Igor Danchenko – Steele’s Primary Sub-Source
As noted, the FBI attempted, over time, to investigate and analyze the Steele Reports but ultimately was not able to confirm or corroborate any of the substantive allegations contained in those reports. In the context of these efforts, and as discussed in Sections IV.D.1.b.ix and x, the FBI learned that Steele relied primarily on a U.S.-based Russian national, Igor Danchenko, to collect information that ultimately formed the core allegations found in the reports. Specifically, our investigation discovered that Danchenko himself had told another person that he (Danchenko) was responsible for 80% of the “intel” and 50% of the analysis contained in the Steele Dossier.[1][2]
In December 2016, the FBI identified Danchenko as Steele’s primary sub-source. Danchenko agreed to meet with the FBI and, under the protection of an immunity letter, he and his attorney met with the Crossfire Hurricane investigators on January 24, 25, and 26, 2017. Thereafter, from January 2017 through October 2020, and as part of its efforts to determine the truth or falsity of specific information in the Steele Reports, the FBI conducted multiple interviews of Danchenko regarding, among other things, the information he provided to Steele. As discussed in Section IV.D.1.b.ix, during these interviews, Danchenko was unable to provide any corroborating evidence to support the Steele allegations, and further, described his interactions with his sub-sources as “rumor and speculation” and conversations of a casual nature.[3] Significant parts of what Danchenko told the FBI were inconsistent with what Steele told the FBI during his prior interviews in October 2016 and September 2017. At no time, however, was the FISC informed of these inconsistencies. Moreover, notwithstanding the repeated assertions in the Page FISA applications that Steele’s primary sub-source was based in Russia, Danchenko for many years had lived in the Washington, D.C. area. After learning that Danchenko continued to live in the Washington area and had not left except for domestic and foreign travel, the FBI never corrected this assertion in the three subsequent Page FISA renewal applications. Rather, beginning in March 2017, the FBI engaged Danchenko as a CHS and began making regular financial payments to him for information – none of which corroborated Steele’s reporting.
- ↑ Danchenko Government Exhibit 1502 (LinkedIn message from Danchenko dated Oct. 11, 2020).
- ↑ Our investigators uncovered little evidence suggesting that, prior to the submission of the first Page FISA application, the FBI had made any serious attempts to identify Steele’s primary sub-source other than asking Steele to disclose the identities of his sources, which he refused to do. The reliability of Steele’s reporting depended heavily on the reliability of his primary sub-source because, as represented to the FISC, Steele’s source reporting was principally derived from the primary sub-source, who purportedly was running a “network of sub-sources.” In re Carter W. Page, Docket No. 16-1182, at 16 n.8 (FISC Oct. 21, 2016). The failure to identify the primary sub-source early in the investigation’s pursuit of FISA authority prevented the FBI from properly examining the possibility that some or much of the non-open source information contained in Steele’s reporting was Russian disinformation (that wittingly or unwittingly was passed along to Steele), or that the reporting was otherwise not credible.
- ↑ See supra footnotes 30 and 31.
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