Durham indictment casts doubt on Trump Pee-Tape allegation

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Special Advocate John Durham has filed a new indictment in his investigation into the FBI’s investigation into Russia. This raises more doubts about an unverified allegation involving a Trump pee tape rumor. Durham indicted the original source of the rumor and hinted that others have not corroborated his findings. Loading Something is loading.

Special Counsel John Durham, who is investigating the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation, filed a new indictment on Thursday that raises questions about the roots of the most salacious allegation in the so-called Steele folder.

The dossier consists of a series of explosive and unverified memos alleging collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government. It was democratically funded and first aired publicly in January 2017. According to the file, Russian intelligence agents captured visual evidence of Donald Trump watching Russian prostitutes perform sexual acts involving urination while staying at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Moscow during a visit in 2013.

The so-called “pee tape” has become a white whale for followers of the various investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia. The file indicated that the Russian government had kept the recording in a “kompromat” file detailing Trump’s “unorthodox behavior” in Russia over the years, and that the Russians had “enough embarrassing material on Trump” to be able to. “Blackmail him if they did.” wish.”

Numerous investigations, including a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation and the Mueller inquiry, have found no evidence of such a recording.

The Durham inquiry, first launched in 2019 under then Attorney General William Barr, traced the origins of the allegation. Part of this is detailed in Thursday’s indictment against Igor Danchenko, a Russian national and one of former British spy Christopher Steele’s main sources for the case.

The file cites 3 sources related to the pee tape rumor

The file cited an anonymous “Source D” saying that Trump had rented the hotel’s presidential suite to engage in salacious activities with prostitutes, and that the hotel was known to be under surveillance by the FSB, the main internal security of Russia.

The file indicated that “Source E”, described as a “senior (western) member of the hotel staff”, confirmed the episode and said “that she and several members of staff were aware of it at the time. ‘epoch and thereafter “. Source F, described as “a hotel employee when TRUMP stayed there,” also confirmed the story, according to the filing.

Former President Donald Trump. Win McNamee / Getty Images

Last year it emerged that Igor Danchenko, a Russian national currently residing in the United States, was the main source of the pee tape allegation.

He told the New York Times in an October 2020 interview that two sources told him about rumors about a possible Trump sex tape and that two Ritz-Carlton employees subsequently provided him with more nebulous information which, according to him, corroborated the rumors.

New indictment casts doubt on Danchenko’s reliability

On Thursday, a grand jury indicted Danchenko in connection with the Durham inquiry and charged him with five counts of making false statements to the FBI.

It also raised questions about the veracity of Danchenko’s claims about a Trump pee tape. The indictment cites two sources, PR Executive-1 and Organizer-1, who were aware of Trump’s visit to the Moscow hotel and who themselves visited the location in June 2016.

While at the hotel, the indictment says, the two walked around the presidential suite and met with the director general and other staff, as well as Danchenko. A staff member told tour participants that Trump remained in the presidential suite, according to the indictment.

However, “according to Organizer-1 and PR Executive-1, the staff member did not mention any sexual or salacious activity,” he added.

The indictment alleges that Danchenko lied about his communications with these sources during interviews with the FBI, which made it difficult for the FBI to independently examine these allegations. He also says that Danchenko lied about other details, such as the dates of his hotel visits.

Former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele arrives at the High Court in London on July 24, 2020 to attend his libel suit brought by Russian tech entrepreneur Alexej Gubarev. TOLGA AKMEN / AFP via Getty Images

Durham’s charges against Danchenko follow another accusation of lying to the FBI filed against Michael Sussman, a prominent cybersecurity lawyer with ties to the Democratic National Committee.

Sussman denied wrongdoing and argued that the convoluted nature of the indictment makes it too difficult to defend against the charges.

Danchenko appeared to go back on the history of the pee gang in interviews with the FBI, according to the indictment.

“DANCHENKO further claimed that he characterized Trump’s alleged activity towards UK Person-1 as ‘rumor and speculation’, and that DANCHENKO had not been able to confirm the veracity of the story,” says the indictment. UK Person-1 appears to be Steele.

Danchenko also previously admitted to The Times that the pee tape allegation was thin at best and even he was skeptical of its veracity. But he added that his job was simply to collect “raw intelligence” and that he was not responsible for how Steele, who was his employer at the time, had described him.

Trump dismissed the memos as a “garbage heap,” and he and his Republican allies accused the FBI of fabricating the information to oust Trump from office. In October, Trump uninvitedly told donors, “I’m not in the golden showers.”

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