Trump suing ex-MI6 officer who alleged he was ‘compromised’ by Russian security service
Donald Trump is suing a former MI6 officer and the intelligence consultancy he founded, high court records in England show.
The former US president, who is mired in lawsuits in his own country, is bringing a data protection claim against Orbis Business Intelligence and its founder Christopher Steele, who previously ran the secret intelligence service’s Russia desk.
According to a court order published on Thursday, a two-day hearing for the legal action is set to start on 16 October , the PA news agency reported.
No other details of the case have been made available and the current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is not expected to attend.
Steele was the author of the socalled Steele dossier, which included allegations that Trump had been “compromised” by Russian security service the FSB.
The dossier, which was leaked to the website BuzzFeed in 2017, also alleged that Vladimir Putin “supported and directed” an operation to “cultivate” Trump as a presidential candidate for “at least five years”. Trump denied the claims.
Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence were previously sued for libel by Russian national Aleksej Gubarev over the publication of the dossier, claiming they were legally responsible for BuzzFeed publishing the dossier. However, in a judgment in October 2020, Mr Justice Warby dismissed the claim.
Trump has been criminally indicted four times, including in a federal investigation into efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election which he lost to Joe Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four cases and has repeatedly cast litigation against him as part of a politically motivated, Democratic witch-hunt as he seeks a return to the White House.
Earlier this week the judge in his federal election meddling case, which is being brought by special counsel Jack Smith, said she will not recuse herself after the former president’s requests that she step aside over claims of a perception of bias.
Judge Tanya Chutkan said she has ruled his lawyers failed to present evidence of those claims.
Last month, the judge presiding over the former US president’s hushmoney case, Juan Manuel Merchan, also declined to step aside after ruling that he definitely has the “ability to be fair and impartial”.