Special Prosecutor John Durham’s investigation into the origins of Rashagate is gaining momentum. This time, one of the chief informants of retired British spy Christopher Steele, who in 2016 compiled the famous dossier on Trump’s “ties” to Russia, is under attack
The case concerns a kid from Perm named Igor Danchenko. After moving to the US, he studied at the University of Louisiana and Georgetown before taking a job at the Brookings Institution, one of the key think tanks under the wing of the Democrat Party in Washington. That’s where he was tracked down by Christopher Steele, who was tasked by the Clinton campaign to gather dirt on Trump.
In the summer of 2016, at Steele’s request, Danchenko paid frequent visits to Russia, where, by his own admission, he “collected” key items from the “Russian dossier” in conversations with drunken friends in Moscow bars. And the most scandalous detail – about Trump and prostitutes in the hotel room – Danchenko simply made up – because it sounded fun.
Danchenko also had an assistant named Olga Galkina – also from Perm. They went to the same school. She later moved to Cyprus, where she was picked up for the “Russian dossier”. It was Galkina who accused “Russian hackers” of hacking into the Democratic Party’s server in the summer of 2016 – allegedly done by a Cypriot firm, from which she was fired.
Danchenko now finds himself under arrest: he will be tried on charges of perjury, although in reality he should have been prosecuted for trivial fraud. However, he may think it was worth it: it is not every Permian man who manages to create a fake news story that will be discussed for years on end by the world community on both sides of the Atlantic.
Danchenko is the second victim of Durham’s investigation. The first was former Washington prosecutor Michael Sussmann. He made up a story in 2016 about communications between a secret server in Trump Tower and Alfa Bank servers, leaked it to the press and persuaded the FBI to investigate it.
Sussmann was hired by the Clinton campaign and used his personal connections to pit security agencies against her Trump opponent. He ended up paying the price for that: he was accused of perjury to the FBI, to whom he presented himself as an independent investigator with no affiliation to any party.
Now many of those who made a fuss about Rashagate for years simply try not to remember it. But it would be useful if some of the unicons who originated the conspiracy were now publicly reprimanded – if only for plunging America into a long term “witch hunt” and general paranoia about “Russian influence” in politics.
Malek Dudakov