All of the sub-sources who allegedly provided information to the primary source for Christopher Steele's Trump-Russia dossier are now denying they provided any of the information contained in the dossier.
The alleged sub-sources made their denials in affidavits filed in a Washington, D.C. court on June 21.
The primary source, Igor Danchenko, had previously told the FBI that he obtained the information that was published in the dossier by “word of mouth and hearsay” from a network of Russia-based sub-sources.
The affidavits in which the alleged sub-sources deny any involvement in the dossier were filed as a part of a defamation lawsuit by the owners of Russia’s Alfa Bank against Fusion GPS, the company that hired Steele with funds from the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Court documents show that all of Danchenko’s “claimed sub-sources” have denied under penalty of perjury that they provided Danchenko with any information “related to the contents of the dossier.”
“These declarations call into question the veracity and reliability of not only Mr. Danchenko, but of the Defendants’ entire dossier,” the lawsuit states.
Democrats, the FBI, and the corporate media used the dossier as the major impetus in trying to remove President Donald Trump from office.
Steele, a former British intelligence operative, has stated in testimony before a British court that Danchenko’s sub-sources were “Russians with ‘personal knowledge of and/or direct access to the relevant information,’ and that they included ‘top-level’ Russian government officials ‘[a]t the peak of the vertical of power.’”
Steele has also claimed, according to a book authored by Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson, that Danchenko was “a remarkable person with a remarkable story who deserves a medal for his service to the West.”
The court documents reference additional statements by Simpson who “claimed that the sources for the dossier were “deep and well placed” and that the allegations in the dossier came from “people with extraordinary access in Russia.”
And Simpson’s partner, Peter Fritsch, testified in a related Florida case that the information in the dossier came from a source network that “was extremely well placed and had been reliable in the past.”
Alfa Bank's defamation lawsuit against Fusion GPS notes that Danchenko’s sub-sources have “never held any kind of ‘official’ government position at all, and none could remotely be characterized as a ‘top-level’ Russian official.”
Danchenko's alleged sub-sources included:
Ivan Vorontsov: Danchenko’s claimed source for the infamous pee tape story, Vorontsov denies in a deposition having ever told Danchenko anything in relation to the dossier, claiming, “I was not a ‘source’ for the Dossier. I never provided Mr. Danchenko (or anyone else) with any information associated with the contents of the Dossier.”
Vorontsov also alleged that Danchenko “expressed guilt for dragging me into this whole controversy concerning the dossier.” Vorontsov said the dossier was “fabricated to fit whatever the client who requested the information wanted to receive.”
Lyudmila Podobedova: She has also in a court deposition denied providing any information used in the dossier, saying that “once Mr. Danchenko realized that the Dossier was coming under scrutiny, he decided to point at me to make it look as if I were involved in the Dossier and thus add credibility to his work.”
Olga Galkina: An employee for Russian-owned IT company Webzilla, Galkina was the alleged source for the dossier story that Webzilla had hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s servers. As with the other sources, Galkina is now on record as denying that she gave Danchenko any such information, stating that Danchenko named her to “create more authoritativeness for his work.”
Alexey Dundich: The Russian academic also denies having provided Danchenko with any information used in Steele’s dossier. Dundich’s affidavit claims that “Danchenko framed [Dundich] as Sub-Source 4” in order to “add credibility to his low-quality work, which is not based on real information.”
The FBI failed to verify the information from Danchenko’s alleged sub-sources as the bureau pursued a FISA application and three subsequent renewals on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, according to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report.
In March 2020, Horowitz criticized the work of the FBI, noting that he did not “have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods Procedures in compliance with FBI policy.” Woods Procedures refer to supporting factual documentation underlying any application for a FISA warrant.
Additionally, Horowitz’s report identified “at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Page FISA applications, and many additional errors in the Woods Procedures.”
INFORMATION WORLD WAR: How We Win . . . . Executive Intelligence Brief
