Classifieds

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—Russian business analyst Igor Danchenko may be the defendant, but the government's first witness called to testify against him often appeared to be the one on trial during the first two days of often confounding and dense deliberations delving into the dusky origins of the debunked Steele Dossier.
FBI supervisory counterintelligence analyst Brian Auten was on the stand for more than nine hours on Oct. 12 and 13 before U.S. Eastern District of Virginia Judge Anthony Trenga.
Auten, who supervised analysts in the 2016 Crossfire Hurricane investigation, was grilled by both the defense and the prosecution after being presented with emails and other documents he did not know of, or failed to pursue, while probing Danchenko's alleged role as the primary "sub-source" in funneling salacious concoctions about former President Donald Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign to former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who went on to compile 17 discredited "reports" included in the dossier....