News breaking from The Daily Mail reflects that President Donald Trump has filed a civil action against Orbis Business Intelligence and its founder, Christopher Steele. You will likely remember that Chris Steele wrote the infamous “Steele Dossier” that became the underpinning of the Carter Page FISA application, replacing the legally required Woods file.
Interestingly, Trump appears to be using the British court system, and laws around libel actions that are much more beneficial to the plaintiff in the U.K. There is an initial 2-day court hearing scheduled for October 16th.
(Via Daily Mail) Donald Trump is suing a former MI6 officer and the intelligence consultancy he founded, High Court records show.
The former US president 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 in Mr Trump’s legal action is set to start on October 16, which is thought to be the first hearing in the claim. (more)
The layers of possibility within this lawsuit are actually much more remarkable than first review might consider.
Remember, as discovered during the Durham probe, GCHQ refused to assist the CIA and FBI in their construct of the fabricated theory about Trump-Russia. Additionally, Steele has attempted to distance himself from the ‘dossier’ he created, implying his role was simply to affirm or verify information fed to him from Fusion GPS via Glenn Simpson and Nellie Ohr.
Plausibly, Steele could claim he simply provided information, material that was false, to Fusion GPS, not knowing what would come of it. However, in order to take that position, he would need to swear and attest to that set of facts. That opens questions about conversations between Steele and Glenn Simpson/Nellie Ohr about his material representations – as well as conversations between Steele and the DOJ/FBI about the same. Names and specifics would have to be outlined in order to escape the libel.
Deposing Chris Steele would be a goldmine of information about how the construct of the narrative was put together. Who was involved from within the U.S. government and Fusion GPS would be the obvious aspect. Steele was represented by Adam Waldman, who was also used as an intermediary between Steele and other investigative authorities in the USA. Waldman and former SSCI Vice Chair staffer, Dan Jones, were working together. Piercing those conversations is yet another layer to peel.
In short, in order for Chris Steele to use the defense against libel, he would have to outline who he was delivering information to, and what was the purpose of the delivery. Steele would also need to walk through each of the points made in his email construction and show origination, supportive material, efforts taken to prove or disprove and subsequent findings. [Think of the Michael Cohen in Prague false claim as only one small example]
There’s a reason why Andrew Weissmann and Robert Mueller never went near Chris Steele during their construct of the Mueller report. They well understood that Lawfare required plausible deniability. This, despite the fact that on June 29, 2017, Mueller and Weissmann used the dossier for the final FISA renewal – a point missed by all except for the deepest weed walkers.
POINT missed by EVERYONE: How could Mueller/Weissmann use the Steele dossier for a FISA renewal, and then say Chris Steele was, “outside their purview“?
I think there would be a lot of pro-bono research aides who would love to work on this lawsuit. Just sayin’…
