Alan Dershowitz to Newsmax: Durham Has 'Uphill Case' to Convict Steele Dossier Source (Newsmax/"Spicer & Co.")
By Charles Kim | Wednesday, 12 October 2022 10:47 PM EDT
Legal expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax on Wednesday that Special Counsel John Durham has an "uphill case" during the trial this week to convict alleged Steele Dossier source Igor Danchenko for lying to the FBI.
"Like most Americans, if you raise your hand and swear to God that you'll tell the truth, you have to tell the truth," Dershowitz said during "Spicer & Co." Wednesday. "But when you're sitting and chatting with FBI agents who are lying to you, many Americans and many jurors don't understand why there is a legal obligation, punishable by years in prison, [not] to fib to the FBI; and the case of lying doesn't look all that strong. It's not black and white. There is a lot of gray in there.
"I think this is an uphill case; and it's in Virginia, not in Washington, D.C. Who knows? The outcome is not particularly clear in this case, and it doesn't tell us the answer to the $24,000 question."
Danchenko is on trial for lying to federal officers about his sources used by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele in compiling his "dossier" on former President Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign, CNN reported.
The dossier, which was indirectly financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign, contained salacious material meant to damage Trump and raise the now debunked specter of him colluding with Russia to win the race.
The dossier, although false and never corroborated, was used by the FBI to get a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant to wiretap members of the Trump campaign to investigate any Russian ties that could prove the collusion narrative.
During the trial Tuesday, FBI senior intelligence analyst Brian Auten testified that the agency offered Steele $1 million in cash to prove the dossier was true, and if he could corroborate the salacious details it included, the National Review reported.
Auten testified, however, that Steele could not prove any of the information the document contained as being true.
Durham was appointed by Trump's Attorney General William Barr in 2019 to investigate the origins of the collusion narrative, and the Justice Department indicted Danchenko in November 2021 as part of Durham's investigation.
Dershowitz said that Durham handled that investigation appropriately, despite the high expectations those on the right had to see the top-level Democratic players like Clinton charged.
"People on the right and the left should be satisfied if he gets to some semblance of the truth, and then you can spin that anywhere you want politically; but it's not the job of the criminal justice system to help you win political points," Dershowitz said.
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