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Declassified FBI notes show Steele claimed Fiona Hill knew about dossier source

by Jerry Dunleavy, Justice Department Reporter | | January 22, 2021 08:51 PM

British ex-spy Christopher Steele told the FBI he believed Fiona Hill, the top Russia expert on former President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, knew about the involvement of Steele’s main source with his discredited dossier of salacious and unproven Trump-Russia collusion claims, newly declassified records show.

Trump ordered the declassification of a “binder” of documents related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation on the eve of President Biden's inauguration.

The Justice Department previously released an almost entirely blacked-out version of Steele’s FBI interview in late 2020, but Just The News reported this week that a less-redacted version had been made public, focusing on the former MI6 agent speaking with the FBI in London on Sept. 18-19, 2017, where he was briefly joined by Orbis Business Intelligence partner Christopher Burrows on the first day.

The FBI wrote, “Steele said Fiona Hill knows that the primary subsource," identified as U.S.-based and Russian-trained lawyer Igor Danchenko, "was involved in the dossier,” and “when the primary subsource went to ground in January and February 2017, Steele contacted Hill and told Hill that he was worried about the primary subsource.” The bureau added, “Steele said that she probably guesses that the primary subsource was involved."

Hill is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she’d worked before becoming senior director for European and Russian affairs on the NSC from 2017 to 2019. Hill has repeatedly criticized the dossier as possibly compromised by Russian disinformation, and Steele’s claims contradict Hill’s sworn testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in October 2019.

“I have no knowledge whatsoever of how he developed that dossier, none,” Hill said. “The first time I saw that dossier was the day before it was published in BuzzFeed when a colleague, like it seemed to be about half of Washington, D.C., had it, and showed me a copy of it, and I was shocked … That was when I expressed the misgivings and concern that he could have been played.” Hill told House lawmakers in November 2019 it was Brookings President Strobe Talbott who showed her the dossier.

Danchenko also cast doubt on Steele’s claims that Hill had been aware of his dossier work up until the time public disclosures of investigative materials revealed his role.

“I am not aware of any third party having any knowledge of any projects that I worked on in the private sector. And I worked on over 350. In my line of work I am bound by NDAs, and I have never broken them. This is standard professional behaviour in due diligence / business intelligence sector. I never shared any details of my work with anyone, including with Dr. Hill,” Danchenko told the Washington Examiner. “To my knowledge, no one had been aware of my role in the Steele Dossier until my outing in July 2020."

The Steele source had kind words for Hill, adding, "I did work in research and academia with many people, including with Dr. Hill, prior to my career in the private sector. I hold her and all the scholars I have had the privilege to work with in high regard."

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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/declassified-fbi-notes-steele-fiona-hill-dossier-source