The verdict is in, in the case brought by Special Counsel John Durham against Igor Danchenko, the primary sub-source for the Steele dossier, for making a false statement to the FBI.

The dossier was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC through the Perkins Coie law firm.

After the verdict handed down in the Michael Sussmann case had him being acquitted, the verdict here is perhaps not surprising. We have two tiers of justice now.

Danchenko faced four false statement charges, but was acquitted after two days of deliberations.

According to Durham’s November 2021 indictment, Danchenko anonymously sourced a fabricated claim about Trump 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort to Charles Dolan, a Clinton ally who spent years, including 2016, doing work for Russian businesses and the Russian government, but in a blow to Durham’s case, the judge threw out that charge before the jury could decide on it. Durham’s indictment also alleged Danchenko lied to the FBI about a phone call he claims he received from someone he believed was Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born U.S. citizen and businessman the Steele source had said told him about a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between then-candidate Donald Trump and the Russians, which the special counsel said is false.

Durham released a statement by email.

While we are disappointed in the outcome, we respect the jury’s decision and thank them for their service,” the statement said. “I also want to recognize and thank the investigators and the prosecution team for their dedicated efforts in seeking truth and justice in this case.

While he may not have gotten a conviction, Durham did put the FBI and its actions on trial during the case.

The case revealed that Danchenko was on the FBI’s payroll before they charged him with lying. FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten also testified that the FBI had offered Christopher Steele an incentive of up to $1 million if he could verify the dossier, but he was unable to do so.

Despite the fact that the dossier could not be verified, they still went on to use Danchenko. Auten also revealed they didn’t have any corroboration for the dossier but still used it to help get FISA warrants against Carter Page.

Helson made an October 2020 request to pay Danchenko a lump sum of $346,000, and his testimony revealed that would have brought the total amount the Russian lawyer had been paid by the bureau over a few years up to a total of $546,000. The lump-sum payment request was denied.

A member of the FBI’s Human Intelligence Validation Unit also suggested that Danchenko may have been part of Russian intelligence services, according to court testimony, and Durham highlighted how Helson apparently did not do his due diligence in looking into the Russian analyst’s background before signing him up as a confidential human source.

Durham did get a guilty plea from FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, for falsifying a document to help get a FISA warrant against Page.