Donald Trump’s decision to declassify evidence given by a former British spy about the former US president’s alleged links with Russia led to the disappearance of two Russian sources, according to a court document.
Christopher Steele, who used to run MI6’s Russia desk, compiled the notorious “Steele dossier” investigating Trump’s connections to Russia. In a witness statement released on Tuesday, Steele said publication of his testimony to the Mueller investigation on the matter, originally classified secret, was an “egregious and reckless act” that “served no purpose other than to expose me and Orbis [Steele’s company], our sources and our methods”.
Trump is attempting to sue Orbis Business Intelligence in England over the dossier, which alleged that he engaged in “perverted sexual behaviour” and paid bribes to Russian officials to further his business interests. The former president is claiming breach of his data protection rights and says the dossier’s claims against him were “false” and “phoney” and caused him reputational damage and distress.
In his witness statement, Steele said the decision to declassify his testimony, taken on Trump’s last day in office, resulted in several Russian sources being exposed and suffering “varying consequences”.
He said: “Two of the named Russian sources have not been seen or heard of since. The publication of this document did serious damage to the US government’s Russian operations and their ability to recruit new Russian sources. The claimant’s [Trump’s] actions in this regard were truly shocking and arguably constitute one of the most egregious breaches of intelligence rules and protocol by the US government in recent times.”
The statement was released a day after a hearing at the high court, the result of which will determine whether Trump can proceed with his case against Orbis, which Steele co-founded.
In his witness statement released on Monday, Trump said bringing the lawsuit against Orbis was “the only way that I can fully demonstrate the total inaccuracies of the personal data in the dossier”. The dossier was published by BuzzFeed in 2017 but Trump accepts Orbis was not legally responsible for this and is suing over the company’s dissemination of it to three individuals.
Orbis, which is seeking to have the claim struck out before it goes to trial, argues it has been brought too late and for the “illegitimate” purpose “of harassing Orbis and Mr Steele and pursuing longstanding grievances”.
In his witness statement, Steele suggested Trump’s discovery of Steele’s friendship with Trump’s daughter Ivanka had damaged their father-daughter relationship, “deepened his animus towards me, and [it] is one of the reasons for his vindictive and vexatious conduct towards me and Orbis”.
In his witness statement, Trump said Ivanka was “completely irrelevant” to the case, adding: “Any inference or allegation that Mr Steele makes about my relationship with my daughter is untrue and disgraceful.”
Orbis also argues that any damage to Trump was done by the BuzzFeed publication, for which it was not responsible, and highlights that Trump’s declassification of the Mueller investigation records led “to further public consideration of its [the dossier’s] contents”.
Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election made clear that the Trump campaign was “receptive” to offers of assistance from the Russians but it did not find evidence of a criminal conspiracy.
The judge’s decision on whether Trump’s case against Orbis can go to trial will be made at a later date.
