Mueller did file more than 100 criminal charges against three Russian companies and nearly three dozen individuals, including half a dozen former Trump advisors, among them former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort.ĭurham was tasked with investigating the roots of the Trump-Russia probe during the Trump administration. "If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so," Mueller told reporters in 2019. Mueller also did not charge Trump with any wrongdoing, but his final report pointedly did not exonerate the then president. But Mueller said he did not find enough evidence to charge Trump campaign affiliates with conspiring with the Russians in that effort. The investigation by former special counsel Robert Mueller found that there was an aggressive effort by Russian agents to use social media and computer hacking to help Trump's bid to win the presidency over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. They have argued that the entire original federal probe into Trump's ties to Russia and possible obstruction of justice by Trump for seeking to undercut the inquiry was groundless and tainted by political motivations because of the Steele dossier. Trump and his allies have strongly criticized the Steele dossier, which contains unsubstantiated and refuted claims. In January, a former FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, was sentenced to probation for having falsified a claim that was used to maintain surveillance of Page. In September, Durham obtained an indictment against then-Perkins Coie law firm partner Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to the FBI when he offered a tip in 2016 about the possible secret electronic channel between Trump's company and a Russian bank. Some of Danchenko's alleged lies "deprived FBI agents and analysts of probative information" that would have helped them vet the reliability of the reports they received, the indictment says.Ĭhristopher Schafbuch, a lawyer who represented Danchenko in a 2017 civil case, would not confirm or deny that he was currently Danchenko's lawyer. The FBI "ultimately was not able to confirm or corroborate most of their substantive allegations," the indictment says.
It notes that the FBI's applications for warrants related to Page heavily relied on Steele's reports to Fusion GPS, which were based on information Danchenko had collected. The indictment charges that Danchenko's lies had a major impact on the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign.
The indictment says that Danchenko "never received such a phone call or such information" from that person and that he never arranged to meet that person in New York, as he has claimed to FBI agents. "The information purportedly conveyed by the anonymous caller included the allegation that there were communications ongoing between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and that the caller had indicated the Kremlin might be of help in getting Trump elected," Durham's office said in a press release. "I can confirm that he is PR Executive-1 in the indictment. As he is a witness in an ongoing case, it would not be appropriate for Chuck to comment further on the allegations in the indictment at this time."ĭanchenko also is accused of falsely telling agents that he received an anonymous phone call in July 2016 from a person he believed to be the then-president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce about information that later was described by Steele as a "conspiracy of cooperation" between Trump's campaign and Russian officials. "Chuck understands and appreciates your interest," Dolan's lawyer Ralph Martin told CNBC. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy at the State Department. An online biography shows he also was on the U.S. Dolan has worked on issues related to Russia.ĭolan also served as state chairman of the Virginia presidential campaigns of President Bill Clinton in 19, and is a former executive director of the Democratic Governors' Association. That public relations executive is not identified by name in the indictment, but a lawyer for him confirmed to CNBC that he is Charles Dolan Jr., who most recently has worked at KGlobal in Washington.
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