A judge in London on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit brought by former US President Donald Trump, accusing a former British spy of making “shocking and scandalous allegations” that were false and defamatory.
Judge Karen Stein said Trump’s lawsuit against Orbis Business Intelligence should be dismissed.
“There is no compelling reason to allow this claim to proceed to trial,” she said.
The ruling comes as Trump faces legal challenges on both sides of the Atlantic and is a front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
President Trump has sued the company founded by Christopher Steele, which created a document in 2016 containing rumors and unsubstantiated allegations that sparked political turmoil just before Trump took office. President Trump called the document fake news and a political witch hunt.
President Trump sought damages from Orbis for breaching UK data protection laws.
At a hearing in October, former President Trump’s lawyer Hugh Tomlinson said the former president had “suffered personal and reputational harm and distress” because his data protection rights had been violated.
Mr. Steele, who once headed the Russia desk for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, was tapped by Democrats to finalize an investigation involving salacious allegations that the Russians could use to blackmail Mr. Trump. was being compensated.
Tomlinson said the document “contains shocking and scandalous allegations about President Trump’s personal conduct,” including that Trump bribed Russian officials to further his business interests. He said that this included suspicions that he had paid.
In Trump’s case, “this personal data is woefully inaccurate,” he said.
Trump said in a written witness statement that the allegations were “absolutely false,” despite Steele’s claims that they have not been disproved.
President Trump has said he never engaged in “perverse sexual activity, including the employment of prostitutes, in the presidential suite of a Moscow hotel” and that he attended a “sex party” in St. Petersburg and bribed Russian officials. He said he had never given them a gift or provided them with “enough” money. This is material to intimidate me. He also said he did not bribe, coerce or silence any witnesses.
Orbis said the lawsuit should be thrown out because the report was not intended for publication and was published by BuzzFeed without permission from Steele or Orbis. He also said the complaint was filed too late.
The judge said Trump “first learned of the existence of this document in January 2017 and has chosen to allow years to pass without making any effort to repair his reputation in this jurisdiction.” said.
She said that “any claim for compensation and/or damages…is bound to fail.”
