Trump demands extradition of former MI6 officer
Donald Trump has demanded the extradition of Christopher Steele, the British former MI6 officer who compiled the infamous dossier on the president’s ties with Russia.
Yesterday morning, the president tweeted: “This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail. A sick lier [sic] who was paid by Crooked Hillary & the DNC!”
Mr Trump shared a news report from Wednesday regarding a British court ruling that the former British spy had violated a data privacy law by failing to check information on the President’s Russia connections.
A few minutes later, Mr Trump wrote: “Bring back Steele!!!”, and retweeted a link to a book on the Russia investigation by Fox News legal and political analyst Gregg Jarrett.
Earlier this week, the UK High Court ordered Mr Steele to pay damages of $23,000 (£17,900) each to two Russian businessmen that he claimed had made payoffs to Vladimir Putin in the 1990s.
Judge Mark Warby said that Mr Steele had not take reasonable steps to verify the allegations.
Mr Steele had accused Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman of facilitating the transfer of large amounts of money to Mr Putin when he was deputy mayor of St Petersburg.
In addition to Mr Steele and Russia, the president began the weekend with a stream of tweets on a variety of topics.
Related to the Russia investigation, he tweeted: “New documents just released reveal General Flynn was telling the truth, and the FBI knew it!”
He accused the New York Times of making up the Russia bounty story, saying: “This was just another phony hit job by the @nytimes. They had no source, they made it up. FAKE NEWS!”
On commuting his longtime confidant Roger Stone’s sentence, he wrote: “Roger Stone was targeted by an illegal Witch Hunt that never should have taken place. It is the other side that are criminals, including Biden and Obama, who spied on my campaign – AND GOT CAUGHT!”
He congratulated attorney general William Barr on a new federal crackdown on violent crime in US cities, while urging Alabama voters to choose his former attorney general’s opponent in Tuesday’s election, calling Jeff Sessions “a disaster”.
He again pushed for the reopening of schools, referencing a report that argued keeping them closed was a greater public health risk, and decried the failures of virtual learning.
Meanwhile Mr Trump was photographed wearing a face mask for the first time during a visit to a military hospital. As he left the White House, he told reporters: “When you’re in a hospital, especially ... I think it’s expected to wear a mask.”