There's an aspect of the Russia collusion story I've stayed away from since 2017, since it is very speculative and no one has seen even a redacted version of the document upon which it is based. I'm going to write about it now because the Russia saga has gotten even more convoluted and strange than I ever thought it would. Even with that, the information and what it means needs to be treated carefully, both in terms of credibility and what it means, whether true or not. More than anything this is a note to myself when going back through all of the Russia collusion posts and is specifically prompted by the article in today's Wall St Journal by Holman Jenkins Jr. Below is the story according to Holman, which is consistent with what I've read elsewhere [because it is behind a paywall I won't bother providing the link], with the exception of one new piece of information.
In March 2016 Dutch intelligence provided a document intercepted from Russian sources to the FBI.
It cited an alleged email exchange between Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then head of the Democratic National Committee, and a George Soros-employed activist named Leonard Benardo.(1)
The email, in turn, cited an alleged conversation between Hillary Clinton campaign aide Amanda Renteria and then-US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in which Ms Lynch promised to corral the email investigation and clear Mrs Clinton's path to the nomination.(2)
According to Holman, the document also predicted "that Comey, as a Republican, would drag out the investigation to damage Mrs Clinton".
The FBI viewed the document as false, planted by the Russians, and did not even inform DOJ of its existence. However, Comey, worried the document might leak, eventually moved to announce that he, not DOJ, would make the determination on the legality of Clinton's conduct, a highly unusual approach (as to the timing of this move, see footnote 2).
Holman also mentions something of which I was previously unaware:
Russian journalist Ivan Vorontsov, in a related lawsuit in the U.S., testified this year that the FBI had sought him out and questioned him in June 2016 about his ties to Mr Danchenko, six months before the FBI linked Mr Danchenko to the Steele dossier. [Emphasis added by me, and this is also two months before the FBI even knew of the existence of the Steele document.]
Holman then asks if the FBI's interest in Danchenko was prompted by a suspicion he may have been involved in the document intercepted by the Dutch.
Startled by this new information, I tracked down Vorontsov's statement. It's in the form of a Declaration by Vorontsov, made in May 2021, as part of a defamation action against Glenn Simpson and FusionGPS (Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, and German Khan v Bean LLC a/k/a Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson filed in Federal Court in the District of Columbia). Danchenko told the FBI that Vorontsov was one of his sources for the Steele Dossier, a claim denied by the journalist in his Declaration. As to the timing of his interview with the FBI, he states:
In June 2016, I attended a reception at Spaso House, the U.S. ambassador's residence in Moscow where, to my surprise, I was suddenly whisked away and invited to have a discussion with representatives of the FBI about Mr Danchenko.
Vorontsov's statement does not elaborate on the specifics of the discussion.
Holman says, and I agree, that it is time for this document to be publicly released, just as the Steele dossier was. As he points out:
The information is not withheld from the American people to protect national security but to spare the FBI, the national intelligence establishment and former members of the Obama administration embarrassment or worse.
I lean towards agreeing with Comey that the document intercepted by the Dutch was disinformation and would like to know more about its possible origin and purposes. And I would very much like to know if the assertion in Vorontsov's declaration that the FBI interviewed him in June 2016 about Danchenko is correct because, if it is, many new questions would need answering.
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(1) Bernardo is currently executive VP for programs for the Open Society Foundations (founded by Soros). He began his work with the organization at the Soros Foundation Moscow.
(2) The Phoenix airport encounter between AG Lynch and Bill Clinton did not occur until June 2016 and it was only after it became public that Comey announced he would be the decider, though according to this CNN article, Comey had made the decision that he would make the announcement weeks previously.
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