After U.S. courts and jurors decided and ruled a close to a half-billion dollar blow to former President Donald Trump, a judge in the United Kingdom has ordered him to pay the six-figure legal costs of a company he sued over alleged claims of “perverted” sex acts and bribes to Russian officials.
A London judge, who threw out the case against Orbis Business Intelligence last month saying it was “bound to fail,” ordered Trump to pay legal fees of 300,000 pounds ($382,000), according to court documents released Thursday.
Orbis was founded by Christopher Steele, who once ran the Russia desk for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6.
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Steele was paid by Democrats for research that included salacious allegations Russians could potentially use to blackmail Trump. The so-called Steele dossier assembled in 2016 created a political storm just before Trump’s inauguration with rumors and uncorroborated allegations that have since been largely discredited.
Attorney Hugh Tomlinson said at an October hearing that the former president “suffered personal and reputational damage and distress” over claims in the dossier that he’d taken part in “sex parties” in St. Petersburg and consorted with sex workers in Moscow.
Tomlinson said the dossier “contained shocking and scandalous claims about the personal conduct of President Trump” and included allegations he paid bribes to Russian officials to further his business interests.
Orbis said the lawsuit should be thrown out because the report was never meant to be made public and was published by BuzzFeed without the permission of Steele or Orbis.
Judge Karen Steyn, who sided with Orbis in her Feb. 1 ruling, issued an order several days later on the legal costs.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Matt Arco may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco.
