(Daily Caller News Foundation) — Russian Steele dossier source Igor Danchenko tried to “falsely attribute” sourcing for rumored encounters between former President Donald Trump and prostitutes in Moscow, Special Counsel John Durham argued in a recent court motion.
Danchenko was charged in November with making false statements to the FBI in 2017 about reports former British spy Christopher Steele’s company gave the FBI. The Steele dossier served as a primary source for now-debunked claims that the Trump campaign and Russia conspired in 2016 election interference.
Trump was accused of paying prostitutes to urinate on a Moscow Ritz-Carlton hotel bed previously used by former President Barack Obama, according to the dossier. Danchenko tried to falsely credit German citizen Bemd Kuhlen and possibly Belarusian-American businessman Sergei Millian as the allegations’ sources, according to Durham’s motion to include and exclude certain evidence from Danchenko’s trial.
Danchenko claimed he received information from someone he believed to be Millian in a brief July 2016 phone call, despite the Steele report featuring the Ritz-Carlton allegations being released one month prior, Durham wrote. Kuhlen did not remember ever meeting or speaking with Danchenko, the special counsel said.
Danchenko told the FBI that American businessman Charles Dolan was not a source for the Steele reports, but Durham argued trial evidence would demonstrate that hotel staff showed Dolan and his acquaintance Steven Kupka the room where Trump’s alleged sexual activities supposedly occurred.
“Had the FBI known that Dolan was a fact witness in this respect, it is more likely that they would have interviewed Dolan about the Ritz-Carlton allegations, given his proximity to the defendant and the hotel staff at the time the information was allegedly collected,” Durham contended. He said the government anticipates that Dolan will testify to having taken a tour of the hotel room in June 2016 that did not include discussion about Trump.
Durham also revealed that Danchenko was a paid FBI informant when he allegedly lied to the Bureau.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
