Here’s the headline from the Associated Press on AOL: https://www.aol.com/news/
The AP reports:
“LONDON (AP) — A lawyer for Donald Trump told a London judge Monday that the ex-president plans to prove that a discredited report by a former British spy that contained “shocking and scandalous claims” that he was compromised by Russians in his first bid for the presidency was wrong and harmed his reputation.
Trump has sued the company founded by Christopher Steele, who created a dossier in 2016 that contained rumors and uncorroborated allegations about Trump that erupted in a political storm just before he was inaugurated.
Trump is seeking damages from Orbis Business Intelligence for allegedly violating British data protection laws. Steele’s company is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed during two days of hearings at London’s High Court.
….Trump ‘suffered personal and reputational damage and distress’ because his data protection rights were violated, attorney Hugh Tomlinson said.
Steele, who once ran the Russia desk for the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, was paid by Democrats to compile research that included salacious allegations that Russians could potentially blackmail Trump for sexual activity. Trump said the dossier was fake news and a political witch hunt.
Tomlinson said it ‘contained shocking and scandalous claims about the personal conduct of President Trump’ and included allegations he paid bribes to Russian officials to further his business interests. Trump’s case ‘is that this personal data is egregiously inaccurate,’ he said.
Tomlinson said Trump plans to vindicate himself in court by providing evidence that the report’s claims were false.
In a written witness statement, Trump said that despite Steele’s assertions the allegations have not been disproven, 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 wants the lawsuit thrown out because it said the report was never meant to be made public and was published by BuzzFeed without the permission of Steele or Orbis. It also said the claim was filed too late.”
What is extraordinary here is the Steele Dossier was used to seriously damage Trump during the 2016 campaign and afterward when he became president. Trump himself would refer to it as the Trump-Russia hoax.
Now someone is being told to pay the piper.
Stay tuned.