FBI supervisory counter intel analyst Brian Auten was the first witness in the trial of Russian national and Christopher Steele dossier source Igor Danchenko, and he revealed that the FBI offered Steele $1 million to corroborate some of the false allegations he made against then-candidate Donald Trump and members of his 2016 presidential campaign.
As Fox News reported:
Auten testified that he and a group of FBI agents went overseas in early October 2021 to speak with Steele about the dossier. During questioning by Special Counsel John Durham on Tuesday, Auten said that during those meetings the FBI offered Steele $1 million if he could corroborate allegations in the dossier. Auten testified that Steele could not do so.
Auten also said that the FBI had no corroboration of allegations in the dossier but nevertheless took that information and inserted it into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
... Meanwhile, Auten also said the FBI reached out to other intelligence agencies to see if they could corroborate information relating to dossier.
Auten repeatedly admitted under questioning from Durham that the FBI never received corroboration of the information in the Steele dossier, but he stressed that it was used in the initial FISA application and in the three subsequent renewals.
And years later, the same FBI that was willing to pay $1 million for dirt that would damage Trump's candidacy would be raiding his Mar-a-Lago home to try to stop him from running again.
Matt Palumbo is the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George SorosDon't miss the Dan Bongino Show
