XPost: or.politics, ca.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh

<http://bbc.com>
Christopher Steele: UK High Court throws out Trump ex-spy dossier case
By Gordon Corera

1st February 2024, 07:57 PST

Donald Trump's attempt to bring a case in the UK against a former MI6
officer who compiled a salacious dossier linking him to Russia has failed.

The former president had been seeking to use data protection laws to sue
the company run by Christopher Steele but the High Court has thrown out
the case.

Mr Steele compiled the dossier which contained unproven allegations about bribing officials and sex parties.

It was leaked to the media just before Mr Trump was sworn in as president.

In bringing the lawsuit against Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd, he said
the dossier contained allegations that were inaccurate and breached his
data protection rights.

In Thursday's ruling in London, Mrs Justice Steyn DBE said she did not
make any judgement on the allegations themselves but found Mr Trump's
claim had not been brought within the six-year limitation period.

"There are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial,"
she wrote.

A statement is expected from Mr Steele later today. He has previously said
the dossier was a series of memos based on intelligence and never meant
for publication.

The case stems from 2016, when a US political consultancy asked Mr
Steele's company to produce a report into potential Russian interference
in that year's US general election.

The project was paid for by Hillary Clinton's Democrats and other
political opponents of Mr Trump.

Mr Steele, the former head of MI6's Russia desk, sent his findings to the
FBI, a British national security officer and an aide to a senior US
senator.

The dossier, later obtained and published by BuzzFeed News, detailed uncorroborated intelligence claims that Mr Trump had a "compromising relationship with the Kremlin".

The former president said in his witness statement when he brought the
case last year that "none of these things [in the Steele dossier] ever happened."

"I can confirm that I did not, at any time engage in perverted sexual
behaviour including the hiring of prostitutes to engage in 'golden
showers' in the presidential suite of a hotel in Moscow."

Mr Trump said official investigations had debunked the dossier but it
continued "to cause me significant damage and distress" because people
still believed it.

He added that he had not had time to sue in the UK before 2023 because he
had been busy being president.

Antony White KC, for Orbis, told the court in October that Mr Trump had accepted that the company was not responsible for BuzzFeed's publication
of the document.

Orbis also argued that the former president's case was an attempt to
address "longstanding grievances".

An inquiry by Special Counsel Robert Mueller looked at allegations that Mr Trump's campaign and transition teams conspired with Russian agents to
sway the 2016 election in his favour.

It did not establish that there was a criminal conspiracy but it laid out
10 instances where he had possibly obstructed justice.



--
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Anyone that isn't confused doesn't really
understand the situation.
~Edward R. Murrow USA WWII Correspondent ==================================================

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