers, met with Russian intelligence officials secretly, in Prague in the Summer of 2016 to discuss their plans for paying the hackers and covering up their operation. All of this was complete nonsense, of course, and all involved in these alleged acts have denied them. The Mueller Special Counsel found no evidence for the allegations, either.
However, Galkina would become known as ‘Source 3’ and she fed these claims to Danchenko and Danchenko fed them to Steele who put them in his dossier.
I think, THINK, Durham wanted to get into this stuff more deeply than he did with Auten, but he could not because Auten, while he did travel to Cyprus to interview Galkina, was not present when questions about her were asked of Danchenko. Those questions would later be posed to Danchenko by his handling agent. We’ll see if Durham revisits this matter when he puts Helson on the stand.
Here is how the final series of questions on direct went with Auten.
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Now it is Defense’s turn to cross examine FBI SIA Brian Auten.
Mr. Onorato begins by bringing up the Inspector General of the Department of Justice and their interviews with Auten.
Auten has interviewed with the OIG four times and one of them lasted 20 HOURS!!?!?!
Boom.
Yeah, I bet it was. I’d be scared to meet with Durham for 20-30mins, much more 20-30hrs!
This reads to me like Auten his being looked at by OIG and the Special Counsel.
Good.
Mr. Onorato now begins questioning Auten about his work history with the FBI. It’s mostly a repeat of what Durham had already gone over with Auten the day before. After refreshing the jury on that information, he begins getting into Crossfire Hurricane.
Heh.
Onorato, after basically impeaching Auten by bringing up the fact of his multiple interviews, lasting tens of hours, with the OIG and the SCO is now trying prop Auten back up. He goes into how he worked with other agents and analysts. Then he begins asking about Millian.
Over the course of a series of questions, Onorato is also treating Auten like a hostile witness, just as Durham did.
Here is an interesting answer in regards to the one million dollar offer to Steele.
Let’s think carefully about this offer from the FBI for a moment. The reactionary take is that this was a horrible thing for the FBI to do. That the FBI, in trying to obtain corroboratory information and determine the sourcing of the allegations in the Steele Dossier, was actually trying to bribe Steele or pay for dirt or something along those lines.
However, in order for Steele to provide this corroborative information, he would have, by necessity, had to give up his sources! Which would have exposed ALL of these people: Galkina, Danchenko, Dolan, etc. Instead of it taking another year or so, it would have ALL been revealed right then and there. In early October 2016. Before the FISA on Page. Take yourself back and imagine if this had worked. How differently things might have gone?
Steele refused to give up Danchenko as a source, though.
In refusing the offer, Steele protected this network of sources, protected this conspiracy to frame President Trump and members of his campaign.
And in doing so, undermined the credibility of his own Dossier. After all, if the claims were credible, if his sources were credible, why not provide the corroboration and take the million dollars? The claims were bs, though, and the sources were not only less than credible, they were tied to Trump’s opponent: Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
I know it’s not a popular take right now, but I think this may have been a very smart play by the FBI. It didn’t work out though, so the FBI had to find another way to verify the claims in the dossier. Which allowed the bad actors within the FBI to slow walk, obstruct, obfuscate, and just flat out do a purposefully terrible job of discovering these sources.
So, the FBI turned to other means, and when they came upon Danchenko, making him a CHS was an obvious play.
Turns out, Auten was not subpoenaed by Durham to appear at this trial.
Court breaks for lunch.
Cross of Auten by Onorato continues.
Important argument from Defense here.
Danchenko, lawyer that he is, used terms like “I believed it to be,” “I was under the impression,” and similar.
Onorato goes on to argue that the FBI could have asked more of Danchenko during those three days of interviews. They could have asked for access to his emails, to his phone. They could have asked about a number of other things related to the dossier and the information in it, but they did not. Auten testifies that he and Somma had more questions for Danchenko, but believed they would have more opportunities to question Danchenko in the future. Onorato characterizes those first meetings as being more about “breaking the ice” with Danchenko and Auten concurs.
Onorato also gets into the allegations regarding Lewandowski and Manafort which were in the media six days before Dolan emailed Danchenko about them. It was open source material. He’s doing this to impeach the connection between Dolan and Danchenko, which goes to Count One of the indictment, that Danchenko lied about “[talking]” to Dolan regarding specific allegations in the dossier.
Onorato then moves to the topic of Millian and what Danchenko said to investigators in January. During this questioning, defense submits Auten’s 302 (FBI report or notes) from that interview.
Onorato presents exhibit 403 which is a report showing communications between George Papadopoulos and Sergei Millian via Facebook. This is to evidence that Millian had used apps to communicate. Onorato also brings up Facetime and how calls made with Facetime may not show up on phone records because Facetime can be done over the internet. He also shows messages between Papadopoulos and Millian over LinkedIn. Millian provided a phone number that has the area code 212, which is New York. Part of the message reads “sent from my iPad.” Another exhibit, 486. It shows Papadopoulos giving Millian’s Skype ID to someone. (I’m not clear on who, sorry.) Onorato is offering simply to show that Skype was a means to communicate with Millian and a Skype call would not, of course, show up on phone records.
Good work by Onorato, here. Will be interesting to see how Durham handles this.
Onorato now brings up Auten previous statements in regards to Danchenko.
The next phase of questioning gets into details about the supposed phone call from Millian, arranging to meet in New York, the purchase of an Amtrak ticket after 5pm for a train that leaves at about 4am the next day, and another email Auten has never seen.
The emails is from Zlodorev to Millian, dated May 26th, 2016.
Prosecution had wanted to introduce this email, but Defense objected. Now, Defense is introducing it. Prosecution is not objecting to this, but points it out to Judge Trenga.
Danchenko, on July 21st, 2016 sends an email to Millian. Onorato connects what is said in this email back to what was said in an email by Papadopoulos.
Folks, Mr. Onorato should have been hired by the FBI and put on the Crossfire Hurricane team.
Onorato also submits and has Auten read a Facebook message from Danchenko, dated July 28th, 2016, which says “Another meeting tonight.”
Danchenko is in the courtroom, but the FBI is on trial.
Onorato concludes his cross shortly after this. Gotta say, he did a brilliant job. Durham will need to also do a brilliant job on redirect to counter this.
Durham begins redirect by asking about what steps the Crossfire Hurricane team took to look at these records which Onorato had just presented and which Auten said he had never seen before.
Durham brings up the Inspector Horowitz’s Report on Crossfire Hurricane.
Boom.
I really don’t think this will be last time we see Brian Auten in a courtroom in relation to his role in Crossfire Hurricane and/or the Mueller Special Counsel.
Now Durham wants to address the discussions based around George Papadopoulos.
This next series of questions and answers is pure fire.
[Insert Durham Punisher meme]
Durham turns to the offer of one million to Steele if he could corroborate the allegations in the dossier. A minor clarification on what the offer was for, which is any information, not just for a source.
Then it’s on to the matter of Danchenko saying he got information from Millian. A sidebar is had over this. Durham wins.
Durham has Auten read from Exhibit 100.
Durham is absolutely on fire in this redirect and he isn’t done. Now onto the Auten and the Crossfire Hurricane team’s failures to properly investigate what Danchenko had told them and more.
Durham is giving Auten the grilling that so many of us have wanted for so long. This is glorious!
No he goes to the media reports regarding Manafort. Defense had tried to put it in the jury’s mind that these were public almost a week before Dolan gave the information to Danchenko. That’s not what matters, though. What matters is that Danchenko did in fact get this information from Dolan and lied about it to the FBI.
And the issue of the phone call and whether it was by telephone or an app.
Durham pulls up Auten’s notes, in which Auten wrote that Danchenko offered to “look back on phone” for anything to prove the phone call. Danchenko never provided anything. Auten doesn’t recall if investigators ever checked Millian’s phone records on the number he provided Papadopoulos on July 15th, 2016. He also says he doesn’t know if they pulled the travel records.
Durham no brings up Exhibit 207T, an August 18th, 2016 email. That would be a few weeks after the supposed meeting in New York.
Durham brings up Zlodorev’s email from May. The only forms of communication mentioned in it are email and phone number. Nothing about an app.
And now Durham brings up an email from Danchenko to Cenk Sidar of Sidar Global Advisors. It is dated July 18th, 2016.
Alright, see ya next time Brian Auten!
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Fantastic work, Kyle!
Badlands to the moon!
Thank You Kyle 🙏