A Russian analyst who contributed explosive details to the so-called “Steele dossier” that alleged close ties between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia has been acquitted on charges of lying to the FBI about the sources of his intelligence, Reuters reported.
Igor Danchenko, a Russian-born researcher, was acquitted by a U.S. jury on four charges Tuesday.
“While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service,” said Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed in 2019 to investigate the FBI’s probe into whether members of Trump’s campaign had colluded with Russia.
Danchenko, who is based in the United States, was indicted on five counts of making false statements to the FBI in 2017 about the sources of intelligence he provided to the Trump-Russia dossier authors.
Danchenko was accused of misleading the FBI by claiming he never “talked” to Charles Dolan — a Democratic operative and public relations executive — about anything in the dossier when in fact they had communicated in writing.
The judge dismissed one of the five charges against Danchenko related to his communications with Dolan last week and allowed the other four charges to be decided by the jury.
Those charges accused Danchenko of lying to the FBI by claiming he had spoken to Sergei Millian, the former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, to gather information later used in the dossier.
Danchenko’s lawyers said their client received an anonymous call from a person who Danchenko suspected was Millian, but he told agents he was not certain it was him.
