A high court judge in London dismissed former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over the “Steele dossier” that made salacious and unsubstantiated claims about the ex-president and caused a political firestorm when it was leaked in 2017.
Mr. Trump had sued a former British spy over the “shocking and scandalous claims” but Judge Karen Steyn dismissed the suit.
She concluded the statute of limitations had run out on the lawsuit against Orbis Business Intelligence, a company founded by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who compiled the material in the dossier.
The dossier was made public, published by BuzzFeed, just before Mr. Trump’s inauguration in 2017. Mr. Trump waited too long to file his lawsuit, according to the court, and the statute of limitations ran out after six years.
“There are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial,” the judge said.
The dossier included salacious claims involving sex workers in Moscow and bribery schemes with Russian businessmen. The claims were never substantiated.
Mr. Trump furiously denied the dossier’s contents, calling them “wholly untrue,” and he eventually took legal action.
The court said it could not “consider or determine the accuracy or inaccuracy of the memoranda,” but the claim fell beyond a six-year statute of limitations, according to The Guardian.
Mr. Steele had argued his dossier research was compiled for Democrats to use against their political opponent and wasn’t intended to be made public.
• This article includes wire service reports.