Trump-Russia Steele dossier analyst Igor Danchenko pleads not guilty in FBI lie case prosecuted by John Durham

Trump-Russia Steele dossier analyst Igor Danchenko pleads not guilty in FBI lie case prosecuted by John Durham

The analyst linking Russia to former President pleaded not guilty Wednesday during his arraignment in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. A judge also set a tentative trial date of April 18 for the analyst, 43-year-old Russian national Igor Danchenko, who remains free on a $150,000 bond. Assistant special counsel Michael Keilty, who is prosecuting Danchenko, told Judge Anthony Trenga that a "vast amount" of classified material will be included in the exchange of evidence with the defendant's lawyers, NBC News reported. Danchenko's lawyer Mark Schamel, in a statement issued Monday, blasted the indictment against his client, and said, "We will expose how Mr. Danchenko has been unfairly maligned by these false allegations." Read more of CNBC's politics coverage: The Virginia resident Danchenko was charged last week with five counts of making false statements to the FBI during interviews in 2017 about his work providing information to Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the dossier. n charged , who was to investigate the origins of the federal probe into the Trump campaign's suspected coordination with . The Republican Trump faced off in that race against , the Democratic nominee. Steele's dossier was used by the FBI to justify a