By Jill Lawless | Associated Press
LONDON — A judge in London on Thursday threw out a lawsuit by former U.S. President Donald Trump that accused a former British spy of making “shocking and scandalous claims” that were false and harmed his reputation.
Judge Karen Steyn said the case Trump filed against Orbis Business Intelligence should be dismissed. “There are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial,” she said.The ruling comes as Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, faces legal problems on both sides of the Atlantic.
Orbis Business Intelligence was founded by Christopher Steele, who created a dossier in 2016 that contained rumors and uncorroborated allegations that caused a political storm just before Trump’s inauguration.
Trump said the dossier was fake news and a political witch hunt. He sought damages from Orbis for allegedly violating British data protection laws.
Steele, who once ran the Russia desk for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, was paid by Democrats to compile research that included salacious allegations that Russians could potentially use to blackmail Trump.
At a hearing in London in October, Trump’s lawyer said the former president filed his lawsuit over two memos in the dossier that claimed he had taken part in “sex parties” in St. Petersburg and consorted with sex workers in Moscow.
Attorney Hugh Tomlinson said the former president had “suffered personal and reputational damage and distress.”
Tomlinson said the dossier “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.
In a written witness statement, Trump said the allegations were “wholly untrue” despite Steele’s assertions that they never were…
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