Trump Sues Firm That Created ‘Steele Dossier’ That Alleges ‘Compromising’ Acts In A Moscow Hotel With Call Girls

Former President Donald Trump sued the firm that created the Steele Dossier in a London court seeking “vindication over “false” allegations that he participated in sexual acts with Moscow call girls and paid bribes to Russian officials.

Trump, 77, filed suit against Orbis Business Intelligence, a consultancy started by Christopher Steele, a former MI6 officer.

Trump has claimed that his data was not protected and wants compensation for the emotional distress it has caused him.

Steele previously ran the secret intelligence service’s Russia desk and wrote the Steele dossier, which claimed Trump had been “compromised” by the Russian security service, the FSB, in 2015.

In a witness statement, Trump stated that the dossier contained “numerous false, phony or made-up allegations.”

He denied any participation in “sex parties” while in St. Petersburg, as well as the allegations that he hired sex workers for deviant acts and gave the Russian authorities “sufficient material to blackmail me.”

Trump said that he decided to bring his legal case to court to prove that the information in the dossier was false and further explained that “not one of the damning allegations contained in the Steele reporting was ever corroborated.” 

In his written submissions, Trump’s lawyer, Hugh Tomlinson, argued that Orbis unlawfully released Trump’s personal data and caused him “serious distress and reputational damage.”

Although Orbis was not responsible for the dossier’s publication, Trump alleged that his information was processed by the consultancy.

Orbis’s lawyers argued for the court to dismiss Trump’s claim because it was brought to harass Orbis and Steele and to pursue longstanding grievances.

Orbis lawyer Antony White stated in written submissions that the case was brought too late to have any realistic chance of success.

He argued that the compensation claim primarily relied on reputational damage, which would fail due to statute of limitation grounds. Moreover, any alleged reputational damage and distress were caused by the BuzzFeed publication, for which Orbis was not liable.

White further said that the dossier was never intended to be released to the public. All copies held by Orbis were destroyed in 2017.

He asserted that Trump’s case was driven by a personal vendetta against Steele and Orbis and noted that “[Trump] has a long history of repeatedly bringing frivolous, meritless and vexatious claims for vexing and harassing perceived enemies and others against whom he bears a grudge.”

Steele and Orbis had previously faced a libel lawsuit from Russian national Aleksej Gubarev, who claimed they were responsible for BuzzFeed’s publication of the dossier, but this claim was dismissed by Lord Justice Warby in October 2020. 

The London lawsuit comes as Trump faces multiple criminal and civil cases in the U.S., including his indictment for his actions surrounding the 2020 election and the Capitol riot. Trump recently endorsed a social media post calling for the “citizen’s arrest” of the judge in his $250 million business fraud trial in New York.