Igor Danchenko
Igor Yurievich Danchenko is a Russian citizen and U.S. resident currently residing in Virginia who works as a Eurasia political risk, defense and economics analyst. Together with Clifford Gaddy he analyzed Vladimir Putin's 1996 university dissertation and presented examples of plagiarism. In July 2020, Danchenko was revealed to have worked for Christopher Steele's Orbis Business Intelligence as a source for the Steele dossier. In November 2021, he was indicted on charges of lying to the FBI about the identities of his sources but "not about the information itself". He was acquitted of all charges in October 2022.
Education
Danchenko grew up in Perm Oblast, Russia, the son of an eye surgeon and an engineer who worked on the Soviet space program. He attended an elite English-language school where students aspired to work in Soviet foreign affairs. At 16, Danchenko participated in a student-exchange trip to England; he later joined a yearlong exchange program and graduated from high school near New Orleans.Danchenko graduated from the Law Faculty of Perm State University and the Department of Political Science at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, United States. While working at the Brookings Institution, Danchenko earned a master's degree from Georgetown University. From 2006 to 2009 he attended the CERES program at the Walsh School of Foreign Service there.
Career
Early in his career, Danchenko worked at Lukoil subsidiary Permtex in Perm and at UralSubSoetStroy in Iran. Between 1999 and 2005, he was a facilitator for the Open World Russian Leadership Program, US Library of Congress and a leader for senior Russian federal and regional delegations to the US. From 2003 to 2005, Danchenko worked as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Louisville.Danchenko worked at the Brookings Institution from 2005 to 2010. While there, Danchenko worked closely with Fiona Hill. In 2010, Danchenko, Hill and Erica Downs co-authored a paper called "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? The Realities of a Rising China and Implications for Russia’s Energy Ambitions". Hill introduced Danchenko to Christopher Steele and to U.S.-based public-relations executive Charles Dolan Jr., who would later become one of Danchenko's sources for the Steele dossier.
Since 2010, Danchenko has been an analyst on political risk and business intelligence, managing projects on Russia and Eurasia. Danchenko has been quoted by media outlets on topics ranging from energy politics to defense matters.
Putin plagiarism accusations
Danchenko first made the news alongside his Brookings Institution colleague, Cliff Gaddy, when they obtained a copy of the previously inaccessible 218-page dissertation of Vladimir Putin entitled The Strategic Planning of Regional Resources Under the Formation of Market Relations, which he defended at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute in 1996.With a Powerpoint presentation: 16 pages.
Danchenko and Gaddy revealed their findings on March 30, 2006, at a Brookings Institution event, where they discussed the dissertation's relevance to Putin's views on governance and the economy. They also presented evidence of extensive plagiarism in the dissertation, including a translation of a 1978 textbook. The Russian dissertation committee disputed their accusations.
Early FBI investigation and contact with Russian intelligence officers
In May 2009, the FBI opened a preliminary investigation into Danchenko after he had reportedly told two associates from the Brookings Institution that he knew of a way they could "make a little extra money” if they were able to "get a job in the government and had access to classified information.” The investigation was upgraded from preliminary to full once further information revealed that Danchenko had prior contacts with Russian intelligence officers in 2005 and 2006. The FBI's investigation into Danchenko was closed in March 2011 after FBI agents mistakenly believed he had fled the country.Durham investigation, trial and acquittal
In December 2020, Special Counsel John Durham subpoenaed the Brookings Institution for Danchenko's personnel files. In November 2021, Danchenko was arrested in connection with the John Durham investigation and was charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI on five different occasions regarding the sources of material he provided for the Steele dossier. This includes Danchenko having allegedly obscured his relationship with Charles Dolan Jr. and having allegedly fabricated contacts with Sergei Millian. Danchenko pleaded not guilty to all charges.Columnist and attorney Andrew C. McCarthy reacted to what he described as the "if not irrational, then exaggerated" reactions by Trump supporters to these reports of arrests. He urged them to be cautious as Durham's indictments "narrowly allege that the defendants lied to the FBI only about the identity or status of people from whom they were getting information, not about the information itself."
Danchenko's trial began on October 11, 2022. U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga deemed one of the five charges had insufficient evidence to proceed. Following the trial, the jury deliberated for one day before acquitting Danchenko of the other four charges on October 18, 2022. The case represented the second indictment in Durham's probe to go to trial and the second not-guilty verdict.