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U.K. judge dismisses Donald Trump’s lawsuit over “Steele dossier”
London — A judge in London on Thursday threw out a lawsuit by former U.S. President Donald Trump accusing a former British spy of making “shocking and scandalous claims” that were false and harmed his reputation. Judge Karen Steyn said there were “no compelling reasons” to let the case Trump filed against Orbis Business go to trial.
The company 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.
Victoria Jones/PA via AP
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.
CBS News correspondent Imtiaz Tyab said the court was told during a hearing in late 2023 that Trump was bringing his case over two memos in the dossier, which claimed he had taken part in “sex parties” in St. Petersburg, Russia, and engaged in “golden showers” with prostitutes in Moscow.
Trump called the dossier “fake news” and a political witch hunt, and in his legal filings he accused Steele of making false claims and sought unspecified damages from Orbis for allegedly violating British data protection laws.
Orbis always maintained that it was not responsible for the publication of the dossier, which was leaked to a U.S. media outlet, and it sought the case’s dismissal. It argued that neither the company nor Steele had approved or been aware of the leak of the document. It also said the case had been filed too late.
In 2022, the U.S. Federal Election Commission fined former candidate Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign $8,000, and the Democratic National Committee $105,000, for obscuring their funding of the dossier. The campaign had mislabeled Steele’s work as “legal services” and “legal and compliance consulting” in campaign filings, the FEC concluded.
The bipartisan election commission dismissed a complaint against Steele himself.
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Washington — President Biden is set to travel to the battleground state of Wisconsin on Friday for a campaign rally, marking the start of a crucial weekend for his reelection bid as he seeks to assuage concerns about his fitness for a second term sparked by his startling debate performance just over one week ago.
In addition to the campaign event in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday afternoon, Mr. Biden will tape an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, which the network said will air in full Friday night. The president will also head to Philadelphia for another campaign event on Sunday, capping the July 4 holiday weekend with a visit to a second battleground state.
The president’s appearances are coming under new scrutiny following his poor showing against former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, in the first general election debate on June 27. Mr. Biden blamed his performance on a busy travel schedule leading up to the face-off with Trump, saying during a campaign event Tuesday that he “almost fell asleep” on stage after making two trips to Europe in June.
In a pair of radio interviews that aired Thursday, Mr. Biden admitted he had a “bad debate” and that he “screwed up.”
Mr. Biden’s campaign and the White House sought to brush off concerns about his lackluster performance by insisting he had a cold and that the debate fiasco was simply a “bad night.” As part of efforts to quiet concerns about Mr. Biden and his age, he and Vice President Kamala Harris participated in a call with campaign staff on Wednesday, and they met with 20 Democratic governors at the White House later that evening. Mr. Biden also spoke with the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, as well as other key allies on Capitol Hill.
The president has maintained the same message throughout the outreach, according to participants: he is in the race to defeat Trump and will not be pushed out.
“I learned from my father, when you get knocked down, just get back up, get back up,” Mr. Biden told “The Earl Ingram Show,” which airs in Wisconsin, in the radio interview Thursday. “And you know we’re going to win this election, we’re going to just beat Donald Trump.”
Amid the assurances, two House Democrats have openly called on Mr. Biden to withdraw from the presidential race: Reps. Lloyd Doggett of Texas and Raúl Grijalva of Arizona. Others, meanwhile, have publicly urged the president to take steps to prove to voters, elected Democrats and party donors that he is fit for a second term in the White House.
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