U.S. News: Dossier Analyst Lied About Interactions With Business Official, Indictment Says

"A Russia analyst who fed information to the author of a salacious dossier about Donald Trump lied to federal investigators about his interactions with a business-group official he said was a source for the document, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.

The analyst, Igor Danchenko, is accused of lying about his contacts with Sergei Millian when the latter was president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in the USA, the indictment said.

The indictment doesn't name Mr. Millian, but he is identifiable from the context.

Mr. Millian has been identified in media reports, including in The Wall Street Journal, as a source for some of the key claims in the dossier, a compendium of lurid and largely discredited reports about Mr. Trump and Russia compiled by a former British MI6 officer, Christopher Steele, during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Mr. Danchenko told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he spoke on the phone with a person he believed to be Mr. Millian, and that material purportedly from this call later appeared in a key section of the dossier, according to the indictment.

The indictment, however, said Mr. Danchenko "never received a phone call" or other information from Mr. Millian and fabricated his interactions with him.

Mr. Millian, in an email to the Journal on Friday, didn't respond to questions about the Danchenko indictment but called prior statements about him in the Journal false. A social-media account bearing his name demanded on Thursday that media outlets including the Journal correct past reporting about him.

A January 2017 Journal article quoted an email from Mr. Millian saying that the information in the dossier was "fake news (created by sick minds)," and that it was an attempt to distract Mr. Trump from real work.

Mr. Millian didn't respond to a list of other questions at that time, including whether he was a source for the dossier.

Mr. Steele's work was funded by political opponents of Mr. Trump, including an attorney for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, to gather information about any ties between Mr. Trump and Russia.In turn, Mr. Steele hired Mr. Danchenko, a Washington-based Russian national. The indictment said the information provided by Mr. Danchenko "formed the core of the allegations" in the dossier.

Mr. Steele and one of his lawyers didn't respond to requests for comment Friday. Mr. Steele has previously defended the rigor of his research on Mr. Trump. A lawyer for Mr. Danchenko didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The charges against Mr. Danchenko stem from the probe by special counsel John Durham, who was tapped by then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr in 2019 to review decisions made by intelligence officers and law-enforcement officials during the investigation into whether Mr. Trump and his campaign associates received any assistance from Russia during the 2016 campaign.

In the indictment, Mr. Danchenko was charged with five counts of making false statements to FBI agents about the sources of the information he helped compile for Mr. Steele. Mr. Danchenko, who hasn't entered a plea, appeared before a judge Thursday and was released on a $100,000 bond.

 

For his part, Mr. Steele told the FBI that he believed Mr. Millian was a source of Mr. Danchenko's, including for one of the dossier's most salacious claims -- about alleged sexual conduct by Mr. Trump at a Moscow hotel, the indictment said. Mr. Trump previously has called the dossier's claims fake news.

 

The indictment said that Mr. Steele also told the FBI he believed Mr. Danchenko had met in person with Mr. Millian at least twice, and that Mr. Danchenko told FBI agents he "never corrected" Mr. Steele about "that erroneous belief."

Mr. Millian, who came to the U.S. about 20 years ago and became a U.S. citizen, has claimed to have had business dealings with Mr. Trump.

The Trump Organization previously has denied any such ties. The indictment said Mr. Millian "had occasion to work on real estate projects with Trump and staff at the Trump Organization."

The Trump Organization didn't respond to a request to comment Friday.” [1]

1. U.S. News: Dossier Analyst Lied About Interactions With Business Official, Indictment Says
Maremont, Mark.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 06 Nov 2021: A.4.