Igor Danchenko wasn’t happy to hear that John Durham will get to put him on trial after all. The special prosecutor will still have an entirely uphill battle when he goes to court. Pundits, mostly the liberal ones, are making a big deal out of how close the decision was to let this one go in front of a jury. The Defense sees that as a really good sign but they haven’t won yet.
Durham drags Danchenko to trial
On Thursday, September 29, a federal judge disappointed Igor Danchenko’s defense team by refusing to throw the case carefully crafted by John Durham in the trash. They aren’t too upset, because their fees go up considerably once trial starts.
Whether they get their client off or not, Defense attorneys always win big. Igor was the one and only source of information for Christopher Steele. He admitted long ago that most of what he said to Steele was made up on the spot.
Durham has him on trial because he lied to the FBI “about the information he used to support his claims.” That’s no big deal, his lawyers argue, everybody does it. Look at Michael Sussmann. He admitted he lied to the FBI and still got away with it.
NEW: Judge Anthony Trenga, who will preside over the Oct. trial of Danchenko, ruled he will not dismiss the Durham indictment, but expressed skepticism about the false statements charges, especially the Russian’s alleged lie about Clinton ally Chuck Dolan.https://t.co/POhj9HGlIw
— Scary Dunleavy 🎃👻 (@JerryDunleavy) September 29, 2022
District Judge Anthony J. Trenga came within a hair’s breadth of agreeing with them but didn’t. To the special prosecutor, that is all that matters. He gets his day in court.
The decision to let Danchenko’s case go to trial was “an extremely close call,” Trenga declared from his bench. Durham is investigating the FBI investigators who persecuted Donald Trump with manufactured claims of Russian collusion.
Christopher Steele’s dirty dossier is at the very core of the scandal and Igor Danchenko is the core of the dossier.
An attempt to dismiss charges of lying to the #FBI against #IgorDanchenko failed, meaning he will likely go on trial in October.
The trial is due to start on Oct. 11. Danchenko faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. https://t.co/pruBhB8DL5
— The Epoch Times (@EpochTimes) September 30, 2022
An ‘ominous’ sign
Superstitious liberals are taking the judge’s observation about how close the decision was as an “omen” that Durham will be defeated. It’s an “ominous sign,” Washington Post writes.
The prosecutor, they smirk, “still must convince jurors Danchenko is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Everyone thought the Sussmann case was open and shut but it wasn’t.
John Durham and his team “suffered a setback in May when another person charged with lying to the FBI, cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann, was acquitted by a jury in D.C. federal court.” The fireworks start October 11 from a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia.
Carter Page on FBI corruption and partisanship: 'I'm hoping for some truth' https://t.co/uLsisEzddz @SundayFutures @FoxNews
— Maria Bartiromo (@MariaBartiromo) October 2, 2022
The jury will get a good peek at all the statements Danchenko made when he enthralled FBI agents with his tales of Trump horror. Igor babbled for hours about “a longtime Washington public relations executive aligned with Democrats, Charles Dolan Jr., and a former president of the Russian American Chamber of Commerce, Sergei Millian.”
John Durham wasn’t taking any chances on this oral argument. He went into court and personally defended his case to the judge. Obviously, his passion was what convinced Judge Trenga to give him the benefit of the doubt and set the matter for trial.
The whole issue boils down to “whether those statements from Danchenko to the FBI were willful deceptions that had a material effect on the government’s efforts to verify the claims in the dossier.” Stay tuned for updates when the trial begins.
