Federal judge rules no evidence to support Trump dossier at trial

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Federal judge rules no evidence to support Trump dossier at trial

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A federal judge has 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 the report.

Igor Danchenko is scheduled to go on trial next week in the 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 a Democratic operative named Charles Dolan, a public relations executive who volunteered for Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton. Prosecutors say that the FBI would have been able to judge the validity of the dossier more accurately if Danchenko admitted his primary source was a Clinton supporter.

The dossier has been most famous for allegations that Trump engaged in sexual activity with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel that was claimed to have been hacked 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.

The five counts in the indictment don't charge Danchenko with lying about his sex allegations. The prosecutors wanted to present testimony at trial that would show that Danchenko lied about his sourcing, just as he lied about other aspects of his sourcing, they said.

Danchenko's lawyers objected. They said the testimony would be highly prejudicial and would confuse the jury.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga agreed with the defense in a ruling issued Tuesday. He said that the testimony that the government planned to introduce wouldn't prove Danchenko lied.

They are not admissible because they are substantially outweighed by the danger of confusion and unfair prejudice, according to Trenga.

The ruling is another setback for Durham's case. In a hearing last week, Trenga rejected a motion by Danchenko's lawyers to toss out the case entirely. But in doing so he said it was an extremely close call and that jurors may well be persuaded by Danchenko's defense.

Danchenko's lawyers have called the case an example of prosecutorial overreach and said that the answers Danchenko gave to the FBI were all technically true, even if they weren't particularly illuminating.

Also in Tuesday's ruling, Trenga denied a request from the government that Danchenko be barred from arguing to jurors or presenting evidence that the prosecution is politically motivated.