Criminal law, Media

Igor Danchenko Arrested as Part of Durham Investigation [Updated]

The office of Special Counsel John Durham has confirmed that Igor Danchenko, a key source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele, has been arrested. This is the third arrest by Durham who is moving toward the prosecution stage of his investigation into the origins of the Russian collusion scandal. Durham is variously described as either painfully methodical or positively glacial as a prosecutor.  But he is widely credited with being a dogged and absolutely apolitical prosecutor. Danchenko’s arrest is a seismic development and confirmed Durham is far from done with his investigation.

Washington was recently rocked by the indictment of Michael Sussmann, former counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, for his alleged role in spreading a false Russia conspiracy theory.

Now Danchenko is being charged with five counts of making false statements.

Danchenko is widely referenced as the sub-source for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele for his controversial dossier. That dossier, funded by the Clinton campaign, served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Danchenko told the FBI that the dossier was “unsubstantiated” and said that Steele asked him to look for any “compromising” information on Trump. Mr. Danchenko worked for the Brookings Institution, a liberal Washington think-tank that often produced reports critical of Trump.

Danchenko is not someone who immediately comes across as an apex defendant — the highest target in an investigation. He was a key source used by others to advance false or unsubstantiated claims against Trump. He is the type of defendant that prosecutors pressure to flip against those who retained him or used him in this effort. In other words, he strikes me as someone who can be used as a building block to apex defendants.

Potential apex targets above him in the investigation range from Steele himself to Clinton general counsel Marc Elias to Clinton campaign officials.

The indictment circles around an unnamed figure called PR-Executive-1 who was a close Clinton adviser who held high positions in the Democratic party and prior Clinton campaigns. Most embarrassing are references to the Clinton adviser meeting with possible Russian intelligence figures and other Russian sources, including this line:

PR Executive-1 gifted to Russian Sub-Source-1 an autobiography of Hillary Clinton, which he signed and inscribed with the handwritten message, “To my good friend [first name of Russian Sub-Source-1], A Great Democrat.”

That is one book I think Hillary Clinton would like back.

The indictment describes the individual in this way:

“PR Executive-1 had served as (1) chairman of a national Democratic political organization, (2) state chairman of former President Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns, and (3) an advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Presidential campaign. Moreover, beginning in or about 1997, President Clinton appointed PR Executive-! to two four-year terms on an advisory commission at the U.S. State Department. With respect to the 2016 Clinton Campaign, PR Executive-! actively campaigned and participated in calls and events as a volunteer on behalf of Hillary Clinton.”

There is no indication if Durham has possible evidence of criminal acts by those figures but there is every indication that he is not done by a long shot with this investigation.

Here is the indictment: Danchenko indictment

158 thoughts on “Igor Danchenko Arrested as Part of Durham Investigation [Updated]”

  1. Do we as Americans want future campaigns riddled with illegal dirty tricks that take 6 years to root out?

    If not, we should be exploring the idea of creating an Election Integrity Rapid Response Office (EIRRO), made up of crack investigators
    who are sworn and vetted neutral referees with powers of rapid investigation. All high-stakes competitions, whether on the sports field, or in the Courtroom, require a powerful, neutral referee who can intervene IMMEDIATELY to keep the competitors on the up and up.

    Each campaign would have to assign its head lawyer as an official liaison to EIRRO, and be on-call to assist with rapid investigations.

    The idea is to deter illegal dirty tricks, because there is a mechanism to reveal them rapidly and hold actors accountable — BEFORE the voters make their final decisions.

    We can see that the current system is lethargic and ineffective. It gives the dirty trickster the means to put off getting caught until after the election. That’s where we need to face this challenge head-on.

    1. pinca – simplify, register to vote in person, proof of citizenship, ID when voting to assure its you and alive, tamper proof voting machines and very, very limited mail in ballots. As this new invasion of the border continues so to will election fraud. This would cut down on election fraud.

  2. People are saying, and I believe them, that the Durham investigation is a witch hunt. Durham is obviously suffering from Biden Derangement Syndrome.

    These arrests for lying are nothing more than mere “process crimes” cooked up by the Feds to entrap their victims just like they did to Flynn. The Deep State is at work again creating a hoax. Don’t fall for it again.

  4. “Arrested, you say!!!”

    Did General Secretary Tinhorn Obama, President Susan Rice, Head of State Security Valerie Jarret, Chief Political Officer and Marxist Theorist Van Jones hear that?
    _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    “Well, Ya got trouble, my friend, right here”

    “I say, trouble right here in River City”

    – Ya Got Trouble, The Music Man, 1957
    _______________________________

    Yet another name added to the list of co-conspirators in the Obama Coup D’etat in America by the to-be-determined, plodding John “Dudley Will-U Do-Right” Durham.
    __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    The Obama Coup D’etat in America is the most egregious abuse of power and the most prodigious crime in American political history.

    The co-conspirators are:

    Kevin Clinesmith, Bill Taylor, Eric Ciaramella, Rosenstein, Mueller/Team, Andrew Weissmann,

    James Comey, Christopher Wray, McCabe, Strozk, Page, Laycock, Kadzic,Sally Yates,

    James Baker, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Priestap, Kortan, Campbell, Sir Richard Dearlove,

    Christopher Steele, Simpson, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, Stefan “The Walrus” Halper,

    Azra Turk, Kerry, Hillary, Huma, Mills, Brennan, Gina Haspel, Clapper, Lerner, Farkas, Power,

    Lynch, Rice, Jarrett, Holder, Brazile, Sessions (patsy), Nadler, Schiff, Pelosi, Obama,

    Joe Biden, James E. Boasberg, Emmet Sullivan, Gen. Milley, George Soros, John McCain,

    Marc Elias, Igor Danchenko et al.

  5. ​Professor Turley is undoubtedly well aware the Horowitz IG report extensively concluded that the FBI did not use the Steele dossier to open their probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Carter Page was the only Trump associate under FISA surveillance. Carter was cleared of all charges.

    However Roger Stone was found guilty on 7 charges of lying to Congress, witness tampering & obstructing a Congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump campaign associates Rick Gates & Papadopoulos were convicted of lying to investigators about their contacts with Russian agents.

    Presumably, JT finds the arrests & convictions of Trump campaign advisers to fit his definition of seismic developments. Who knows, they might even qualify as embarrassments.

    Trump generously gave his campaign adviser Roger Stone a get out of jail free card. Ah yes, a fine use of presidential powers for truth, justice & the American way.

    1. Yep! And Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK.

      The Deep Deep State had absolutely nothing to do with that.

      Oh, my no!

    2. YOU ARE STILL SLEEPING MY FRIEND .,,IM NOT SURE WHERE YOU GET OFF SAYING YOU ARE A LEGAL PATRIOT BUT YOU ARE NO PATRIOT I WANTVTO KNOW WAKE UP !!!!

    3. Legal voter, patriotic American, (poor reporter):

      “Professor Turley is undoubtedly well aware the Horowitz IG report extensively concluded that the FBI did not use the Steele dossier to open their probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.”
      ***************************
      Right just to keep the charade going to hurt Trump. We call that a distinction without a difference.

      Here’s the quote: “We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞 in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order. ”
      ~Horowitz Report, Executive Summary, p. vi

      Here’s the report: https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf

      Here’s your nose: )>>>>>>>>>>>>>

      1. Well done!

        At this point, with all available evidence proving a close associate of the Clintons worked with a Russian national to feed disinformation to Steele for the infamous dossier. All of which to take down a duly elected President. Anyone still defending this soft coup are enemies of the state.

        1. Olly says:

          “All of which to take down a duly elected President. Anyone still defending this soft coup are enemies of the state.”

          People are saying, and I believe them, that the Durham investigation is a witch hunt. Durham is obviously suffering from Biden Derangement Syndrome. These arrests for lying are nothing more than mere “process crimes” cooked up by the Feds to entrap their victims just like they did to Flynn.

          I’m beginning to believe you Trumpists. There is a corrupt Deep State after all.
          And the Deep State is at work again to create this new HOAX. Thanks to you, I will NEVER believe ANYTHING the DOJ or the FBI claims.

  6. It is hard to know how this fits in to any over arching conspiracy.

    PR Executive 1’s involvement seems incidental and trivial — made up gossip about infighting between managers of Trump’s campaign. That Danchenko invented the involvement of Sergei Millian and then lied about it seems a bit more significant, but hardly earth shattering, since it was known in the FBI that what Millian was alleged to have said was not true.

    The argument that these were material lies because they may have affected what investigative steps the FBI took seems strained. So even if Durham can prove Danchenko lied, the materiality of the lies will be difficult to demonstrate.

    As in the Sussman case, Durham is shifting focus away from the misconduct of the FBI and Special Counsel, whose senior leaders continued investigations despite manifest exculpatory and counter evidence and no corroboration. If he is aiming to get Simpson, Elias and Sullivan, it is not clear how turning Danchenko can help.

    So I am puzzled.

    1. The strategy may not be apparent but the using of the discredited Steele dossier as the basis for issuing the FISA warrants seems material to me.

      1. They used the dossier for the FISA warrant before the lies, and they continued to use it after Danchenko told them in January it was mostly bogus. They used it throughout in the face of manifest exculpatory and counter evidence and no corroborating evidence. Durham does not say that Danchenko’s lies resulted in the use of the dossier. He says that the lies may have prevented the pursuit of other investigative leads. I think it will be hard to show that this was material.

        In any event, where does Danchenko lead? What could he know about Simpson, Elias or Sullivan? Not much, I think.

  7. This will be groundbreaking if America discovers that the Clinton Machine is rotten and corrupt to the core, my, my.

    This is as timely a revelation as the “Chappaquiddick” tell-all that clued us dim-bulbs into the “real story” behind the “Lyin’ of the Senate” as if it hadn’t been 100% apparent at the time .

    Do we need a see-through hand to come out of the sky and write it on the wall? Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin? These are the faces of the people who made it so.

    They are never ashamed, they never admit guilt and they never, never repent and turn their foot away from their corruption, they just pray they continue to get away with it.

  8. From Bowe Bergdahl to Mark Milley, from Chase Bishop to James Comey, important institutions have been seriously compromised and degraded. Durham is the only visible starting point for a restoration.

  10. In my previous comment I failed to mention the FBI and the CIA who worked for the Democratic Party to undermine a sitting President of the United States. I failed to mention that the heads of these agency’s known as Clapper and Comey should be included in the description of balls covered with slime. Perhaps I should enhance the description further with balls the size of peas covered with slime.

    1. Somewhere in the evil universe of Hillary, there had to be an evil assistant henchman named Igor. There just had to be …

  12. Ah yes. We now have a Russian national living in the U.S. who worked with Steele who worked for Fusion GPS who worked for Perkins Coie who worked for the Democratic Party. It seems that it was Hillary Clinton not Donald Trump who was the one who was colluding with her good “restart” buddy Vladimir Putin. Somehow they thought that the trail would never be sniffed out. When a plot is laid they use the word nefarious to describe the perpetrators for a reason. Common vernacular would be traitorous slim balls.

    1. I don’t believe V Putin is a stupid person & if he did have anything to do with H Clinton it would be to just take advantage of her, the American Hating evil b-itch.

      And even if Putin’s interest lays to being a loyal Russian Nationalist why can’t the USA join together co-operate in common interest?

      Instead of blaming Putin/Russia for everything US citizens should be the most upset about our Commie/Nazi/Muzzy lovin Dim/Rino/Intel Leadership that continue to sell us all out, like in withholding evidence of Kyle Rittenhouse’s Innocents & rigging 11/3/2020 election & their involvement in creating all the trouble at the US Capital on Jan 6, 2021. And now attempt to shoot only the Christian Nations up with their mRNA dangerous & deadly Bug Juice Vaz Jabs.

      If people don’t know this stuff they need to find a Non-Mocking Bird Intel run news & controlled subject matter experts.

      1. I have to agree with you regarding Putin and Russia, such a tiny economy being continually blown up like a shadow puppet show projection to create a boogie man for the war complex. These nations can not act in their own self-interest without being deemed as working against US interests, the mentality of nasty high-school girls. Until we have a foreign policy that aims towards all nations being able to thrive and study peace and prosperity instead of war, we are not a good world leader. Americans don’t really have a moral right to remain ignorant on what our foreign policy has become.

    1. Anonymous

      And once again you win today’s prize for most stupid comment.

      1. Hey, “Anonymous” stayed up all night crafting that remark. That was after he/she thought up what name they would use.

    3. Anonymous, unlike Trump, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao all said that they wanted to take control of the minds of the children. Each and every day you tell us that at school during U.S. and World history classes the other students would notice your head lying on your desk. Obviously your head is still on the desk even today.

    1. Go where? These people are sociopaths –like the Clintons. And, like the Clintons, they never “go away”…..they never pay the price for their crimes…..instead, they ‘fail up’ to the next position of power. (See slimy politician Terry McCauliffe, who has never gone away)

      Or they end up on CNN and MSNBC with all the other sociopathic miscreants like Brennan, McCabe, Toobin, et al.

      Or on ABC like Stephanopolous, the Clinton launderer who dutifully washes, irons, presses….all while posing as an impartial “journalist.”

      1. True, true. John Brennan? If a corrupt Commie like him is accepted at the “Table of Civilized Men” then there isn’t one. But we live in a world where China sits on the UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL. It’s all in the way you parse a word, ask Fauci.

  15. The entire group should be punished for the conspiracy they undertook to destroy a legally elected President of the United States. This was and is The Big Lie, there is no other.

    1. I agree, but the Trump and his lawyers who plotted to undermine the States’ EC votes in Congress should be punished for their refusal to accept electoral defeat, and ensuing deceptive national infowarfare campaign that collapsed on Jan 6th.

      Two wrongs make….two wrongs. Never “take sides” when it comes to the law and justice, or you will lose your freedoms. Americans need to nominate more trustworthy candidates for high office.

      1. Pinka says “but Trump”. Pinka, Hillary and Abrams still have not accepted their defeat and as far as Jan 6th goes more and more is being revealed of false flag activities. Jan 6th an officer died of natural causes and hailed as a hero while an unarmed White woman was mercilessly gunned down. Yes, let’s have a complete examination of the Trump/Biden election and let the ballots fall where they may, but wait we’re not allowed to talk about that can we, otherwise we’re racist.

      2. What laws did they break? The same ones as Maxine Waters, Shiff, Nadler and all the rest who decried the 2016 results? If there was any evidence to support a criminal charge, I have no doubt that Trump would have been indicted by now.

      3. TRUMP WON IT WAS DEFINITELY A RIGGED ELECTION IF YOU HAVENT SEEN THE EVIDENCE YET …THAN YOU DONT WANT TO SEE IT ITS SO SAD PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE SO DAMN STUPID

  16. Maybe Durham will deliver, but I have little confidence in Washington justice.

  17. There’s nothing a leftist hates more than being held to their own standards.
    -Derek Hunter

  18. Turley: “Now Danchenko is being charged with lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

    +++

    I have little doubt that Danchenko is dirty, but I hate to see so many people charged willy nilly with the process crime of lying to a corrupt agency. Without recordings instead of their magic 302 forms nobody can really defend against those charges, be they guilty or innocent. Probably the best thing is never to speak to those corruptocrats or you may wake up one morning to read that you are a person of interest in some horrible crime. Even reporting a crime can be dangerous; look what happened with the computer repairman who reported Hunter’s laptop or, for that matter, what happened to Richard Jewell.

    1. The FBI was deeply wounded by its inept divergence from the 4th Amendment concerning Richard Jewell, using “psychological profiling” in place of probable-cause evidence. The same with Steven Hatfill (Amerithrax case).

      I believe the greatest threat to FBI integrity now is the misinformation campaign meant to invoke police powers against a domestic enemy. This will be the lesson of Crossfire Hurricane.

      Fortunately, most FBI investigations are handled better. We only hear about the ones botched badly. That doesn’t excuse the latter.

      1. I believe the FBI profilers screwed up on the Green River Killer in Washington State. The locals looked at the killer but passed him by because he didn’t fit the FBI profile and because he passed a lie detector test. A prostitute who escaped from him had identified the killer and she proved to be better than the FBI and the polygraph but she was dismissed. I think I would take the word of a prostitute over the FBI. It wasn’t always thus, but we have learned a lot in the last few years.

  20. Proof that if the Democrats are trying to construct a Big Lie narrative about their political opponents, then start looking for the Big Lie they don’t want discovered.

      1. That is a better way to phrase it. then start looking for The Big Truth they don’t want discovered.

        The biggest truth of all is their progressive ideology is a colossal failure. Proof? What one policy decision made by the Biden administration have Democrats highlighted as good for the security of our country and our citizens?

        2. Biden could hardly have been a greater disaster if he were an agent of the Chinese Communist Party.

          1. Regardless of what party the President identifies with, I always look to the policies they implement. Trump was not my choice in the primaries, but he was in the general. From a policy perspective, his presidency was awesome. I would have liked to have seen what his character would have been like had he been covered by an honest media and with an IC/DOJ/FBI that wasn’t weaponized against his presidency. The Russian hoax wouldn’t have been a thing. There would have been no Mueller investigation. Likely no fake whistleblower and subsequent impeachment. The 2020 election would have had no basement bunker campaign and Hunter Biden’s laptop would’ve made Joe toxic. It would’ve been a landslide victory for Trump and thus no 1/6 excuse for a snap impeachment.

            Biden could hardly have been a greater disaster if he were an agent of the Chinese Communist Party.

            Tactically, his administration has been national disaster. The socialists have been their own pandemic on the Democratic party and on this country. I have little confidence that elections will be enough to stop them.

              1. Democrats turn on Joe Biden after Virginia defeat

                Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat congresswoman from Virginia, said Mr Biden should stop trying to emulate President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the massive government programmes of the 1930s New Deal.

                She said: “Nobody elected him to be F.D.R. They elected him to be normal and stop the chaos.”

                https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/11/04/joe-biden-lambasted-moderate-democrats-stupid-wokeness-virginia/

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