EXCLUSIVE: Hiding Danchenko

New FOIA documents show that awareness of Steele Dossier Hoax was more widespread within FBI than previously known

Rolling Stone magazine has just published a hugely perfidious puff piece about Steele dossier source, Igor Danchenko. Even by the standards of media puff pieces, the article is notable for the sheer amount of misrepresentations of basic facts. Among many other falsehoods, it misstates how the FBI found out about Danchenko and fails to acknowledge that the FBI paid him several hundred thousand dollars. Most notably, the article attempts to revive the notion that the dossier was credible, while omitting the crucial detail that Danchenko himself disavowed the dossier in January 2017.

However, what particularly caught our attention was the timing of the piece. There seemed to be no apparent reason to publish such an article now, several years after Danchenko faded from public view. Why the need to remind everyone of this deeply sordid chapter in American history? Every time the media publishes a puff piece for no apparent reason, we must assume they are attempting to preempt some negative news. But what could this negative news be? It has been quiet on the Russiagate front for quite some time now.

Well, we may now have an answer, and that answer comes in the form of new Freedom of Information (FOIA) documents that have, after many years of effort, finally been obtained from the Office of Michael Horowitz, Inspector General of the Department of Justice. The documents, which have not yet been publicly released, ostensibly pertain to Horowitz’s investigation of the FBI’s unlawful spying on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. They appear generally unremarkable, and, as always seems to be the case, most of the significant details have been redacted. 

Nevertheless, we were able to glean from the limited information available that the FBI's treacherous actions regarding Danchenko ran far deeper and wider than previously assumed, including blatantly lying to the Inspector General. While everyone within the FBI continues to feign ignorance concerning Danchenko's disavowal of the dossier, the newly released documents indicate that Danchenko's name and disavowal were far more known within the FBI than anyone has acknowledged thus far.

To understand the significance of these new revelations, we should briefly revisit the Danchenko saga.

Danchenko gained notoriety in 2020 when a group of internet researches uncovered his name. Clinton campaign operative and dossier author Christopher Steele had previously pronounced that most or all his dossier claims were based on the reporting of a supposed super source, whose name he would not reveal, not even to the FBI. Steele claimed it was matter of life-and-death. It might have been, had Danchenko been a legitimate source with genuine access to Vladimir Putin’s innermost secrets. But Danchenko was not a credible source. He didn’t even live in Russia. Instead, he had been living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., for at least a decade, working with Democratic Party mouthpieces such as the Brookings Institution. Danchenko had as much access to Putin as a random individual listed in the telephone directory. 

No wonder Steele had tried so hard to conceal Danchenko’s identity. In fact, although the dossier reached the FBI in July 2016, it took the FBI until December of that year to  finally identify Danchenko. But instead of immediately ending the fraudulent Russia collusion investigation—given that the purported source of these claims was utterly incredible—the FBI deliberately concealed Danchenko's identity by designating him as a confidential human source. This designation allowed them to withhold any information about Danchenko, including his very existence, even from congressional inquiries and freedom of information requests. Like Steele, they needed the dossier to be credible in order to get Trump.

It wasn’t until the release of the Horowitz report into the scandal surrounding the FBI’s unlawful surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page, that the public finally learned that Steele’s super source, the so-called primary sub-source, had disavowed the dossier. What was still missing though was the source’s name. That information only came to light in July 2020 through the efforts of a group of internet researchers. These revelations were astonishing. However, FBI leadership pretended to be unaware. When questioned by Horowitz, no one within the FBI was able to recall that the dossier's primary source could not have been a source for any of its claims and had, in any event, disavowed those claims.

It is not difficult to conclude that lead Trump-Russia investigator Peter Strzok and former FBI Director James Comey must have been aware of Danchenko and his astonishing admission. Similarly, the two agents who interviewed Danchenko in January 2017—Stephen Somma and Brian Auten—were also privy to the truth, as they were present during the interview. However, what no one outside the FBI knew, and what is being reported here for the first time, is that awareness of Danchenko’s confession extended beyond the FBI’s primary figures involved in the fraudulent Russiagate investigation. In other words, the conspiracy to allow the nation to be divided over an known falsehood was far more extensive than previously assumed.

This brings us back to the new FOIA documents and an individual named Jennifer Boone. In 2016, Boone served as the deputy assistant director in the FBI’s counterintelligence division. Her name has occasionally surfaced among researchers investigating Russiagate, but her role has largely evaded significant scrutiny. This may now change, as Boone was the recipient of an email dated February 22, 2017. (Figure 1)

(Figure 1)

This date falls just a few weeks after the FBI’s interview with Danchenko and is situated within a timeframe when FBI leadership, under Comey, was intensifying its Trump-Russia investigation—an inquiry they were aware was based on fraudulent information. The email's sender was “SSA 3”, a Supervisory Special Agent, whose true identity remains unknown.

Significantly, the email contained two PDF attachments. One of these attachments is included in the new FOIA documents: a four-page transcript of an FBI interview with Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos. The existence and content of this transcript have been known for some time, and although the transcript itself provides evidence that FBI leadership lied about the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, neither the transcript nor these facts are new. What is new, however, is the information we were able to extract regarding the second PDF attachment. This attachment is not included in the new FOIA documents, but thanks to the help of our friend @walkafyre, we were able to infer from the document's page numbering that it is 57 pages long. It just so happens that the FBI’s Danchenko interview notes from January 2017 are also 57 pages in length.

Is this just a coincidence? Fortunately, the email sent to Boone contains additional clues. It describes the four-page PDF transcript as being from a February 17, 2017, interview with someone whose name has been redacted. Papadopoulos’ FBI codename, Typhoon, fits the redaction. (Figure 2) Using the same technique, we were able to deduce that the name concealed behind the redaction for the missing 57-page transcript is almost certainly Igor Danchenko. (Figure 2)

(Figure 2)

In other words, it appears that not only was Danchenko’s name being circulated by FBI personnel via email, but also the full transcript of his FBI interview. In that interview, Danchenko confessed that the dossier was based on things said in jest at a bar by his childhood friends and that these stories were never intended to serve as the foundation for any intelligence report.

This stunning new revelation stands in stark contrast with what Boone told Horowitz. Boone, who was interviewed by Horowitz because of her role in the Carter Page investigation, claimed that she “did not recall being advised that the information from the Primary Sub-source significantly differed from the information in Steele's reporting” and that “she did not recall being advised that the interview created inconsistencies between Steele and his Primary Sub-source as to facts relied upon in the [Carter Page] FISA applications.”

It now appears as if Boone's statements were false. She was well aware of the truth, as she not only knew the name of Steele's supposed super source but also had access to the transcript of his interview. Special Counsel John Durham, who conducted his own investigation into the origins of the Russiagate hoax, does not appear to have questioned Boone about the critical issue of what she knew and when she knew it. During her interview with Durham, Boone feigned ignorance regarding the entire Russiagate investigation, shifting blame for the fraudulent inquiry onto FBI leadership: “Boone did not know why the 7th floor was so involved in this case nor did she know who from the 7th floor was the ultimate decision maker regarding Crossfire Hurricane.”

While it has been argued that the Russiagate conspiracy within the FBI succeeded solely due to a few bad apples who tightly controlled all information, the revelation that Boone, who was not involved in the Danchenko interview, not only knew about Danchenko’s existence but also misrepresented her knowledge to the Inspector General suggests otherwise. The sender of the email, “SSA 3,” naturally also knew the truth behind Danchenko’s admissions. “SSA 3” had told Horowitz that “he did not recall noticing any information from the Primary Sub-source's interview that was inconsistent with information in the FISA application.” This is not credible. Among many other things, “SSA 3” would have immediately noticed that, contrary to what the FBI had told the FISA court, Danchenko did not live in Russia but in a Washington, D.C. suburb.

It was not merely a few bad apples but a pervasive culture of corruption that ran deep and wide, presumably still existing today. The fact that we learned about Boone and “SSA 3” at all is attributed to the tenacity of a few individuals who pursued FOIA requests over many years, as well as those, like @walkafyre, who meticulously sifted through the largely redacted documents. How many bad apples remain hidden? How many others within the FBI were aware of the situation but chose to remain silent? We will not know until there is full transparency and accountability. In fact, because the truth has been hidden for seven and a half years, up until now, Congress has never had the opportunity to depose either Boone or “SSA 3.”