Special counsel John Durham asked a federal court to send out 30 subpoenas for testimony in the pending trial against research analyst Igor Danchenko, who was the alleged main source for the discredited “Steele dossier” that targeted former President Donald Trump.
In a June 13 filing, Durham’s team said, “It is respectfully requested that the Clerk of said Court issue subpoenas as indicated below for appearance of said Court in Alexandria, Virginia … to testify on behalf of the United States” on Oct. 11.
The judge in the case is U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2008.
Danchenko, who has pleaded not guilty, is charged with lying to the FBI. Durham alleges that he made five false statements to the FBI in connection to information he provided to former UK spy Christopher Steele, who was hired by an opposition research company on behalf of a law firm working for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
According to Durham’s indictment, Danchenko’s alleged fabrications “were material to the FBI because … the FBI’s investigation of the Trump Campaign relied” on the dossier to obtain secretive warrants to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
“The FBI ultimately devoted substantial resources attempting to investigate and corroborate the allegations contained in” the dossier, including whether Danchenko’s sub-sources were reliable, the indictment states. The dossier and information provided by Danchenko “played a role in the FBI’s investigative decisions and in sworn representations that the FBI made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court throughout the relevant time period,” according to last year’s complaint.
Steele Dossier
Memos compiled by Steele—collectively known as the Steele dossier—claimed that Trump colluded with Russian officials to help him defeat Clinton in 2016. Trump has categorically denied the allegations, saying they’re part of a longstanding Democrat-backed narrative designed to discredit him.
