An official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has given a bombshell testimony in court, stating under oath that the agency, under then-Director James Comey, offered a foreign national $1 million to find evidence to support salacious claims against President Donald Trump.
Senior FBI analyst Brian Auten testified in court that Comey’s FBI offered retired British spy Christopher Steele “up to $1 million” to prove the allegations in his anti-Trump “dossier.”
Auten was testifying at the criminal trial of Igor Danchenko.
Russian national Danchenko was a primary source for Steele’s dossier and is being prosecuted by special counsel John Durham.
Danchenko has pleaded not guilty to five counts of lying to the FBI about his sourcing for information that ended up in the dossier.
His trial kicked off Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.
Durham is looking for misconduct in the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation and handled most of the in-court arguments on Tuesday.
He personally questioned Auten on the witness stand – a rare move for a special counsel and former US attorney.
According to Auten, the FBI took the drastic measures to prove the so-called “Steele Dossier” in the run-up to the 2016 election.
However, Steele did not collect the reward because he could not verify the contents of the salacious dossier.
Despite the lack of evidence for any of the dossier’s allegations, the Democrats and their allies in the corporate media used it to smear Trump and attempt to cast doubt upon his presidency.
Auten testified yesterday to the sordid plot and said Steele never got the money because he could not “prove the allegations.”
“Mr. Steele was offered anywhere up to a million dollars for information which could help prove the allegations,” Auten said.
Auten also testified that Steele refused to give the FBI the identity of his so-called sources during their October 2016 meeting.
But it gets worse for Comey.
Auten was asked by Durham whether the FBI had any corroborating evidence for the Steele Dossier on the date the agency applied for a FISA warrant to spy on Trump adviser Carter Page.
“No,” Auten said, under oath.
BREAKING:
FBI offered disgraced MI6 agent Christopher Steele a MILLION dollars for evidence against President Trump.
Evidence that didn’t exist.
FULL Story from @JustTheNews:https://t.co/ZGFXbt4CoA pic.twitter.com/5zMdzMHrWf
— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) October 12, 2022
We have the transcripts for the 1st day of the Igor Danchenko trial.
The FBI’s million dollar offer to Christopher Steele.
Sergei Millian being a prior FBI Source.
And – how it was a bad day for FBI leadership.https://t.co/baueCMAOwp
— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) October 12, 2022
Steele-FBI meeting was on October 3 2016. FBI’s first surveillance warrant on Carter Page was then filed on Oct. 21.
This means that after the FBI offered Steele $1 million to prove his dossier — which he couldn’t — FBI filed a surveillance warrant based on the dossier anyway. https://t.co/OHaWgyzQKv
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) October 11, 2022
In opening statements, prosecutors said Danchenko “fabricated a source” and “concealed a source” in his interviews with the FBI in January 2017.
During that interview, investigators were furiously trying to “corroborate or refute” the details of the Trump-Russia dossier.
Prosecutor Michael Keilty said Danchenko’s alleged lies “corrupted” the functions of the FBI.