Trump ordered to pay $382K in legal fees to company behind the Steele dossier
Former President Donald Trump was ordered by a judge Thursday to pay $382,000 in legal fees to the company founded by Christopher Steele, after unsuccessfully suing over the salacious allegations in the British ex-spy’s infamous dossier.
Orbis Business Intelligence claimed it racked up $809,00 in legal fees fighting Trump’s lawsuit, but London Judge Karen Steyn ruled that the figure was too high given she threw the case out after a one-day hearing.
Steyn dismissed the former president’s case against Orbis last month, citing “no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial.”
Trump’s attorney, Hugh Tomlinson, told the judge during the October 2023 hearing that his client reputation was harmed by the “shocking and scandalous claims” leveled by the former MI6 agent’s firm in the dossier, which included allegations that Trump participated in “sex parties” and “golden showers” with Russian prostitutes.
The document also included allegations that Trump had taken bribes from Russian officials.
Trump’s lawsuit argued that Orbis had violated British data protection laws when it compiled the so-called “Steele dossier” and that its unfounded claims were “egregiously inaccurate.”
Orbis was paid by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, through intermediaries, to dig up dirt on Trump ahead of the November 2016 election.
The dossier’s findings were first published in January 2017 by BuzzFeed News.
Orbis successfully argued that Trump’s lawsuit should be dismissed because the findings in the dossier were never meant to be made public and published by BuzzFeed News without the permission of Steele or Orbis.
The company also said the lawsuit was filed too late.
A federal judge in Florida dismissed similar lawsuits filed by Trump against Steele, Clinton and former top FBI officials in 2022, rejecting the 2024 GOP front-runner’s claims that they helped concoct the Russia investigation that overshadowed much of his administration.
However, Clinton and the DNC agreed to pay $113,000 in fines to the Federal Election Commission in 2022 for violating campaign finance law by misreporting funds spent on commissioning the dossier.