Last month, the Department of Justice unveiled a series of new documents that led to the unmasking of Christopher Steele’s discredited Trump-Russia dossier “primary sub-source,” shedding new light on the origins of information from the Democrat National Committee-funded opposition research.
The sub-source, documents revealed, is Igor Danchenko, a Russian national with a checkered past that includes criminal convictions overlooked by the FBI before the agency used his unvetted claims to seek FISA warrants and charge President Donald Trump or members of his campaign with serving as covert agents of the Russian government.
Danchenko, 42, was hired by Steele in 2016 and tasked with unearthing compromising information on Trump on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign. Danchenko’s credentials, however, failed to live up to the credibility Steele pledged in relying on Danchenko to bring down Trump.
While news about the grand Russian collusion hoax fades among the very same people who exhaustively perpetuated its lies as journalism, the damage done to the nation’s institutions cannot be overstated. Its story, which now includes senior officials in the Obama administration, warrants it the title “Biggest Political Scandal Of Our Time,” or “Obamagate.”
1. There’s No Steele Dossier Without The Sub-Source
When Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report in December finding 17 major errors and omissions in the unlawful FISA warrants used to spy on the Trump campaign, the public learned that Steele “was not the originating source of any of the factual information in his reporting.” Steele instead, the report noted, relied entirely on information from the primary sub-source, who also lacked direct access to the information being reported, much of which was made up.
The inspector general also told congressional lawmakers that the FISA warrant applications, in turn, “relied entirely on Steele.” Not only is there no dossier without the sub-source, there’s no investigation, since the dossier was the basis for the entire operation.
2. Steele Exaggerated Sub-Source Claims
Released documents last month revealed that over the course of a series of interviews with the FBI, the primary sub-source was caught off guard by statements attributed to him by Steele. Not only was Danchenko no former Russian official, he was a contractor for Steele’s firm.
The interviews also show the sub-source unable to recall where information that Steele attributed to him came from, surprised to hear some of the information Steele sourced to him, and disagreeing with some of the information attributed to him. Danchenko charged Steele with re-characterizing claims to enhance their credibility after failing to come up with real intelligence to devastate Trump’s rise to power.
It’s now public that Danchenko’s sources were no interagency operatives with deep knowledge of foreign interference but a loose network of drinking buddies whose made-up stories would ultimately make it into Steele’s report that upended U.S.-Russian relations and sowed deep divisions across the country. Half the country is still falsely convinced that Trump is a Kremlin agent.
3. Early FBI Sub-Source Interviews Were Clear Grounds To End Crossfire Hurricane
The FBI interviews with Steele’s primary sub-source, which illustrated fatal inconsistencies and contradictions between Steele’s claims and the sub-source’s assertions all based on unverified hearsay, were conducted in January 2017, months before the FBI proceeded to move forward with a FISA warrant application against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in April and June of the same year.
Even after the sub-source told the FBI Steele’s charges were fake and exaggerated, which alone should have killed the credibility of the Steele dossier based on them, federal law enforcement officials continued their deep-state coup. The FBI told the FISA court they found Danchenko candid and trustworthy, not that refuted claims were sourced to the sub-source in the Steele dossier.
