ALEXANDRIA, Va.—The FBI paid the primary source of the notorious debunked Steele dossier nearly $220,000 between March 2017 and October 2020 to be a “confidential human source” for the bureau.
And Russian business analyst Igor Danchenko was worth every penny of it, FBI special agent Kevin Helson said during the third day of testimony on Oct. 13 in Danchenko’s trial on five counts of making false statements to investigators in January 2017.
Testifying before U.S. Eastern District of Virginia Judge Anthony Trenga, Helson said during that 42-month span, information from Danchenko generated 40 intelligence reports and spurred 25 investigations, calling his network of contacts the best he had seen in his 20-year career and changing the way the agency runs its Russian counterintelligence programs….