- Written by Gordon Colella
- BBC News Security Correspondent
image source, Getty Images
Christopher Steele compiled the Steele Dossier, a compilation of allegations about Donald Trump
Donald Trump has unsuccessfully tried to prosecute a former MI6 official in Britain for producing a sordid document linking him to Russia.
The former president had tried to use data protection laws to sue a company run by Christopher Steele, but the High Court dismissed the case.
Steele compiled a dossier containing unproven allegations of bribes to authorities and sex parties.
This information was leaked to the media shortly before Trump was inaugurated as president.
In filing a lawsuit against Orbis Business Intelligence, he said the documents contained inaccurate claims and violated his data protection rights.
In his judgment in London on Thursday, Judge Stein DBE said he did not rule on the allegations themselves, but found that Mr Trump’s claims were not raised within the six-year statute of limitations period.
“There is no compelling reason to allow this claim to proceed to trial,” she wrote.
A statement is expected from Mr. Steele later today. He previously said the document was a series of intelligence-based memos and was never intended for publication.
The case stems from 2016, when a U.S. political consulting firm commissioned Steele’s firm to prepare a report on possible Russian interference in that year’s U.S. general election.
The project was funded by Hillary Clinton’s Democrats and other political opponents of Trump.
Steele, a former MI6 director of Russia, sent his findings to the FBI, where he is also Britain’s national security adviser and an aide to a senior US senator.
The document, which was later obtained and published by BuzzFeed News, detailed unsubstantiated intelligence claims that Trump had a “compromised relationship with the Kremlin.”
“None of this happened,” the former president said in a witness statement when he filed the lawsuit last year. [in the Steele dossier] It’s happened before. ”
“I can categorically state that I have never engaged in any perverse sexual activity, such as hiring prostitutes for a ‘golden shower’ in the presidential suite of a Moscow hotel.”
Mr. Trump said that although the document had been debunked by authorities, people still believed it and “continued to cause significant harm and suffering.”
He added that he had been so busy as president that he did not have time to file a case in the UK until 2023.
Orbis’ Antony White KC said in court in October that Trump had acknowledged that the company was not responsible for BuzzFeed’s publication of documents.
Orbis also argued that the former president’s lawsuit is an attempt to address “long-standing grievances.”
The investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller looked into allegations that Trump’s campaign and transition team colluded with Russian operatives to sway the 2016 election in his favor.
Although no criminal conspiracy was proven, he listed 10 instances in which he may have obstructed justice.
