Durham also asked Auten about Sergei Millian, whose name had been discussed in the October 2016 Steele interview. Auten stated that Millian had previously been a confidential human source (CHS) for the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office. Millian then moved out of the Atlanta area and his service as a CHS was closed.
Q: And what was that relationship?
A: Mr. Millian, at one time, had been a source.
Q: When you say "source," that's the same thing as confidential human source, correct?
A: That is correct.
Q: In common parlance, might be known as an informant?
A: In common parlance, yes.
Q: And do you remember for how long Mr. Millian had been a confidential human source for the FBI?
A: I don't recall that.
Q: Do you recall or do you know in German what the nature of the assistance was that Millian provided?
A: I know where he had provided the assistance. I don't know exactly what type of assistance it had been.
Q: Okay. So you know that he has helped as a CHS?
A: Correct.
Q: For a period of time?
A: Correct.
Q: And you said you knew where he was providing that information?
A: Correct.
Q: And where was that?
A: I believe it was the Atlanta -- the Atlanta field office.
Q: Okay. Do you know, again, personal knowledge, do you know whether or not at some point in time Millian's status as a CHS ended, he was closed?
A: Yes.
Q: And why was it closed, if you know?
A: I believe it was closed because he moved out of the area of responsibility for the Atlanta field office.
Q: Now, with respect to Mr. Millian, you heard about Millian from Steele, you knew he had a relationship with the bureau, correct?
A: Correct.
As an aside, let’s briefly discuss the importance of Millian’s prior relationship with the FBI. Most significantly, it put the FBI on notice that Millian would be willing to corroborate any Steele/Danchenko allegations. The FBI never took advantage of that prior relationship. Again, here we have the FBI failing to follow-up on leads because it knew such steps would blow-up its investigation.
As an aside, let’s briefly discuss the importance of Millian’s prior relationship with the FBI. Most significantly, it put the FBI on notice that Millian would be willing to corroborate any Steele/Danchenko allegations. The FBI never took advantage of that prior relationship. Again, here we have the FBI failing to follow-up on leads because it knew such steps would blow-up its investigation.
Back to the transcript. Auten said the FBI opened an investigation on Millian after the October 2016 interview of Christopher Steele. He admitted the FBI found no evidence Millian had “assisted in the interference” of the 2016 presidential election.
Q: Would you tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury whether or not -- again, to your personal knowledge – whether or not the bureau opened some file on Mr. Millian?
A: Yes.
Q: And was that a matter investigated by the Bureau?
A: Yes.
Q: And to your personal knowledge, was it at some point closed?
A: Yes.
Q: Were any charges brought against Millian?
A: No.
Q: Was there any wrongdoing in terms of him assisting in the interference in some way with the 2016 presidential election?
A: No.
However, the Millian allegations – which arose from Danchenko’s claims to Steele – were still included in original FISA application and all subsequent renewals:
From there, Durham spent a good deal of time asking about the specific allegations in the FISA applications. The purpose of this line of questioning is materiality of Danchenko’s lies: to lay the foundation the FISA applications relied on uncorroborated information from the Steele Dossier, and to later argue the FBI had the duty to correct
this false information.
In fact, by the fourth FISA application (the Mueller application), the FBI was still trying to corroborate the allegations. And it still couldn’t.
Q: Between October 21 of 2016 and when the FBI submitted its fourth FISA applications on a United States citizen, did the FBI continue to try to corroborate information?
A: Yes, it did.
Q: It was never able to -- it didn't corroborate. That information came from that dossier report, correct?
A: Correct.
In fact, Auten and others from the FBI made additional trips overseas to try to talk to Steele and others to try to get corroborative information. Auten said he was not able to get such corroborative information through these efforts.
Auten also testified that he identified Igor Danchenko as Steele’s primary subsource in December 2016. He made the connection “Through a number of searches through databases, a number of making connections of existing material that we had.” Some of this relates to the prior counterintelligence investigation of Danchenko - something Durham can’t get into, yet.
What followed was Danchenko’s January 24-26 interviews in 2017. From the FBI side, Deputy Assistant Director Jennifer Boone was involved in helping set up the interview. So was Jonathan Moffa, Stephen Somma, and Auten. (Author note: also involved was the DOJ National Security Division’s David Laufman.)
Auten described the purpose of the Danchenko interviews, which were handled by himself and Stephen Somma:
“We were there to go through to determine, you know, who the sub-sources were in
these reports and what he could tell us about the reports in general.”
After walking Auten through the immunity agreement provided to Danchenko, Durham admitted a LinkedIn message from Danchenko to an associate, where he took credit for much of the allegations in the Steele dossier:
“Yes, I collected some 80 percent of raw Intel and half the analysis for the Chris Steele dossier and went through debriefings with the FBI on the collusion matters, period.”
Then there was a discussion about the FBI’s plans to bring Danchenko into the fold as a confidential human source. According to Auten, this was the FBI’s plan prior to the January 2017 interviews.
Q: Even prior to actually approaching Mr. Danchenko in January of 2017, that was the FBI's plan, wasn't it, to see if they could get him -- bring him on as CHS?
A: Yes, that was part of the thinking.
Q: And you wanted to bring him on -- the bureau wanted to bring him on for what purpose?
A: To get as much information as we could to corroborate or understand the sourcing of this material.
Here’s how the process worked.
Q: Okay. And tell the jurors what happened with respect to the handling of Mr. Danchenko as a confidential human source for the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
A: Mr. Danchenko was subsequently a confidential human source out of the Washington Field Office. Mr. Somma had gone back to New York.
Q: Tell the -- he left -- Somma left Washington, went back to New York, somebody else took over?
A: Correct.
Q: And that person who took over, do you recall who that person was?
A: That was Special Agent Kevin Helson.
Q: Okay. So Kevin Helson was assigned to the Washington field office, correct?
A: Yes.
Q: And did he have a particular expertise or area in which he worked?
A: Yes.
Q: And what was that?
A: Russian counterintelligence.
Q: Okay. So Helson comes on. He's going to be the handler. When he did take over -- he, Mr. Helson, did take over, was the Crossfire Hurricane personnel -- were they cut out of this or what was the relationship between Crossfire Hurricane, you, Somma and company, and then Special Agent Helson?
A: No, there was back-and-forth between Mr. Helson and Mr. Helson's embedded analyst as well as the analyst on my team.
Q: And, indeed, when this -- this arrangement was initially set up, do you recall, sir, whether or not Helson was to pose questions for Mr. Danchenko on behalf of the Crossfire Hurricane people?
A: In some cases, yes.
The use of Danchenko as a CHS – with Agent Helson being the go-between by the Crossfire Hurricane team – overlapped into the Mueller investigation. (At that time, FBI Special Agent Amy Anderson was assisting with corroborating the Dossier information.) What a convenient arrangement. The Mueller Special Counsel could make use of Danchenko while he was protected on other matters.
Before the first day wrapped-up, Auten discussed the January 2017 interviews with Danchenko and Danchenko’s claim he spoke with Millian over the phone. Auten was curious about that phone call and about the information relayed in that phone call, calling it a “very strange part of the interview.” Specifically, Auten wondered how the information that came from the Steele dossier “had come out of the very short phone call like this.”
From there, the first day of trial saw a close. We’ll be providing daily updates with transcript excerpts. Thank you for the support – transcripts aren’t cheap.
Techno.