Main Source Behind the Steele Dossier Was Outed

Former British spy Christopher Steele was responsible for the dossier used to push the narrative that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. After a two-year-long investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that no collusion took place.

What many people wanted to know: where did this collusion narrative come from?

It turns out that 42-year-old Igor Danchenko, a Russian-born analyst living in America, was Steele's primary source, the Daily Caller reported. Although Danchenko's identity was redacted in a newly-released FBI memo, a Twitter user pieced together key pieces of information that revealed who the source was. The New York Times later confirmed Danchenko's identity.

Danchenko's attorney, Mark E. Schamel, confirmed the suspicion: his client was one of the main sources behind the Steele dossier.

From the NYT:

A lawyer for Mr. Danchenko, Mark E. Schamel, said that because his client’s name had already been exposed, he would not ask The New York Times to withhold it. He acknowledged that “Igor Danchenko has been identified as one of the sources who provided data and analysis” to Christopher Steele, the British former spy who compiled the dossier and whose last name has become shorthand for it.
Mr. Danchenko’s identity is noteworthy because it further calls into question the credibility of the dossier. By turning to Mr. Danchenko as his primary source to gather possible dirt on Mr. Trump involving Russia, Mr. Steele was relying not on someone with a history of working with Russian intelligence operatives or bringing to light their covert activities but instead a researcher focused on analyzing business and political risks in Russia.
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According to his interview with the F.B.I., Mr. Steele contacted Mr. Danchenko around March 2016 and assigned him to ask people he knew in Russia and Ukraine about connections, including any ties to corruption, between a pro-Russian government in Ukraine and the veteran Republican strategist Paul Manafort. Mr. Steele did not explain why, but Mr. Manafort joined the Trump campaign around that time and was later promoted to its chairman. He was convicted in 2018 of tax and bank fraud and other charges that grew out of the Russia investigation.
Mr. Steele later expanded Mr. Danchenko’s assignment to look for any compromising information about Mr. Trump.
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“Mr. Danchenko is a highly respected senior research analyst; he is neither an author nor editor for any of the final reports produced by Orbis,” Mr. Schamel said. “Mr. Danchenko stands by his data analysis and research and will leave it to others to evaluate and interpret any broader story with regard to Orbis’s final report.”