A Russian analyst who worked on a discredited dossier linking Donald Trump to Russia has been found not guilty of lying to the FBI.

The Department of Justice charged Igor Danchenko, 43, as part of a probe into the FBI's inquiry into whether Mr Trump colluded with Russia to win in 2016.

The so-called Steele dossier was used by the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants on a top Trump aide.

Mr Danchenko was accused of lying to agents about the dossier's sources.

Special Counsel John Durham failed to secure a conviction from a Virginia jury against Igor Danchenko Tuesday afternoon in the United States District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia. 

Danchenko, a key Russiagate player who supplied spy Christopher Steele with false, Russia sourced and salacious information about Donald Trump during the 2016 election, was acquitted on all counts of lying to the FBI. The jury spent Monday and Tuesday in deliberations before returning the verdict.  

Igor Danchenko, a primary contributor to the Trump-Russia dossier, has been acquitted of lying to the FBI regarding his sources for some claims in the document.

Igor Danchenko, a consultant whose information comprised the bulk of the 2016 “Steele dossier,” was acquitted Tuesday of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, leaving special counsel John Durham with losses in both cases he took to trial as his yearslong inquiry into the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election winds down.

Igor Danchenko, the primary source for the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, was acquitted Tuesday of four counts of lying to the FBI in an embarrassing defeat for special counsel John Durham.

Durham has taken two cases to trial, and both have ended in acquittals. After more than three years looking for misconduct in the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe, Durham has only secured one conviction: the guilty plea of a low-level FBI lawyer, who got probation.

The FBI offered to pay ex-British spy Christopher Steele “up to $1 million” to prove allegations in his dossier about former President Trump, a senior FBI analyst testified Tuesday.

The cash offer came shortly before the 2016 presidential election during an overseas meeting between Steele and FBI agents, FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten said during questioning by Special Counsel John Durham, noting that the money never came because the allegations could not be proven.

The Federal Election Commission has fined Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for lying about funding a discredited dossier, which attempted to smear then-candidate Donald Trump, the Washington Examiner reported.

A dossier written by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele was circulated to the FBI and media outlets before the 2016 election. Its unproven assertions that Russia had embarrassing information about Trump and some of his campaign's advisers were meant to damage Trump.

The Steele dossier, a collection of unverified intelligence that alleged deep levels of cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign, has been the source of intense debate from the moment it was published in January 2017.

Axios says there’s a “reckoning” in the media over coverage of the Steele dossier after the partisan oppo document’s primary source was charged with lying to the FBI.

“It’s one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history,” writes Sara Fischer, “and the media’s response to its own mistakes has so far been tepid.”

Tepid is a nice way of putting it.

The corrupt media’s attempt to frame their failings as mere confirmation bias holds no truer than the Russia-collusion hoax they peddled for five years.

Soon after Special Counsel John Durham indicted Igor Danchenko, the “Primary Sub-Source” of the Steele dossier, on five counts of lying to the FBI, the press paused to feign a moment of public introspection. The corrupt media’s attempt to frame their failings as mere confirmation bias, however, holds no truer than the Russia-collusion hoax they peddled for five years.