Russiagate: Is that Ee-gor or Eye-gor Danchenko?

A relatively light Monday morning, and we're still chewing over the matter of the Steele's primary subsource having been outed as one "Igor Danchenko, a Russian-born analyst living in America, was Steele's primary source, the Daily Caller reported. Although Danchenko's identity was redacted in a newly-released FBI memo, a Twitter user pieced together key pieces of information that revealed who the source was. The New York Times later confirmed Danchenko's identity." (Beth Bauman, Town Hall, Main Source Behind the Steele Dossier Was Outed). Curiously, he was/is an employee of the liberal Brookings Institution, and a friend of Trump impeachment witness Fiona Hill. WaT, Source for Steele discredited anti-Trump dossier outed, also ties him to Strobe Talbot, the head of the Brookings Institute, and former Deputy Secretary of State under Bill Clinton.

It came out in court last week that, while Strobe Talbott was Brookings president in 2016, he obtained material from Mr. Steele, who subsequently sent him a message seeking to talk.

“Dear Strobe,” Mr. Steele said in a direct message, according to the Russian’s attorney, “I know this is not straight forward but we need to discuss the package we delivered to you the other week, and sooner the better. What you thought of it, what you did with it, how we (both) should handle it and the issue it highlights going forward etc. Perhaps you could give this some thought and get back to me. All Best Wishes, Chris.”

Well, you aren't anybody in the Democratic Party or media, if you didn't have a hand in spreading the lies from the Steele Dossier.



Just as a refresher, Danchenko told the FBI that the information that he gave Steele was drunken double and triple hearsay, and bar gossip, and that he was shocked the Steele relied on it for the dossier. The FBI went on to continue basing FISA warrants on it anyway.

One curious thing I'd like to note is that I went onto the WaPoo site this morning and searched for Danchenko, and while I found a ballet dancer of that name, there is not a hint of coverage of this development. But I'm sure it's coming, right? As soon as they find the hook to spin this as positive from the Democrat perspective. From atop Da Hill, Jonathon Turley discourses on More willful blindness by the media on spying by Obama administration

Obama and Biden were aware of the investigation, as were the administration officials who publicly ridiculed Trump when he said there was spying on his campaign. Others, like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, declared they had evidence of collusion but never produced it. Countless reporters, columnists, and analysts still continue to deride, as writer Max Boot said it, the spinning of “absurd conspiracy theories” about how the FBI “supposedly spied on the Trump campaign.”

Willful blindness has its advantages. The media covered the original leak and the collusion narrative, despite mounting evidence that it was false. They filled hours of cable news shows and pages of print with a collusion story discredited by the FBI. Virtually none of these journalists or experts have acknowledged that the collusion leaks were proven false, let alone pursue the troubling implications of national security powers being used to target the political opponents of an administration. But in Washington, success often depends not on what you see but what you can unsee.

Chuck Ross at Da Caller report on how Sen. Lindsey Graham Teases Evidence That The FBI ‘Lied Their Ass Off’ To Congress About The Steele Dossier

“I will tell you next week what I found,” the South Carolina Republican said in an interview on “Fox Sunday Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.

“Here is what I think I’m going to be able to show to the public. Not only did the FBI lie to the court about the reliability about the Steele dossier, they also lied to the Congress. That’s a separate crime.”

Of course, the only two people convicted of it in recent memory are Michael Cohen and Roger Stone. James Comey, James Clapper, John Brennan, and Andy McCabe have all pretty clearly lied to Congress with impunity, at least so far.

A thread from DocRoc1007, Justice Dept. Watchdog Has Evidence Comey Probed Trump, on the Sly

"Sources tell RealClearInvestigations that DOJ IG Michael Horowitz will soon file a report with evidence indicating that Comey was misleading the president.

Comey was "acting as an investigative agent", "secretly trying to build a conspiracy case against the president". "Two officials briefed on the IG’s investigation of the FBI said Comey was essentially 'running a covert operation against' the president".
. . .
"Comey had an agent inside the White House who reported back to FBI headquarters about Trump and his aides, according to other officials familiar with the matter."
. . .
"FBI lacked legal grounds to treat Trump as a suspect. 'They had no probable cause against Trump himself for ‘collusion’ or espionage. They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found nothing.'”
. . .
Comey had his spy Ferrante, inside the WH reporting back to FBI on President Trump & his aides. Ferrante specialized in cyber crime, & left the WH around same time Comey was fired. He then joined BuzzFeed to defend against their being sued for defamation. -RCI
. . .
Working w Ferrante at NSC in early 2017 was another Obama holdover — Tashina Gauhar, who remains a top nat sec adviser at DOJ. She helped Yates to spy on Flynn, & helped [RR] resist, initially, Trump’s order to fire Comey; also took copious notes for Mueller on "obstruction".

It's pretty clear Comey lied his ass off to Trump, which is the same as lying to the  Department of Justice; a federal crime for which Michael Flynn was accused.

Sundance at CTH, It’s Not Just What is “In” The Documents, It’s What’s “On Them” That Tells The Story…. Inside baseball, suggesting the Mueller team might not have been on the up and up. Not really news.

Matt Vespa at Town Hall explains Why Lisa Page's Tweet About the FBI, Trump, and 'Generational Harm' Is Beyond Rich on the Danchenko revelation:

This story prompted Page to tweet, “If Congress needed this 302 for oversight, DOJ/FBI could have made it available without handing it over to be leaked. If true, this cld [sic] get people killed, and they don’t care. No source will trust the FBI, and they don’t care. They are doing generational harm, and they don’t care.”

Oh, please. Spare us, guys. What is this? First, the dossier was trash. It was never verified, most of it couldn’t be, and it was used as the basis for the entire Russian collusion myth. Yes, it was a myth. There was no evidence of collusion and there never will be because it didn’t happen. And the dossier wasn’t vetted. We know that based on the shoddy and illegal FISA spy warrants secured against Carter Page, a former Trump campaign official. This dossier contained glaring errors that could have been corrected through a simple Google search—and it never happened. Why? Because the FBI never vetted this document, despite calling it credible evidence. Even our own intelligence officials voiced concerns about the document, which were buried. British intelligence officials also were skeptical regarding the claims to this document, which was collected by former MI6 operative Christopher Steele and funded by…the Clinton campaign and the Democrats. It’s political opposition research that was used to spy on Page, subject Michael Flynn to legal purgatory, and opened the spy operation against the Trump campaign proper. Oh, and did we mention that Strzok’s request that got Crossfire Hurricane, the campaign spy operation, was also a joke. I know you’re not surprised, but a former FBI intelligence official, Kevin Brock, looked at the document and wrote, “What this FBI document clearly establishes is that Crossfire Hurricane was an illicit, made-up investigation lacking a shred of justifying predication, sprung from the mind of someone who despised Donald Trump, and then blessed by inexperienced leadership at the highest levels who harbored their own now well-established biases.”

The Trump DOJ is rightfully torching this whole circus; they’re setting the big top on fire. The Trump dossier was debunked by two reports, the one submitted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller after he took over the FBI’s collusion probe in 2017, and the DOJ inspector general report on the FISA abuses against Page in December of 2019. The Mueller report has its own issues, especially concerning Flynn and Paul Manafort which raises the question that the FBI knew its counterintelligence probe into Russian collusion was off the rails but got a good ole’ former company man, Mueller, to give it a polish job with his investigation, one that blew up attorney-client privilege for Manafort in order to get dirt on Trump. They never did, but it sure looks like Mueller’s team of hyper liberals tried their best to prove collusion and failed…because there was none.

A lot of people have made this argument, and I believe it, Sundance  Exactly Correct – Devin Nunes: “Robert Mueller Was An Avatar”… "Mueller was present in name only, the resistance unit of 17 lawyers, 50 FBI agents & 40 staff members were running the entire DOJ for almost two years." Mueller was selected by the Crossfire Hurricane team, and not vice versa. 

Sundance compares the Durham Investigation to Lessons From the U.S.S. Indianapolis….

Given the nature of the toxic tribal environment surrounding current U.S. politics, it is critical for John Durham to protect his mission from even the appearance of impropriety. One can easily imagine how everyone in/around the purposefully tight group would demand utmost confidence and security with any aspect of their investigation.

Certainly, if a special prosecutor like John Durham was to receive critical material to assemble a political “Little Boy”, anyone in/around the delivery process would be required to go completely silent thereafter. It is the only safe way to ensure the objective.

The U.S.S. Indianapolis was vital to the overall mission. However, building “Little Boy” was not the objective; detonating it was.