Not long after William Barr assigned John Durham to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, the president gave the attorney general the power to declassify information pertaining to the investigation. As I wrote at the time, what that really meant was that Barr would be able to selectively release classified information that bolstered his charge that the previous administration had spied on the Trump campaign. According to the New York Times, that is exactly what is happening.
Not long after the early 2017 publication of a notorious dossier about President Trump jolted Washington, an expert in Russian politics told the F.B.I. he had been one of its key sources, drawing on his contacts to deliver information that would make up some of the most salacious and unproven assertions in the document.
The F.B.I. had approached the expert, a man named Igor Danchenko, as it vetted the dossier’s claims. He agreed to tell investigators what he knew with an important condition, people familiar with the matter said — that the F.B.I. keep his identity secret so he could protect himself, his sources and his family and friends in Russia.
But his hope of remaining anonymous evaporated last week after Attorney General William P. Barr directed the F.B.I. to declassify a redacted report about its three-day interview of Mr. Danchenko in 2017 and hand it over to Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Graham promptly made the interview summary public while calling the entire Russia investigation “corrupt.”
The NYT report goes on to say that, while Danchenko’s name was redacted in the released document, it was just a matter of days before “online sleuths” (Russian agents?) were able to identify him based on clues left visible in the declassified document. Continue reading.