UK judge tosses out Trump suit against Christopher Steele over ‘scandalous’ dossier
A British judge threw out former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against former UK spy Christopher Steele Thursday over the “scandalous” and debunked dossier that purported to detail Trump’s links with the Russian government.
London Judge Karen Steyn dismissed the former president’s case against Steele’s Orbis Business Intelligence, citing “no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial.”
Through intermediaries, the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign paid Steele to dig up dirt on Trump, resulting in the file that was published in January 2017 by BuzzFeed News.
The document included allegations that the Russian government had a videotape of Trump cavorting with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel and tried to substantiate claims of collusion between his campaign and the Kremlin.
The former president’s attorney, Hugh Tomlinson, said during an October 2023 hearing that his client sued Steele’s intelligence firm for having peddled “shocking and scandalous claims” in the dossier, which included “sex parties” in St. Petersburg and “golden showers” with Moscow prostitutes.
Other allegations suggested Trump had taken bribes from Russian officials.
The 77-year-old “suffered personal and reputational damage and distress” due to the unfounded claims from Steele, according to Tomlinson, who further alleged that the ex-MI6 agent broke British data privacy laws.
In this case, the Trump lawyer added, the personal data happened to be “egregiously inaccurate” — and Trump in a witness statement said they were “wholly untrue.”
Trump said he had not engaged in “perverted sexual behavior including the hiring of prostitutes … in the presidential suite of a hotel in Moscow,” taken part in “sex parties” in St. Petersburg, bribed Russian officials, or provided them with “sufficient material to blackmail me.”
He also said he had not bribed, coerced or silenced witnesses.
Orbis said the lawsuit should be thrown out because the report was never meant to be made public and was published without the permission of Steele or Orbis.
It also said the claim was filed too late to be actionable.
The judge said Trump had “chosen to allow many years to elapse -– without any attempt to vindicate his reputation in this jurisdiction -– since he was first made aware of the dossier” in January 2017.
Steyn added that “the claim for compensation and/or damages … is bound to fail.”
The former president is also a defendant in half a dozen criminal and civil cases on the other side of the Atlantic, as he remains the 2024 front-runner for the Republican nomination.
With Post wires
