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Former UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele in London on July 24, 2020.
(Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)
Crossfire Hurricane


FBI OFFERED CHRISTOPHER STEELE $1 MILLION TO PROVE DOSSIER ALLEGATIONS AGAINST
TRUMP: FBI ANALYST

By Katabella Roberts
Katabella Roberts

Katabella Roberts is a news writer for The Epoch Times, focusing primarily on
the United States, world, and business news.
View profile
Follow
October 12, 2022 Updated: October 12, 2022
biggersmaller
Print
0:005:18

1



The FBI offered former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele $1 million
as an incentive if he could prove the allegations made in his infamous dossier
against former President Donald Trump, a senior FBI analyst revealed on Oct. 11.

FBI supervisory counterintelligence analyst Brian Auten revealed the offer while
testifying at the criminal trial of Igor Danchenko, a key source who
supplied information for the anti-Trump dossier, which was commissioned by
Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The trial is part of special counsel John Durham’s criminal probe reviewing the
origins of the 2016–2017 FBI investigation of the now disproved Trump–Russia
collusion narrative.

Danchenko, a Russian national, is facing five counts of making false statements
to the FBI during interviews with agents and faces up to 25 years behind bars if
convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.

According to Auten, the $1 million offer was made when he and Steele met with a
group of top FBI agents overseas in October 2016. At the time of the meeting,
the agents were trying to corroborate claims Steele had made that Trump’s
campaign was colluding with Russia in order to win the election.

“Yes, it did,” Auten told Durham when asked if the FBI offered Steele any
incentive to provide evidence to back up his claims.

Special counsel John Durham arrives at federal court in Washington on May 18,
2022. (Teng Chen/The Epoch Times)


FBI OFFERED ‘ANYWHERE UP TO A MILLION DOLLARS’

“Mr. Steele was offered anywhere up to a million dollars for any information …
which could help prove the allegations,” Auten added.

However, Auten said that the FBI ultimately never paid the money to Steele
because he was unable to substantiate the claims made in his dossier. He also
noted that Danchenko did not identify the dossier’s sources.

“The sourcing is important because the reports have significant allegations,
individuals who are mentioned in the reports, and the key to be able to track
back exactly whether or not the information is accurate, true, whether or not
the individuals who are mentioned in the reports have the accesses to actually
have the information, whether it is in the reports, etc.,” Auten said.

The FBI analyst also testified that other U.S. intelligence agencies looked into
the claims made in the Steele dossier but were also unable to confirm the
specific claims that were made.

Despite the FBI’s failure to corroborate any evidence, Auten confirmed the
agency used that information in its initial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA) warrant to surveil informal Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

A federal judge in September dismissed a $75 million lawsuit bought by Page
against the FBI, the Justice Department, and multiple former FBI officials over
its controversial surveillance of him as part of its probe into the Trump
campaign.

In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich acknowledged that the “FBI’s
conduct in preparing the FISA warrant applications to electronically surveil
Page was deeply troubling” and that the government itself has “conceded that it
lacked probable cause for two of the warrants.”

Former Trump campaign associate Carter Page participates in a discussion in
Washington in a May 2019 file photograph. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)


CARTER PAGE LAWSUIT THROWN OUT

However, the judge ultimately ruled that the lawsuit be thrown out because Page
had “brought no actionable claim against any individual defendant or against the
United States.”

The research in the Steele dossier was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign
and the Democratic National Committee and commissioned by Washington-based
private intelligence firm Fusion GPS.

The dossier has been widely discredited and many of the unsubstantiated
accusations made within it have been branded inaccurate or outright false by a
number of investigators, including the Department of Justice’s Office of the
Inspector General.

Auten said during his testimony on Tuesday that information from the
discredited Steele dossier was also used in three subsequent FISA application
renewals.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Auten also testified that FBI agents had weighed
up submitting FISA applications against Trump former campaign aide George
Papadopoulos but that the agency ultimately decided against doing so.

Papadopoulos was pardoned by Trump in December 2020 after he pleaded guilty as
part of the probe into Russian meddling in the election.

Danchenko’s trial is expected to be the last one in Durham’s investigation into
the origins of the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. The first trial, for
Democrat lawyer Michael Sussmann who was accused of lying to the FBI, resulted
in his acquittal in May.

The Epoch Times has contacted the FBI for comment.

John Haughey contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the date of the meeting
involving FBI personnel and Steele. It was in October 2016. The Epoch Times
regrets the error.

Katabella Roberts

Follow
Katabella Roberts is a news writer for The Epoch Times, focusing primarily on
the United States, world, and business news.




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