Danchenko vs. Trubnikov/Surkov - THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!!!!

Part II of my series on just how much trouble Christopher Steele's lies have gotten him into

In my earlier column, I discussed that while he may have found a way to finesse the issue of approaching State Department officials on behalf of a client while trying to hand them his bogus dossier, former MI:6 intelligence officer Christopher Steele made a critical mistake when it came to identifying the main source of his dossier’s inflammatory Trump/Russia collusion allegations.

It is a documented and verified fact that Steele told one story to the FBI about who his primary sub source was [PSS], and then he told a very different story about the identity of his PSS to the State Department.

“Yeah, on further reflection, I probably shouldn’t have done that!”

I concluded that previous column by discussing three very relevant facts:

1. The notes revealing the date of Steele’s meeting with St. Dept. official Kathleen Kavalec, in which he told her his PSS was actually two different men - Vyacheslav Trubnikov and Vladeslav Surkov - were declassified more than two years ago.

2. The date Steele gave Igor Danchenko’s name to the FBI as his PSS and which FBI officials he gave the name to remains classified, meaning it is still relevant to Special Counsel John Durham’s criminal probe.

3. The FBI made no attempt to interview Danchenko and verify the Steele Dossier allegations he reportedly provided to Steele even though they knew who he was because the agency had an open case on him for being a suspected Russian asset.

It was more than three years ago that the news first surfaced that a former Russian intelligence officer might be the source for most of Steele’s dossier.

If you’ve been following my SpyGate investigations since 2017, then you are aware that early on in my tenure as a columnist for The Epoch Times, I wrote a column entitled “Is Rinat Akhmetshin the ‘Former Russian Intelligence Officer’ Who Was a Source For the Steele Dossier?”

“You make serious mistake, Mr. Cates! It was not meeeee!!! I demand retraction!!!”

It was back in August of 2018 that reporter John Solomon, who was then at The Hill, broke news about a series of handwritten notes taking by top DOJ official Bruce Ohr during his meetings with Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson.

At the time Solomon broke that story, the only prominent former Russian intelligence official living in the U.S. who’s name had surfaced in relation to the SpyGate scandal was that of Rinat Akhmetshin, who was briefly in a Russian Army intelligence unit during his military service. Akmetshin was not only involved with Fusion GPS, he was at the controversial Trump Tower meeting held on June 9, 2016.

So I wrote a column where I made it clear I was speculating that perhaps the person Simpson was talking about was Akhmetshin.

It wasn’t until a year and a half later that Igor Danchenko’s name surfaced as being the person Steele named to the FBI as his source. Although I wondered at that time if Danchenko was the ‘former Russian intelligence officer now residing inside the US’ I had nothing to act on and so put it aside.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz’s FISA report was released in December of 2019, long after Solomon’s story broke, and I confess at the time I didn’t notice that ‘Person 1’ in the IG report was Steele’s PSS, and the FBI was admitting it had an open case on this person for suspected espionage.

Someone who is from Russia, and emigrates to the US, and then is suspected of subsequently engaging in intelligence activities for the Russian government is usually considered a ‘spy’. Sometimes, they are more politely referred to as a Russian intelligence agent. Or officer.

Which brings me back to Solomon’s August 2018 bombshell. Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS is meeting with the DOJ’s Bruce Ohr, who is taking notes of their discussion, and Simpson tells Ohr, “Much of the collection about the Trump campaign ties to Russia comes from a former Russian intelligence officer (? not entirely clear) who lives in the U.S.”

Assuming Simpson’s source for this information that he so helpfully passed on to Ohr is Steele himself, Steele telling his boss at Fusion that his PSS is a former Russian spook now living stateside is simply fascinating at this point.

Note Ohr in his notes admits that what Simpson is telling him about this PSS is “not entirely clear”. That means Simpson wasn’t concise in the description of this mysterious person. Simpson may have used the words “Russian intelligence officer”, but it appears he also said other things that led Ohr to make this “not entirely clear” notation.

Danchenko’s background is well established. Born and educated in Russia, in 1999 he joined the Open World Russian Leadership Program. A program created in 1999 to foster cultural and political ties between Russia and the United States, the OWRLP unsurprisingly had among the 24,000 delegates it sent from Russia to 2,300 communities of all 50 US states a fair amount of Russian agents and assets.

One of whom could very well be Igor Danchenko.

After arriving in the United States, Danchenko worked as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Louisville from 2003 to 2005, then followed that up by earning a Masters Degree from Georgetown University.

A stint at the Brookings Institution where he was a research assistant followed, and for the past 11 years or so he’s rattled around the Washington D.C. working as a consultant for various corporations and think tanks that specialize in Russian/Eurasia energy and defense projects.

What stands out from reading the Red State summary of the 3-day Danchenko interview with the FBI, is that the agency was apparently in no hurry to go interview Danchenko even though they knew he was Steele’s PSS and they were already using the allegations that supposedly came from him in the Carter Page warrant.

This is because the fact Steele was using as his PSS someone the FBI was still openly investigating as a possible Russian intelligence asset was…shall we say…problematic.

The rules and procedures for getting a FISA warrant are very clear. Every material fact stated in the warrant needs to be verified and the documentation showing that verification must be placed in the cases’ Woods File. This verification and documentation process is supposed to occur **before** the warrant is submitted to the FISA Court.

Yet, by some amazing magic trick, the FBI did not verify any of this Steele Dossier stuff that Danchenko supposedly provided, the FISC Court appears to have taken the FBI’s word for it that the “Danchenko” information in the warrant had been verified, and the warrant gets rubber stamped and approved.

It isn’t until almost mid-January that the FBI suddenly wanted to go find Danchenko as the renewal date for the warrant approached. And they suddenly have this fire lit under their ass the day after Buzzfeed publishes the entire Steele Dossier. Amazing, eh? I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

And when they finally sit down with him, a man who they have investigated for being a Russian intelligence asset, Danchenko begins rigorously denying having provided Steele with the allegations they are showing him.

To make a long story short, Danchenko disavowing having given Steele the allegations didn’t matter because the FBI hid his disavowal from the FISA Court. Just like they’d hidden the fact none of the dossier allegations were verified and just like they’d hidden from the court they were aware Steele’s PSS was someone they were still looking at in an open case for being a suspected Russian intelligence agent.

The Carter Page warrant was granted in October 2016, renewed for the first time in January 2017, and then renewed in March, and yet again in June, finally expiring for good in September of 2017.

John Durham has been tasked with investigating exactly how the nuts-and-bolts of this incredible farce worked, and to see if anyone can be criminally charged for what they did.

The fact it’s looking increasingly likely to me that Danchenko was **not** the actual primary source of the Steele Dossier’s Trump/Russia allegations means if Steele ever told the FBI he was, he’s in deep trouble.

Steele giving Kavalec at the State Department Trubnikov and Surkov’s names instead of Danchenko’s opens a door into several possibilities. But the main conclusion I want to draw for now is that the 5 year anniversary of Steele giving Kavalec those names prompted no reaction whatsoever from Durham’s SCO.

Did Steele directly tell the FBI Danchenko was his dossier’s PSS? And who exactly at the FBI was given Danchenko’s name? What date did this occur?

We’re more than 5 years on into the SpyGate scandal and the dates of some key events are still hard to nail down, especially when it comes to the FBI’s efforts to gather any information that could be used to authenticate Steele’s sources.

One of my first columns for Epoch was this one, from September of 2018: It’s Time the FBI Showed It’s Cards On Efforts To Verify the Steele Dossier.

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Three years later, so many questions still remain. But the fact Durham had no problem declassifying the date of the Steele/Kavalec meeting at the State Department back in 2019, while he’s keeping the FBI dates and names classified is a clear signal to me.

There’s something there.

Something involving when the FBI was told Danchenko’s name as the PSS. Something that John Durham is keeping under wraps.

For now.

My current speculation is that sometime between the election of November 2016, and the date the FBI agents showed up to interview Danchenko on January 12, 2017, Steele formally either coughed up Danchenko’s name to the FBI, or he reaffirmed to the agency that Danchenko was his source. Either way, he very likely could have been making a false statement.

If January 12, 2022 comes and goes without Steele being indicted, we’ll know my theory was wrong. :)