London:
The High Court in London mandated President Donald Trump on Thursday to cover £625,000 ($741,000) in legal expenses after he filed a lawsuit against former British spies regarding stolen documents.
Trump was preparing to initiate legal action against Christopher Steele, an ex-MI6 officer who authored the controversial Steele Dossier, alleging that the US president had been compromised by Russian operatives.
The numerous memos ignited a political uproar when they were released in January 2017, just before Trump’s initial inauguration.
These documents contained unverified and contentious claims about Trump and Russia, which former Republican officials consistently refuted, including accusations of sexual misconduct.
In 2022, Trump filed a data protection complaint against Steele’s firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, but High Court Judge Karen Steyn stated there was “no compelling reason” for the case to advance to trial.
This assertion was deemed “doomed to fail” in her judgement made in February 2024.
The allegations indicated that during a 2013 visit to Moscow, Trump was “compromised” by the FSB, Russia’s Security Agency, and that they possessed a damaging tape involving a prostitute.
Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that he “supported and orchestrated” the effort to “cultivate” Trump as a presidential candidate for “at least five years.”
Trump reportedly sought unspecified damages for “serious anguish and reputational harm.”
The company argued it bore no responsibility for the dissemination of the documents.
The memos created prior to the 2016 election victory over Hillary Clinton were commissioned by a Democratic consultant.
Steyn dismissed the case last year without determining the veracity of the claims.
Some of the allegations prompted an investigation by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which concluded in 2019 that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election but found no evidence of collusion with Trump’s team.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published by Syndicate Feed.)
