Shocking Counterintelligence Revelations in the Steele Dossier Saga

Skeptics who expressed early doubts about the Steele Dossier and its provenance have been proved correct by Special Counsel John Durham’s latest revelations

The right-wing media sphere is ablaze today with outrage that Igor Danchenko, the currently indicted Russian national who served as the main source for the infamous Steele Dossier, turns out to have been a paid FBI confidential informant for more than three years. This revelation comes from a new federal court filing by Special Counsel John Durham, who for more than three years has been attempting to prove a conspiracy between the FBI and Democrats to “frame” candidate Donald Trump in 2016 with spurious connections to the Kremlin.

Durham has largely failed in that regard, since his essential premise, what this newsletter has termed the “Upside Down” view of our 2016 election, is mostly smoke and mirrors. Yet not entirely. Durham has uncovered enough new information to raise troubling questions about the origins of the notorious Steele Dossier, which from the outset reeked of Russian disinformation – a case which has only gotten stronger during Durham’s inquiry. Durham’s grand jury has expired, and the project appears to be wrapping up, with the aim of competing a final report by the end of the year.

Hanging over the entire Danchenko issue is the sensitive matter of his apparent relationship with Russian intelligence, which predated his hiring by Christopher Steele in 2014 by a half-decade or more. Details, however, were lacking. As Top Secret Umbra explained two years ago:

The Bureau had Danchenko under counterintelligence investigation between May 2009 and March 2011 over his ties to Russian spies. Specifically, the FBI established that Danchenko acted in certain ways that looked suspicious from a counterintelligence viewpoint. In 2005-2006, he was in touch with the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, and had multiple contacts with known Russian intelligence officers. According to the Bureau, Danchenko and one of these Russian spies “seemed very familiar with each other.” Interviews with Danchenko’s coworkers revealed that one of them thought that the think-tanker “might actually be a Russian spy.”