Judge rules salacious allegations off limits at Trump dossier trial
A judge ruled prosecutors cannot present evidence to a jury about the most salacious parts of a flawed dossier alleging connections between Trump and Russia.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that prosecutors cannot present evidence to a jury about the most salacious parts of a flawed dossier alleging connections between former President Donald Trump and Russia at an upcoming trial of an analyst who served as a primary source for that report.
Igor Danchenko is scheduled to go on trial next week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on charges of lying to the FBI. Special Counsel John Durham says Danchenko was a primary source of information in a dossier about Trump prepared by British spy Christopher Steele at the request of Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The indictment alleges that Danchenko’s primary source of information was actually a Democratic operative named Charles Dolan, a public relations executive who volunteered for Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. Prosecutors say the FBI would have been able to judge the veracity of the dossier more accurately if Danchenko had admitted his primary source was a Clinton supporter.
The dossier most famously includes allegations that Trump engaged in salacious sexual activity with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel that was purportedly bugged by Russian intelligence — raising the possibility that Russians had information they could use to blackmail Trump.
Trump had called the dossier fake news and evidence of a political witch hunt against him.
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