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The FBI offered British spy Christopher Steele $1 million in cash to prove the salacious allegations in his infamous ‘Dirty Dossier’ on Donald Trump, a senior bureau analyst told a federal court on Tuesday.
FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified that the bureau made the offer in 2016 during a meeting in the United Kingdom – but didn’t hand over the money because Steele couldn’t back up the evidence.
At the time, agents were looking to verify claims the Kremlin had compromising videos showing Trump engaged in sexual activity in a Moscow hotel and allegations he was in contact with Russian officials before the general election.
There were also salacious claims Steele was commissioned by Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign and the claims in the dossier have since been debunked.
Steele penned the 35-page document, which alleged that the Kremlin colluded with Trump’s presidential campaign, in 2016 after his private intelligence company Orbis Business Intelligence was hired by a law firm representing the Democrats.
Among other things, the ‘golden shower’ dossier claimed that the Russian security services could blackmail the President-Elect with allegations that he paid prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept in by Barack and Michelle Obama.
The revelation about the substantial financial incentive being offered came in the trial of Russian analyst Igor Danchenko, one of Steele’s primary sources, who is accused of lying to the FBI when questioned about his information.
He was indicted on five counts of making false statements to the FBI about the dossier. Prosecutors told the court Danchenko fabricated one of his own sources and hid the identity of another when he was interviewed by the bureau.
Ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele compiled the infamous dossier of material on Donald Trump and the then-candidate’s Russia ties. An FBI supervisory agent testified Steele was offered $1 million to back up his information but was unable to do so
Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by Trump, is prosecuting the case in am Alexandria, Virginia courtroom.
Auten testified that information from the Steele dossier was used to support a surveillance warrant against a Trump campaign official, Carter Page.
Under questioning from Durham, Auten said the dossier was used to bolster the surveillance application even though the FBI couldn’t corroborate its allegations.
Auten (pictured) testified that information from the Steele dossier was used to support a surveillance warrant against a Trump campaign official Carter Page, even though the information could not be corroborated
Auten said the FBI checked with other government agencies to see if they had corroboration but nothing came back.
Auten and other FBI agents even met with Steele in the United Kingdom in 2016 and offered him as much as $1 million if he could supply corroboration for the allegations in the dossier, but none was provided.
Durham’s years-long probe has resulted in a single conviction – of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith for doctoring an email used to justify surveillance. The trial of Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann resulted in an acquittal.
Steele, an ex-MI6 intelligence officer, compiled the dossier as a series of dispatches. He had been a paid FBI informant.
Prosecutors said Danchenko, a Russia analyst and researcher based in Virginia, fabricated once source and hid another source of information as the FBI rushed in the weeks before the 2016 election to confirm information in the dossier. They accuse him of lying to the FBI when he was questioned about information he provided.
They also pointed to an area of harm – the FBI relied in part of information in the dossier to obtain warrants for phone and email surveillance of former Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page, a U.S. citizen.
They were probing an alleged conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia – in an investigation that would burst into the headlines.
‘Those lies mattered,’ Prosecutor Michael Keilty said, because the FBI presented inaccurate information to a foreign intelligence surveillance court.
Page was never charged with a crime.
Prosecutors say Danchenko lied when he told agents he got information from Sergei Millian, who had been head of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. But they said there isn’t evidence the two ever spoke, and pointed to phone records.
‘This case is about protecting the functions and integrity of our institutions,’ Keilty added.
Prosecutors said Danchenko, a Russia analyst and researcher based in Virginia, fabricated once source and hid another source from the FBI. He is the third person to be indicted by special counsel John Durham and is seen walking into court on Tuesday
An FBI official’s testimony failed to back up Donald Trump’s repeated claim that the Russia probe was founded on the dossier
‘This case is about protecting the function and integrity of our government institutions,’ said Durham.
Durham’s prosecutors focused on the treatment of Page, an area that has long been a focus of Trump and congressional Republicans, and which featured in a damning report by the Justice Department’s IG.
Danchenko’s lawyer countered that his client has been truthful and that the FBI asked his client vague questions during their 2016 meeting.
At one point Durham asked Auten why the DOJ opened its Russia probe in the summer of 2016.
But his answer cut against Trump’s repeated claim that the probe was founded on the dirty dossier.
Instead, his answer pointed to the origin of the probe, which has been repeatedly reported: A boozy encounter in a hotel bar in May 2016 between foreign Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos and an Australian diplomat, after the aide said the Kremlin had dirt on Hillary Clinton. The diplomat provided the information to the U.S.
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