Russian Policy Researcher Acquitted of Lying About Trump Campaign
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A Russian public policy researcher was acquitted Tuesday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, of lying to the FBI during the 2016 investigation of whether the Russian government tried to help Donald Trump get elected president.
The acquittal was a second loss for special counsel John Durham in his investigation of how the FBI handled its inquiry of the Trump-Russia affair.
Igor Danchenko was prosecuted as a follow-up to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
His attorneys successfully argued that Danchenko did not answer FBI agents’ questions the way they wanted but that he did not lie to them.
He provided information to a private investigator hired by the Democratic National Committee to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to the Russians. The private investigator’s report, called the Steele dossier, revealed that a Trump campaign advisor communicated occasionally with Russian agents.
Although some of the Steele dossier made unproven assertions, it contained enough evidence for the FBI to question Danchenko, who was the main source of the information.
Prosecutors presented evidence showing Danchenko lied when he said the former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce made an anonymous phone call to him implicating Trump staff members in colluding with the Russians.
Prosecutors did not deny Danchenko received an anonymous phone call but they said Danchenko knew it was not the former Russian-American Chamber of Commerce president.
Prosecutors also said Danchenko lied when he denied that some of his information came from a volunteer for the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. The volunteer was Charles Dolan, a public relations executive.
Danchenko’s attorneys argued their client might have made ambiguous statements during multiple FBI interviews but that his answers were technically true.
In one example, FBI agents asked Danchenko whether he ever talked to the Clinton campaign volunteer. The two exchanged emails about the Steele dossier but they never spoke orally, which prompted Danchenko to answer “no” to the FBI question.
Defense attorneys said Danchenko’s pattern of ambiguous statements were inadequate evidence for a criminal conviction.
Stuart A. Sears, an attorney for Danchenko, said at a hearing last month, “If Rudy Giuliani says he believes the 2020 election was fraudulent, that doesn’t make it a false statement. He believes it.”
The jury deliberated nine hours before returning a not guilty verdict on all four of the felony false statement charges.
Coming only five months after another acquittal of someone the special counsel accused of being a conspirator in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, the Danchenko case represents a major defeat for Durham.
He was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General William Barr to double-check how the FBI conducted the Trump-Russia probe. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and called the FBI investigation a witch hunt.
Barr was motivated to appoint a special counsel after a Justice Department inspector general’s report accused the FBI of a series of unprofessional tactics, including using unproven evidence to seek court approval for secret surveillance of a former Trump campaign advisor.
Durham criticized the FBI during the trial. His team tried to portray FBI agents and analysts who testified as incompetent, such as by failing to properly check out tips.
Durham’s critics suggest he committed some of the same mistakes in gathering evidence he blamed on the FBI.
Danchenko did not testify at the trial. His defense team called no witnesses, instead focusing on undercutting the prosecution’s evidence as a politically motivated attempt to attack Trump’s detractors.
Tom can be reached at [email protected] and @TomRamstack
