A key witness in special counsel John Durham’s case against Igor Danchenko is unlikely to testify in the trial against the alleged main source for Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier.
Sergei Millian, an American citizen born in Belarus, has told Durham he fears for his safety if he were to return to the United States to testify in October, and he is worried the FBI would arrest him.
Durham’s indictment of Danchenko says the Steele source falsely told the FBI in 2017 that in late July 2016, he received a phone call from Millian. He claimed Millian told him about a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between Trump and Russians and further falsely claimed Millian had agreed to meet with him in New York in 2016.
The special counsel said that in reality, Danchenko never received such a call or information, fabricated the claims that ended up in the discredited Steele dossier, and was subsequently an important part of FISA applications that targeted Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
DANCHENKO WAS PAID FBI INFORMANT FOR YEARS AFTER LYING TO BUREAU
“The Government has conducted a virtual interview of Millian. Based on representations from counsel, the Government believes that Millian was located in Dubai at the time of the interview,” Durham wrote on Tuesday. “Millian informed investigators that he left the United States in March 2017 and he has not returned. Millian stated … that he left the United States due to threats on his and his family’s personal safety because of his alleged role in the Steele Reports.”
Durham said, “Millian has repeatedly informed the Government that he has concerns for his and his family’s safety (who reside abroad) should he testify” and that “Millian also informed the Government that he does not trust the FBI and fears being arrested if he returns to the United States.”
Durham’s team said despite working to ensure Millian of his safety, attempts to secure his testimony have been unsuccessful, while his lawyer has declined to accept the service of a trial subpoena.
Millian, who moved to the U.S. in the early 2000s and founded a trade group called the Russian American Chamber of Commerce in the USA, responded to the Durham filing on Twitter.
“If they bring the rogue Christopher STEELE, crazy Simpson & co, Maremont to the trial, approve my lawyer, US Marshal’s & my military friends’ protection I requested instead of FBI & bring my family to USA under a federal program, I will just do it for all of America, folks,” Millian tweeted Tuesday.
Glenn Simpson was a co-founder of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, and the dossier was created after British ex-spy Steele was hired by Fusion, which was itself hired by Perkins Coie through Marc Elias, the general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Durham said search warrants allowed him to obtain key emails showing “Millian did not call, email, or meet with the defendant, and the defendant knew he had not received a call from someone who he believed to be Millian” in the summer of 2016. The special counsel said a 2020 email exchange also helped show Danchenko “did not receive a call from Millian in late July 2016.” Durham is seeking to enter those emails as evidence.
The special counsel also wants to use as evidence September 2017 statements made by Steele to the FBI in which the former MI6 agent “informed the FBI that his primary subsource for the Steele Reports (the defendant) had met with Sergei Millian on two or three occasions — at least once in New York and once in Charleston, South Carolina.”
Durham said Danchenko “subsequently informed the FBI that he had not in fact met with Millian” and that, in November 2017, the defendant “further stated to the FBI that Steele incorrectly believed the defendant had met in-person with Millian, and that he (the defendant) did not correct Steele in that misimpression.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Durham also revealed Tuesday that the FBI had signed Danchenko up as a paid confidential human source from March 2017 to October 2020, despite Danchenko allegedly lying to the bureau about the dossier.
“Every single FBI agent who made Russian citizen Danchenko an FBI informant needs to be looked into immediately,” Millian tweeted in response.
