October 13, 2022
Who authorized the $1-million FBI payment offer to Christopher Steele, revealed in court testimony?
By Thomas Lifson
The testimony of FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten in the trial of Igor Danchenko is shocking. CNN reports:
Shortly before the 2016 election, the FBI offered retired British spy Christopher Steele "up to $1 million" to prove the explosive allegations in his dossier about Donald Trump, a senior FBI analyst testified Tuesday.
The cash offer was made during an overseas October 2016 meeting between Steele and several top FBI officials who were trying to corroborate Steele's claims that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to win the election.
FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified that Steele never got the money because he could not "prove the allegations."
Auten also said Steele refused to provide the names of any of his sources during that meeting, and that Steele didn't give the FBI anything during that meeting that corroborated the claims in his explosive dossier.
Auten was testifying at the criminal trial of Igor Danchenko, a primary source for Steele's dossier, who is being prosecuted by special counsel John Durham. Danchenko has pleaded not guilty to five counts of lying to the FBI about his sourcing for some information that ended up in the dossier. His trial kicked off Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.
Auten was questioned mostly by Special Counsel John Durham. But nowhere have I seen reference to a question about the authorization for such an offer. Who were the "several top FBI officials"? Did any of them have the authority to offer a million dollars in cash to a source?
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https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/10/who_authorized_the_1_million_fbi_payment_offer_to_christopher_steele_revealed_in_court_testimony.html
