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Is the Steele Dossier About to Have Its Moment of Truth?
The now famous Trump-Russia dossier, filled with explosive but unverified allegations about Donald Trump and his associates, had been circulating for months among government officials and journalists before BuzzFeed decided to publish it. It was a classic Web-native move—push out all available information while legacy-news organizations fretted over accuracy. Democratize the news process, collect the traffic, and let the chips fall. But then the chips fell. BuzzFeed failed to redact the name of a Russian technology entrepreneur whom the dossier alleged to be involved in hacking the Democratic leadership. He sued for defamation. And now, as Robert Mueller and several Congressional investigations attempt to parse the validity of the dossier’s revelations, BuzzFeed is in the midst of a pair of lawsuits, one unfolding in a Florida courtroom that conjures nervous memories of Gawker’s crippling legal defeat at the hands of Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel.
BuzzFeed’s arguments in the lawsuit, broadly, mirror its argument to publish the dossier in the first place. “BuzzFeed published the dossier only after it had become the subject of official government activity in a variety of ways,” Nathan Siegel, an attorney with David Wright Tremaine LLP who is representing BuzzFeed in the case, told me. “The point was that this is something the American people have a right to know about.”
That’s what underpins the motion BuzzFeed filed this afternoon, Wednesday, September 27, which amounts to BuzzFeed’s most extensive argument to date in favor of publishing the dossier. Most notably, it names and argues to depose former F.B.I. Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as two of the people believed to have been in possession of the dossier, which was commissioned by the Washington-based intel firm Fusion GPS and put together by former British spy Christopher Steele. The motion, which was shared with Vanity Fair, seeks “very limited testimony from only one or two witnesses designated by the agencies (most likely, but not necessarily Mr. Comey, and if necessary Mr. Clapper) concerning roughly ten topics covering the public statements previously made about briefings, the existence of an investigation, and merely confirming the receipt of materials from Senator McCain,” who had received the dossier last November through an intermediary. (A representative for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. Representatives for the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. did not immediately return e-mails.)
If Comey or Clapper were to testify, it would confirm under oath that the dossier was being discussed at the highest levels of government, and BuzzFeed believes it would therefore have a rock-solid case. “BuzzFeed simply wants to ask the government to confirm some basic facts, about what it was doing with the dossier, that are not really different from what has been widely reported,” Siegel said in a brief phone interview. “What we are asking for is to provide, under oath, the same kind of information that has been widely reported not under oath.”
BuzzFeed’s arguments in the lawsuit, broadly, mirror its argument to publish the dossier in the first place. “BuzzFeed published the dossier only after it had become the subject of official government activity in a variety of ways,” Nathan Siegel, an attorney with David Wright Tremaine LLP who is representing BuzzFeed in the case, told me. “The point was that this is something the American people have a right to know about.”
That’s what underpins the motion BuzzFeed filed this afternoon, Wednesday, September 27, which amounts to BuzzFeed’s most extensive argument to date in favor of publishing the dossier. Most notably, it names and argues to depose former F.B.I. Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as two of the people believed to have been in possession of the dossier, which was commissioned by the Washington-based intel firm Fusion GPS and put together by former British spy Christopher Steele. The motion, which was shared with Vanity Fair, seeks “very limited testimony from only one or two witnesses designated by the agencies (most likely, but not necessarily Mr. Comey, and if necessary Mr. Clapper) concerning roughly ten topics covering the public statements previously made about briefings, the existence of an investigation, and merely confirming the receipt of materials from Senator McCain,” who had received the dossier last November through an intermediary. (A representative for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. Representatives for the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. did not immediately return e-mails.)
If Comey or Clapper were to testify, it would confirm under oath that the dossier was being discussed at the highest levels of government, and BuzzFeed believes it would therefore have a rock-solid case. “BuzzFeed simply wants to ask the government to confirm some basic facts, about what it was doing with the dossier, that are not really different from what has been widely reported,” Siegel said in a brief phone interview. “What we are asking for is to provide, under oath, the same kind of information that has been widely reported not under oath.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/florida-court-the-dossier-buzzfeed/amp
