Igor Danchenko Indictment & initial appearance in EDVA -updated with FISC Orders & DOJ-OIG investigation

Pay attention to the overt acts conducted by Danchenko and PR Executive-1 - I’m not a rocket scientist but even I know that PR Executive #1 is screwed or he’s cut a deal to cooperate. It’s a long read

Brief background can be found here - because if you thought the Sussman indictment was the beginning, middle and end of the Durham Investigation —I regret to inform you that it’s not…

What do Tea Leaves, data scientists, pings & DNS lookups have in common? A much deeper dive into the Sussman indictment

Ogor Danchenko indictment..

The newly unsealed indictment (see ECF Link or you can pull down the indictment via my Scribd Link or via this DOJ-OPA Link) as with my standard practice I’m limiting commentary to the facts alleged in the newly unsealed indictment. Nor should you consider this article as an Opinion Piece or uninformed prognostications. Instead let’s just cover the facts alleged in the indictment…

The five-count indictment alleges that Ogor Danchenko, a U.S.-based Russia analyst, making numerous false statements to the FBI during a 2017 interview concerning his role in collecting information for Christopher Steele…

…bore upon PR Executive-l's reliability, motivations, and potential bias as a source of information for the Company Reports..

January 2017 through in or about November 2017, and as part of its efforts to determine the truth or falsity of specific information in the Company Reports, the FBI conducted several interviews of DANCHENKO regarding, among other things, the information that DANCHENKO had provided to U.K. Person-1 (collectively, the "Interviews").

.. (c) DANCHENKO gathered some of the information contained in the Company Reports at events in Moscow organized by PR Executive-l and others that DANCHENKO attended at PR Executive-l's invitation

IGOR DANCHENKO & Brookings Institute & PR Executive # 1

As further enumerated on the indictment, Defendant Danchenko spent the better part of his adult life — focused on Russia and EurAsia..

…2010, an employee of Think Tank-1 ¹ ("Think Tank Employee-1") introduced DANCHENKO to U.K. Person-1. In or about 2011, U.K. Person-1 retained DANCHENKO as a contractor at U.K. Investigative Firm-1. In his work for U.K. Investigative Firm-1, DANCHENKO focused primarily on Russian and Eurasian business risk assessment and geopolitical analysis.

Beginning in or around June 2016, U.K. Person-1 - using information provided primarily by DANCHENKO - began to compile and draft the Company Reports containing purported evidence of illicit ties between Trump and the Russian government. On or about July 5, 2016, U.K. Person-1 provided the first of the Company Reports to an FBI agent overseas…

…April 2016, DANCHENKO and PR Executive-1 engaged in discussions regarding potential business collaboration between PR Firm-1 and U.K. Investigative Firm-1 on issues relating to Russia. These discussions reflected that DANCHENKO and PR Executive-1 had exchanged information regarding each other's backgrounds and professional activities, including DANCHENKO's work for U.K. Investigative Firm-1 and U.K. Person-1.

…PR Executive-1 asked DANCHENKO to assist PR Executive￾1 and Organizer-1 with the October Conference, which DANCHENKO agreed to do. PR Executive-1 subsequently asked and received permission from Organizer-1 to enlist DANCHENKO to assist with logistics, provide translation services, and present on various relevant topics at the October Conference….

…He is too young for KGB. But 1 think he worked for FSB…

June 10,2016, and prior to the June 2016 Planning Trip, PR Executive￾1 sent an email to a U.S.-based acquaintance which reflected that PR Executive-1 and DANCHENKO had become colleagues and were exchanging information. In describing DANCHENKO, PR Executive-1 stated: "He is too young for KGB. But I think he worked for FSB. Since he told me he spent two years in Iran. And when I first met him he knew more about me than I did. [winking emoticon]."

Small Spicy Sidebar… because this needs to be said:

…if you read pages 7 thru 13 it’s as if John Durham is making a credible argument that it was Clinton and the Democrats that played hide the sausage in the heart shaped water bed. No really it’s Durham is purposely trying to white wash Trump’s Orangeness and it’s kind of gross that there are still many Trump loyalists inside the DOJ…for example reread this paragraph closely… because it certainly appears Durham’s goal/mission to rewrite history is -astonishing and astounding…

…DANCHENKO claimed to have sourced several allegations contained in the Company Reports to Chamber President-1, including allegations of purported ongoing communications between the Trump campaign and Russian officials…

..Note the interesting disclosure made in paragraph 42 regarding the Chamber of Commerce President and Trump Org and Donald Trump…

August 2016, Russian Sub-Source-1 sent a message to a Russia-based associate describing PR Executive-! as an "advisor" to Hillary Clinton. Russian Sub-Source-1 further commented regarding what might happen if Clinton were to win the election, stating in Russian, "[W]hen [PR Executive-! and others] take me off to the State Department [to handle] issues of the former USSR, then we'll see who is looking good and who is not."

…PR Executive-1 later acknowledged to the FBI that he never met with a "GOP friend" in relation to this information that he passed to DANCHENKO…

No really PR Executive 1 completely fabricated the story of the who/why/what/when/how of Manafort’s exit from the Trump campaign and that wholly fabricated story was used for the justification of at least 1 FISA warrant and sadly the FBI didn’t follow the rules and guidelines hence why the FISC upbraided the FBI (see Dec 2019 FISC Order)

June 15, 2017, the FBI interviewed DANCHENKO in the Eastern District of Virginia regarding the Company Reports. He repeatedly lied or mislead the FBI agents who were tasked with interviewing him…

the FBI asked DANCHENKO, among other things, if he had talked to PR Executive-1 regarding any allegations contained in the Company Reports. DANCHENKO denied that PR Executive-1 provided any specific information related to the Company Reports. In particular, when an FBI agent ("Agent-1") mentioned PR Executive-I's name during a conversation about individuals who may have contributed to the Company Reports, the following exchange…

..DANCHENKO stated, in substance and in part, that PR Executive-1 had traveled on the October "delegation" to Moscow; that PR Executive-1 conducted business with Business-1 and Russian Sub-source-1; and that PR Executive-1 had a professional relationship with Russian Press Secretary-1…

…The Materiality of DANCHENKO's Lies Regarding PR Executive-1..

In short this indictment reads as the misrepresentations and blatant lies (omission are also considered lies) had a direct and material impact on the overall investigation and specific to the FBI —assumption is this had National Security Implications as well as CounterIntelligence component (but again that’s an educated guess on my end because I’m not in the Intelligence Community and I tend to give the IC more broadly a much wider berth and benefit of the doubt versus castigating the IC ← because most sane and rational Americans don’t amplify the IC “is incompetent” or “game over bring home all our assets” NOPE I tend to give the IC the respect and deference deserved by thousands of hardworking and largely nameless public servants who are always standing watch.

DANCHENKO's lies denying PR Executive-l's role in specific information referenced in the Company Reports were material to the FBI because, among other reasons, they deprived FBI agents and analysts of probative information concerning PR Executive-1 that would have, among other things, assisted them in evaluating the credibility, reliability, and veracity of the Company Reports, including DANCHENKO's sub-sources

. In particular, PR Executive-1 maintained connections to numerous people and events described in several other reports, and DANCHENKO gathered information that appeared in the Company Reports during the June Planning Trip and the October Conference…

The Russian sub-source(s)

On a lighter note it certainly appears that the long know “PP tape” might have always been a complete fabrication. Upon reading pages 15 thru 25 it’s painting a picture that the “PP Tape” was a product of pure rumor and speculation but then again I could be wrong or misreading the indictment;

DANCHENKO stated, in substance and in part, that PR Executive-1 had traveled on the October "delegation" to Moscow; that PR Executive-1 conducted business with Business-1 and Russian Sub-source-1; and that PR Executive-1 had a professional relationship with Russian Press Secretary-1….

DANCHENKO's June 15, 2017 statements that (i) he never talked to [PR Executive-1] about "anything [specific] that showed up" in the Company Reports, and that (ii) he did not think PR Executive-1 was "involved in any way" in those reports, were knowingly and intentionally false. In truth and in fact, and as DANCHENKO well knew, DANCHENKO had gathered specific information from PR Executive-1 that appeared in the August 22,2016 Company Report concerning Campaign Manager-1 's resignation.

..Such lies were material to the FBI's ongoing investigation…

…because, among other reasons, it was important for the FBI to understand how discreet or open DANCHENKO had been with his friends and associates about his status as an employee of U.K. Investigative Firm-1, since his practices in this regard could, in turn, affect the likelihood that other individuals - including hostile foreign intelligence services - would learn of and attempt to influence DANCHENKO's reporting for U.K. Investigative Firm…

As you’ll note nearly a year ago (on the dot) Oct 2020 DANCHENKO told the New York Times in a rather exhaustive interview:

“Even raw intelligence from credible sources, I take it with a grain of salt.. take it with a grain of salt..Who knows, what if it’s not particularly accurate?”

At any rate I have to get back to my bonbons but thought my readers should have unfettered access to this indictment

https://www.scribd.com/document/537241735/Igor-y-Danchenko-Nov-2021-Indictment

Also there’s an interesting filing on Danchenko’s criminal docket -

And lastly I feel like this needs to be said (repeatedly) the damage John Durham is doing to both the DOJ and FBI is almost too difficult to enumerate. To me (as like the Sussman Indictment) this newly unsealed indictment certainly reads like “selective prosecution” but meh whadda I know? Also the false narrative that the Dossier wasn’t used by the FBI is complete bull-pucky. For Example:

Decent 2019 DOJ-OIG Report:

Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation and the “examination report” which was simultaneously published. The FBI wasted untold hours chasing down the veracity of the Dossier -again these confidential reports are what many coin as “raw intelligence”

…In July 2016, 3 weeks after then FBI Director James Comey announced the conclusion of the FBI’s “Midyear Exam” investigation into presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s handling of government emails during her tenure as Secretary of State, the FBI received reporting from a Friendly Foreign Government (FFG) that, in a May 2016 meeting with the FFG, Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos “suggested the Trump team had received some kind of a suggestion” from Russia that it could assist in the election process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to candidate Clinton and President Obama. Days later, on July 31, the FBI initiated the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that is the subject of this report.

FISA and Carter Page..

To be clear I’m not giving the DOJ or FBI a pass - it is clear that the various investigations all concluded that the FBI withheld pertinent information about the Dossier, it’s Origins and the righteous upbraiding by the FISC -unless otherwise noted the following embedded links are from https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov but the fact some are still conflating the Dossier, Crossfire Hurricane and the impact of misleading FBI agents —that’s not lost on me. You’ll note I’m not castigating the DOJ or FBI — I’m merely pointing out the facts in the record and trying to clear up the confusion of today’s newly unsealed indictment in a much larger context. Because once you get sucked into the vortex of “deep stupid” and partially incongruent conspiracy theories it’s best to let the facts light your way versus using today’s indictment as a cudgel to further attack our FBI and our DOJ ←no sane or partially informed American should be gloating about this indictment or actively advocating for Biden to fail —the Blue QANON will do anything to stay relevant -facts be damned or not…

• see February 2018 FISC Supplemental Notice of the Public Release of Additional Declassified Information and Developments Further Supporting Publication of the Carter Page Surveillance Records

• See March 2018 FISC - Second Supplemental Notice of the Public Release of Additional Information Further Supporting Publication of the Carter Page Surveillance Records

• see the June 2020 Opinion & Order from the FISC…

• See December 2019 IN RE ACCURACY CONCERNS REGARDING DocketNo. Misc . 19- 02 FBI MATTERS SUBMITTED TO THE FISC

• January 2020 FISC Order Docket Nos: 16-1182, 17-52, 17-375, A U.S. PERSON 17-679

because this is where the facts can be found and it should dispel the various conspiracy theories running rampant but then again hope springs eternal, right?

“… the FBI has developed and earned a reputation as one of the world’s premier law enforcement agencies in significant part because of its tradition of professionalism, impartiality, non-political enforcement of the law, and adherence to detailed policies, practices, and norms. It was precisely these qualities that were required as the FBI initiated and conducted Crossfire Hurricane. However, as we describe in this report, our review identified significant concerns with how certain aspects of the investigation were conducted and supervised, particularly the FBI’s failure to adhere to its own standards of accuracy and completeness when filing applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authority to surveil Carter Page, a U.S. person who was connected to the Donald J. Trump for President Campaign. We also identified what we believe is an absence of sufficient policies to ensure appropriate Department oversight of significant investigative decisions that could affect constitutionally protected activity.

…The Opening of Crossfire Hurricane and the Use of Confidential Human Sources

The decision to open the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was made by the FBI’s then Counterintelligence Division (CD) Assistant Director (AD), E.W. “Bill” Priestap, and reflected a consensus reached after multiple days of discussions and meetings among senior FBI officials. We concluded that AD Priestap’s exercise of discretion in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision. While the information in the FBI’s possession at the time was limited, in light of the low threshold established by Department and FBI predication policy, we found that Crossfire Hurricane was opened for an authorized investigative purpose and with sufficient factual predication.

• under Department and FBI policy, the decision whether to open the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation, which involved the activities of individuals associated with a national major party campaign for president, was a discretionary judgment call left to the FBI.

• There was no requirement that Department officials be consulted, or even notified, prior to the FBI making that decision. We further found that, consistent with this policy, the FBI advised supervisors in the Department’s National Security Division (NSD) of the investigation only after it had been initiated.

• As we detail in Chapter Two, high- level Department notice and approval is required in other circumstances where investigative activity could substantially impact certain civil liberties, and that notice allows senior Department officials to consider the potential constitutional and prudential implications in advance of these activities. We concluded that similar advance notice should be required in circumstances such as those that were present here.

…found no evidence that the FBI attempted to place any CHSs within the Trump campaign, recruit members of the Trump campaign as CHSs, or task CHSs to report on the Trump campaign…

Shortly after the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, the FBI conducted several consensually monitored meetings between FBI confidential human sources (CHS) and individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign, including a high-level campaign official who was not a subject of the investigation. We found that the CHS operations received the necessary approvals under FBI policy; that an Assistant Director knew about and approved of each operation, even in circumstances where a first-level supervisory special agent could have approved the operations; and that the operations were permitted under Department and FBI policy because their use was not for the sole purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment or the lawful exercise of other rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States. We did not find any documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI’s decision to conduct these operations. Additionally, we found no evidence that the FBI attempted to place any CHSs within the Trump campaign, recruit members of the Trump campaign as CHSs, or task CHSs to report on the Trump campaign.

However, we are concerned that, under applicable Department and FBI policy, it would have been sufficient for a first-level FBI supervisor to authorize the sensitive domestic CHS operations undertaken in Crossfire Hurricane, and that there is no applicable Department or FBI policy requiring the FBI to notify Department officials of a decision to task CHSs to consensually monitor conversations with members of a presidential campaign. Specifically, in Crossfire Hurricane, where one of the CHS operations involved consensually monitoring a high-level official on the Trump campaign who was not a subject of the investigation, and all of the operations had the potential to gather sensitive information of the campaign about protected First Amendment activity, we found no evidence that the FBI consulted with any Department officials before conducting the CHS operations-and no policy requiring the FBI to do so. We therefore believe that current Department and FBI policies are not sufficient to ensure appropriate oversight and accountability when such operations potentially implicate sensitive, constitutionally protected activity, and that requiring Department consultation, at a minimum, would be appropriate.

..The FISA Applications to Conduct Surveillance of Carter Page..

• One investigative tool for which Department and FBI policy expressly require advance approval by a senior Department official is the seeking of a court order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

• When the Crossfire Hurricane team first proposed seeking a FISA order targeting Carter Page in mid- August 2016, FBI attorneys assisting the investigation considered it a “close call” whether they had developed the probable cause necessary to obtain the order, and a FISA order was not requested at that time

• September 2016, immediately after the Crossfire Hurricane team received reporting from Christopher Steele concerning Page’s alleged recent activities with Russian officials, FBI attorneys advised the Department that the team was ready to move forward with a request to obtain FISA authority to surveil Page.

• FBI and Department officials told us the Steele reporting “pushed [the FISA proposal] over the line” in terms of establishing probable cause. FBI leadership supported relying on Steele’s reporting to seek a FISA order targeting Page after being advised of, and giving consideration to, concerns expressed by a Department attorney that Steele may have been hired by someone associated with a rival candidate or campaign.

The authority under FISA to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches targeting individuals significantly assists the government’s efforts to combat terrorism, clandestine intelligence activity, and other threats to the national security. At the same time, the use of this authority unavoidably raises civil liberties concerns. FISA orders can be used to surveil U.S. persons, like Carter Page, and in some cases the surveillance will foreseeably collect information about the individual’s constitutionally protected activities, such as Page’s legitimate activities on behalf of a presidential campaign. Moreover, proceedings before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC)-which is responsible for ruling on applications for FISA orders-are ex parte, meaning that unlike most court proceedings, the government is present but the government’s counterparty is not. In addition, unlike the use of other intrusive investigative techniques (such as wiretaps under Title III and traditional criminal search warrants) that are granted in ex parte hearings but can potentially be subject to later court challenge, FISA orders have not been subject to scrutiny through subsequent adversarial proceedings.

…FBI policy that every FISA application must contain a “full and accurate” presentation of the facts applications-7 in the first FISA application and a total of 17 by the final renewal application…

…Congress through the FISA statute, and the Department and FBI through policies and procedures, have established important safeguards to protect the FISA application process from irregularities and abuse. Among the most important are the requirements in FBI policy that every FISA application must contain a “full and accurate” presentation of the facts, and that agents must ensure that all factual statements in FISA applications are “scrupulously accurate.”

…we found that members of the Crossfire Hurricane team failed to meet the basic obligation to ensure that the Carter Page FISA applications were “scrupulously accurate.”

We identified significant inaccuracies and omissions in each of the four applications-7 in the first FISA application and a total of 17 by the final renewal application. For example, the Crossfire Hurricane team obtained information from Steele’s Primary Sub-source in January 2017 that raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele reporting that was used in the Carter Page FISA applications. But members of the Crossfire Hurricane team failed to share the information with the Department, and it was therefore omitted from the three renewal applications. All of the applications also omitted information the FBI had obtained from another U.S. government agency detailing its prior relationship with Page, including that Page had been approved as an operational contact for the other agency from 2008 to 2013, and that Page had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers, one of which overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application.

• As a result of the 17 significant inaccuracies and omissions we identified, relevant information was not shared with, and consequently not considered by, important Department decision makers and the court, and the FISA applications made it appear as though the evidence supporting probable cause was stronger than was actually the case.

• We also found basic, fundamental, and serious errors during the completion of the FBl’s factual accuracy reviews, known as the Woods Procedures, which are designed to ensure that FISA applications contain a full and accurate presentation of the facts.

• We do not speculate whether the correction of any particular misstatement or omission, or some combination thereof, would have resulted in a different outcome. Nevertheless, the Department’s decision makers and the court should have been given complete and accurate information so that they could meaningfully evaluate probable cause before authorizing the surveillance of a U.S. person associated with a presidential campaign. That did not occur, and as a result, the surveillance of Carter Page continued even as the FBI gathered information that weakened the assessment of probable cause and made the FISA applications less accurate.

• We determined that the inaccuracies and omissions we identified in the applications resulted from case agents providing wrong or incomplete information to Department attorneys and failing to identify important issues for discussion.. we concluded that case agents and SSAs did not give appropriate attention to facts that cut against probable cause, and that as the investigation progressed and more information tended to undermine or weaken the assertions in the FISA applications, the agents and SSAs did not reassess the information supporting probable cause. Further, the agents and SSAs did not follow, or even appear to know, certain basic requirements in the Woods Procedures.

• Although we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of the case agents who assisted NSD’s Office of Intelligence (01) in preparing the applications, or the agents and supervisors who performed the Woods Procedures, we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or missing information. We found that the offered explanations for these serious errors did not excuse them, or the repeated failures to ensure the accuracy of information presented to the FISC.

• the FBl’s most sensitive and high-priority matters, and especially when seeking court permission to use an intrusive tool such as a FISA order, it is incumbent upon the entire chain of command, including senior officials, to take the necessary steps to ensure that they are sufficiently familiar with the facts and circumstances supporting and potentially undermining a FISA application in order to provide effective oversight consistent with their level of supervisory responsibility.

• Such oversight requires greater familiarity with the facts than we saw in this review, where time and again during OIG interviews FBI managers, supervisors, and senior officials displayed a lack of understanding or awareness of important information concerning many of the problems we identified.

..Crossfire Hurricane team failed to comply with FBI policies..

…In the preparation of the FISA applications to surveil Carter Page, the Crossfire Hurricane team failed to comply with FBI policies, and in so doing fell short of what is rightfully expected from a premier law enforcement agency entrusted with such an intrusive surveillance tool. In light of the significant concerns identified with the Carter Page FISA applications and the other issues described in this report, the OIG today initiated an audit that will further examine the FBI’s compliance with the Woods Procedures in FISA applications that target U.S. persons in both counterintelligence and counterterrorism investigations. We also make the following recommendations to assist the Department and the FBI in avoiding similar failures in future investigations.

Misc. 19-02 Letter of August 30, 2021

Related Case/Docket reference: Misc. 19-02

Posting Date: Thursday, September 2, 2021

File: Misc. 19-02 Letter of August 30, 2021.pdf

As you’ll note the FISC has required the Government (specifically the FBI) to provide the Court with timely and fulsome updates as to prevent another Carter Page fiasco…

• FISC Misc 19 02 Supplemental Response July 16 2021

• Misc 19 02 Letter of June 1, 2021

You can access the FISC previous orders/memorandum via the FISC’s public website

-Filey

1. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? The Realities of a Rising China and Implications for Russia’s Energy Ambitions Igor Danchenko,Erica S. Downs, and Fiona Hill -circa Aug 2010 via Brookings Institute Presentation