Former British spy Christopher Steele told a London court that former President Donald Trump's decision to declassify his evidence led to the disappearances of two Russian sources, according to court documents made public Tuesday.
Trump's declassification of Steele's 2017 testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation was "one of the most egregious breaches of intelligence rules and protocol by the US government in recent times," Steele said in a witness statement, per Reuters. "Two of the named Russian sources have not been seen or heard of since," he added.
The public release of Steele's witness statement came the day after the former president asked London's High Court to permit his data protection lawsuit against the British private investigations firm Steele co-founded to continue. Trump is suing the Orbis Business Intelligence over the "Steele dossier" in order, according to his own witness statement, to prove its allegations false.
The file, published by Buzzfeed News in January 2017, claimed that Trump's campaign had ties with Russia and alleged that Trump engaged in sexual behavior that provided Russian authorities with material they could use to blackmail him. Many of the claims were never corroborated and attorneys for the former president said in court filings the report was "egregiously inaccurate" while Trump said the dossier consisted of "numerous false, phoney or made-up allegations."
Steele's firm, however, said Trump is bringing the suit merely to air his grievances against the company and the former spy.
As part of Mueller's probe into an alleged conspiracy between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, Steele had provided evidence in an interview with two FBI agents. The special counsel concluded in 2019 that there was not enough evidence to charge anyone on Trump's campaign related to the alleged conspiracy between the campaign and Russia. Trump, on the last day of his presidency, declassified Steele's evidence and gave a copy of his testimony to a reporter, Steele said in his statement.
"The publication of this document did serious damage to the U.S. government's Russian operations and their ability to recruit new Russian sources," Steele said in the latest witness statement, adding that he believed Trump was "motivated by a personal vendetta against me and Orbis and a desire for revenge."
He also suggested that the former president discovering Steele's friendship with Trump's daughter, Ivanka, had damaged their relationship, "deepened his animus towards me and is one of the reasons for his vindictive and vexatious conduct towards me and Orbis."
Trump said in his witness statement that Ivanka was "completely irrelevant to this claim and any mention of her only serves to distract this court from [Orbis'] and Mr Steele's reckless behavior."
"Any inference or allegation that Mr Steele makes about my relationship with my daughter is untrue and disgraceful," the former president added.
Trump had previously filed a lawsuit in the U.S against Steele — as well as Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee — claiming he was part of a plot to circulate false information about Trump's relationship with Russia. A federal judge in Florida, however, dismissed that suit last year. The former originally filed the London-based suit last November.
