Donald Trump will have to pay at least £300,000 in legal costs to the company of a former British spy, against whom he initiated proceedings after the publication of a controversial report, according to a court decision made public on Thursday in London.
• Read also: The Supreme Court will debate on April 25 the criminal immunity invoked by Trump
• Read also: Donald Trump expresses support for Israel in its war in Gaza
• Read also: Trump cannot be excluded from the vote, rules the Supreme Court
A report by ex-spy Christopher Steele on Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia caused a political storm in 2017.
The former president, again a candidate for the American presidential election in 2024, had seized the High Court in London in the name of the data protection law concerning this document, which compiled unverified raw information and notably mentioned a supposed video to sexual character.
He had brought this action against the private intelligence company of the former agent of the British intelligence service MI6, Orbis Business Intelligence, and claimed compensation for moral damage.
But on February 1, the British courts rejected the prosecution brought by Donald Trump.
In a decision obtained Thursday by the British agency PA, the judge of the British High Court indicated that Donald Trump should pay Orbis’ legal costs “for the entire complaint”. The ex-spy’s company estimated these costs at more than 600,000 pounds sterling (703,670 euros), according to the judge.
She ordered the payment of 300,000 pounds sterling (351,860 euros) by Mr Trump, pending a specialist judge deciding the total amount of costs.
Commissioned by the Democratic camp during the campaign for the 2016 American election, Christopher Steele compiled raw, unverified intelligence linking Donald Trump to Russia.
The report suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “supported and directed” an operation to “boost” Donald Trump’s US presidential bid for “at least five years”.
Some of his findings fueled the investigation by US Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, who after two years on the matter concluded that there was evidence of Russian interference in the election campaign, but not of collusion with the team. by Donald Trump.
If the former American president recognized that Orbis was not responsible for the publication of the report, distributed without the company’s knowledge, he considered that it had “processed” the data contained in the document.
