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Has there ever been someone who has ruined their good reputation as much Durham?
The final expected trial of special counsel John Durham’s probe took an unexpected turn Wednesday, with Durham grilling and rebuking his own witness after the witness seemed to bolster the defense of Igor Danchenko, a key Steele dossier source.
The dynamic was surprising because it was Durham’s first witness. And at times, while Durham personally questioned the witness, he strayed from the narrow case against Danchenko and focused more on the FBI’s mistakes in 2016 as it investigated then-candidate Donald Trump.
Durham – a Trump-era holdover who was appointed in 2019 to find government misconduct in the Trump-Russia investigation – charged Danchenko with lying to the FBI agents who were trying to corroborate the dossier. Danchenko has pleaded not guilty and says he told the truth.
But the situation shifted when the defense got to cross-examine Auten. Danchenko’s lawyers highlighted Auten’s previous testimony, given years ago to the Justice Department inspector general and to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which contradicted some of Durham’s claims.
Auten previously said Danchenko was “truthful” and “assisted” the Russia probe. He also said securing Danchenko as an FBI source was “one of the best things that came out of” the Russia probe. This undercuts the core of Durham’s indictment, which alleged that Danchenko serially lied to the FBI and impeded the investigators who were scrambling to verify the Steele dossier.
Danchenko’s defense attorney, Danny Onorato, asked Auten in court on Wednesday if that was still his belief today, and Auten answered in the affirmative, adding, “I stand by my testimony.”
The defense also elicited testimony indicating that Durham cherry-picked material from an FBI memo that Auten wrote, when there was exculpatory information on the very next page.
“And Mr. Durham didn’t take any steps to correct your wrong answer, did he?” Onorato asked.
Durham attacks his own witness
After Onorato finished, Durham returned for a final round of questioning, but the tone completely changed. Durham and Auten sparred for over an hour. Durham sounded angry at times, and many of Auten’s responses were adversarial, clearly not giving Durham the answers that fit his narrative.
Durham brought up the previously unknown fact that Auten was “recommended for suspension” by the FBI’s internal auditors. Auten acknowledged the recommendation, which he said is under appeal. Lawyers often bring up a witness’ past misconduct or punishments as a way to attack their credibility – but in this case, it was the prosecutor seemingly impeaching his own witness.
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