Igor Danchenko Wiki
Igor Danchenko Biography
Who is Igor Danchenko ?
Igor Y. Danchenko, a Russian-born analyst living in the United States, was arrested Thursday in Virginia by federal agents assigned to special counsel John H. Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, according to the Department. of Justice.
Igor Danchenko is a Russian national, and a Eurasia political risk, defence and economics analyst in the United States. He is known for obtaining and analyzing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s university dissertation. Wikipedia
The indictment alleges that Danchenko lied to federal investigators by saying that he had not had contact with a certain US-based executive at a US public relations firm, who had long-standing and deep ties to the Democratic Party.
In fact, Danchenko contacted the anonymous public relations executive and used him as a key source for one or more of the allegations in the Steele report, according to the indictment.
According to the indictment, the public relations executive was the state chairman of Bill Clinton’s two successful presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996, and served as a campaign advisor to Hillary Clinton in 2008.
He was also president of a national Democratic political organization at one point, and actively campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to the indictment.
How old is Igor Danchenko ?
May 5, 1978 (age 43 years), Perm, Russia
Arrested and Charged
Igor Danchenko was taken into custody on Thursday by US federal agents.
Igor Danchenko, a Russian-born analyst living in the United States, was arrested on Thursday by federal agents assigned to John H. Durham’s special counsel inquiry
He is charged with five counts of lying to FBI agents about the sources he used to gather information for Steele, who is identified in the indictment only as ‘Person-1 from the UK’.
Danchenko, 43, was the lead investigator on Steele’s file alleging that Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign conspired with Russia in a sting operation to defeat Hillary Clinton, and that Russia had lewd videos that could be used to blackmail Trump. .
Many of the claims in the record remain unproven or have been discredited, although the document was cited by the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller in requests for a secret warrant to spy on a Trump campaign adviser.
Yuri Danchenko
However, the father of the arrested man, Yuri Danchenko, 68, spoke to DailyMail.com from his home in Perm, Russia, and said: ‘Of course, I am very worried about my son. But I still do not plan to fly to the United States.
“We will await the development of the situation for now,” he added. ‘I just read the news about my son’s arrest. He didn’t contact me, I didn’t speak to him on the phone. I will not take any action. ‘
On his fears for his son, he said: ‘He will figure it out himself, Igor is legally literate. His wife is also a legally literate person.
Danchenko’s wife, a DC corporate attorney, did not immediately respond to an inquiry from DailyMail.com.
A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed Danchenko’s arrest, which was first reported by The New York Times. Danchenko is due to appear in court for arraignment Thursday afternoon.
The indictment against Danchenko was issued Wednesday by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia, where he is believed to live in the suburb of Alexandria, DC.
The indictment document describes five cases in which Danchenko allegedly lied to FBI agents about his work on the Steele file.
In addition to lying about contacting the public relations executive, Danchenko is charged on four counts of fabricating information about an anonymous phone call that he claimed to have received in July 2016 from someone who believed he was the president of the Chamber of Commerce. Russian-American.
Information allegedly passed on by the anonymous person included the allegation that there were ongoing communications between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, and that the Kremlin could help get Trump elected. The prosecution claims that the alleged call never went through.
The most explosive allegations in the indictment related to the anonymous public relations executive, whose relationship with Danchenko is detailed in detail.
Information
Information about Danchenko’s role in gathering information for the 2016 dossier emerged during Senate look-backs at the Russia probe.
According to the indictment, an employee of a DC think tank introduced Danchenko to the public relations executive with deep ties to Clinton in February 2016.
The two men subsequently discussed collaborating on Danchenko’s work for Steele, and the executive enlisted Danchenko’s help in planning a conference for company executives in Moscow in October 2016.
The executive told an acquaintance of Danchenko in a June 2016 email: ‘He is too young for the KGB. But I think he worked for the FSB, ‘referring to the Russian Federal Security Service, the successor organization to the Soviet KGB.
Since he told me that he spent two years in Iran. And when I met him, he knew more about me than I did. [wink emoji] ‘the email added.
According to the indictment, Danchenko told the executive in an email dated August 16, 2016 that he had a ‘project against Trump’ and asked for ‘any thoughts, rumors, accusations’ regarding the resignation of the president of the Trump campaign. , Paul Manafort, who is identified in the indictment as ‘Campaign Manager-1’.
The executive responded in an email that he had had a “drink with a Republican friend” and shared gossip that former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewnandowski “hated” Manafort and stayed close to Trump.
The accusation appeared almost literally in part of Steele’s file, dated August 22, 2016.
The indictment states that the public relations executive later admitted to the FBI that he and never met with a “Republican friend,” but instead fabricated the meeting and collected his ideas from public news sources.
The executive insisted that he was unaware of the nature of Danchenko’s project against Trump, and had no idea that Steele would later provide the information he provided to the FBI.
Investigation
Steele is a former British intelligence officer who prepared the dossier for Fusion GPS, who worked for a law firm representing the Democratic Party and the Clinton presidential campaign in 2016.
Two sources familiar with Durham’s activities told Reuters it had issued subpoenas seeking evidence from multiple sources, including people linked to Fusion GPS.
One of the sources familiar with Durham’s activities said Fusion GPS was not a target of Durham’s investigation. Steele had previously refused to cooperate with investigators working for Durham and could not be reached for comment.
Trump has long denied any illegal conspiracy with Russia in his 2016 campaign, insisting that the allegations were fabricated by his political enemies. Likewise, Democrats say the Durham investigation is a political hatchet job.
Durham was appointed special counsel by the Trump administration’s attorney general, Bill Barr, in October 2020, and tasked with investigating whether the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, codenamed ‘Crossfire Hurricane’, was opened and completed. carried out legally.
Danchenko’s role in the matter emerged last year, when he emerged as the lead investigator behind Steele’s explosive but dubious claims in the dossier, which was funded by the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign.
In the hands of the FBI, the file was used to deepen its investigation into Trump during the presidential campaign, and it was cited in a request for a FISA warrant to monitor Trump’s campaign adviser, Carter Page, an American who has never been charged. criminally.
Durham previously expressed his interest in Danchenko and the Steele file by obtaining subpoenas in February for old personnel files and other documents related to Danchenko from the Brookings Institution, where he worked from 2005 to 2010.
Trump allies Senator Lindsey Graham
Last year, Trump allies Senator Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Representative Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, made comments suggesting that Danchenko is a Russian agent.
Danchenko responded to the allegations with a statement in which he denied that he was working as a spy for Russia.
Danchenko told Reuters in an email that he was simply “an experienced expert on Russian affairs who has spent more than a decade on business intelligence.”
Danchenko previously denied that he was working as a spy for Russia.
Danchenko previously denied that he was working as a spy for Russia.
“My academic and business intelligence work in Russia has always been on behalf of Western clients and never on behalf of Russia,” he added.
Danchenko also told The Guardian that he did not back down from the record’s claim that the Russians may have had compromising information about Trump. I keep it. I did well, ‘he said.
But he also downplayed the more salacious claims in the record, which also argued widely that the Russians had financial influence over the president.
He said that he traveled to Russia and St. Petersburg, Russia, to assist Steele in reporting on him.
He said that his own work with information sources in Russia amounted to “rumors” and “jokes.”
Also Read: Who is Tahjgeem Breaken-Ridge?Keon Lincoln: Boy, 14, and three other teenagers guilty of gun and knife murder in Birmingham
Sussman and FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith
Durham has moved methodically and quietly since he began investigating Hurricane Crossfire in May 2019, first as a federal prosecutor and then as a special counsel.
His office has been the source of very few media leaks and has only issued a handful of terse statements.
But in recent weeks, the research appears to be increasing in pace and intensity.
Danchenko is the third person, and the second in two months, to face charges in the Durham investigation.
In September, Durham indicted a cybersecurity attorney, Michael Sussmann, accusing him of lying to the FBI during a September 2016 conversation in which he relayed concerns about potentially suspicious cyber contacts between a Trump Organization server and a bank server. Russian.
The indictment alleges that Sussmann told then-FBI attorney general James Baker that he was not bringing concerns to the FBI on behalf of any particular client when he was actually representing the Hillary Clinton campaign and a technology executive.
Sussmann has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers have attacked the case as driven by politics rather than fact.
The first criminal charges in the Durham investigation were against Kevin Clinesmith, an FBI attorney assigned to the Robert Mueller investigation, who tampered with an email during the process of acquiring a renewal of a wiretap warrant at Page.
Clinesmith pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.
Igor Danchenko Quick and Facts
- Igor Danchenko, a Russian-born analyst living in the US, was arrested Thursday
- Faces five counts of lying to FBI agents about his work on the Steele dossier
- He was the primary researcher for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier
- Dossier alleged conspiracy between Trump and Russia, but was never proved
- It still became a key piece of evidence used in FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe
- Special Counsel John Durham is investigating the origins of Crossfire Hurricane
- Danchenko has previously denied working as an agent for Russian government
Source: WikiSoon
