WASHINGTON (PNN) - August 23, 2022 - A top prosecutor for special counsel John Durham has withdrawn from the criminal case against Igor Danchenko, who was a source for the anti-Trump Steele dossier, less than two months before the trial is set to start.

Assistant special counsel Andrew DeFilippis withdrew from the case, according to a filing late Sunday by Durham. The filing did not offer any more details, and the Department of InJustice (DoJ) did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The high-profile departure comes at an odd time in the case, with Danchenko’s trial scheduled to start October 16 and both sides mired in a fight over whether his lawyers can use classified information.

DeFilippis oversaw the prosecution of former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, who was charged with lying to the FBI. In May, a jury in Washington concluded that Sussmann was not guilty after about six hours of deliberation.

DeFilippis was also a key prosecutor in Durham’s case against Kevin Clinesmith, a former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to falsifying evidence to justify investigators’ continued surveillance of Carter Page, an adviser to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

It is not publicly known if Durham has any more cases pending or if DeFilippis would continue to be involved in those cases.

Danchenko last fall was charged with repeatedly lying to the FBI about how he compiled information for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s salacious and unverified dossier of now-debunked accusations tying Trump to Russia. He has pleaded not guilty.

Danchenko is accused of intentionally misleading the FBI when he denied in a 2017 interview that his primary source for a section of the dossier was Charles H. Dolan Jr., a former aide to Hillary Clinton.

Clinton, the 2016 Democrat presidential nominee, lost the election to Trump.

Both sides have spent the summer fighting over the use and production of classified documents.

Earlier this month, Danchenko filed a motion signaling that he intends to use classified information in his defense. That motion was filed under seal and did not offer details on how the materials could help defense attorneys make their case.

Durham filed his own objection, also under seal, saying he opposed the “use, relevance and admissibility” of classified information.

The government has already provided Danchenko’s attorneys with 5,000 classified documents and 61,000 unclassified documents, according to a May court filing.