And most serious people understood from the beginning that the dossier comprised raw intelligence, some of which might be true, some of which almost certainly wasn’t, and some of which probably consisted of outright disinformation.ĬNN, the first outlet to report that Trump and Obama had been briefed, left out any details in its initial story even though it had the 35-page dossier in hand. Or, to be more precise, a few media outlets pushed it, but more didn’t. Sara Fischer of Axios called it “one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history.” Writing in The New York Times, Bill Grueskin of the Columbia Journalism School lamented that “so many were taken in so easily because the dossier seemed to confirm what they already suspected.” Needless to say, Fox News has been having a field day.īut there’s a huge problem with the narrative that the Steele dossier drove the story that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with the Russians, and that the media pushed it in order to destroy Trump’s presidency: that’s not what happened. Now that special counsel John Durham, appointed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr in the waning days of the Trump administration, has indicted a crucial source and thus discredited the dossier, we are being subjected to some serious handwringing over the media’s credulous reporting. Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, arrived on the scene at some point after it became a Clinton operation. The dossier, we learned, had been compiled at the behest of Trump’s opponents for the Republican presidential nomination and later on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
What Local News Outlets Can Do To Overcome Suspicion On The Right Why Our Crisis Of Democracy Is Suddenly Having Its Moment In The Media Spotlight Sears also emphasized that Danchenko never told the FBI that the caller was definitely Sergei Millian but rather "only said he thought it could be Sergei Millian," and that this reflected his belief at the time.Follow The Money: Right-Wing Funding Of 'Pink Slime' Websites Tracked In New Study In his closing arguments, defense attorney Sears contended that the phone records did not prove Danchenko did not receive a call since, he said, the call may have come through an internet app – a possibility evidence showed Danchenko mentioned in one of his initial interviews with the FBI. "There was no call with Millian and there was no call with any individual and these phone records prove that," prosecutor Michael Keilty told the jury in the closing argument. Prosecutors allege no call took place, and that Danchenko lied to investigators to stay consistent with what he had told Steele. Danchenko told the FBI he believed the call was placed to him by the then-head of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, Sergei Millian. The four charges remaining against Danchenko surround a phone call he told the FBI he received from an unidentified Russian male in July of 2016 relaying allegations later contained in Steele's dossier. The judge ruled that Danchenko's denial was "literally true" because the communication occurred over email and not via the spoken word. Trenga dismissed one count: the prosecutions' accusation that Danchenko falsely told the FBI that he never spoken with "a long-time participant in Democratic Party Politics" about any allegations included in the dossier.
Judge Anthony Trenga to dismiss all five counts in the indictment against Danchenko, saying that Durham did not prove Danchenko lied to the FBI and obstructed its investigation into Trump's alleged Russian ties. We thank these jurors with their hard work and deliberation for reaching the right result."Īfter the prosecution rested its case Friday, the defense asked U.S. We are happy now that the American public knows that as well. In a statement outside of court after the ruling, Danchenko defense attorney Stuart Sears said, "We've known all along Mr. In a November 2021 indictment, prosecutors accused Danchenko of misleading FBI agents about his sources of information.
He became a primary source to what came to be known as the "Steele dossier," which included explosive and unproven claims about Trump. A federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, delivered a verdict of not guilty on all four counts against Igor Danchenko, the Russian national accused of lying to federal investigators about information he collected in 2016 for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele that was included in Steele's now-infamous "dossier" detailing Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia.Ī Washington-based think tank analyst, Danchenko was hired by Steele to contribute intelligence information to Steele's research.
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