Trump Lawyer Files Defamation Suit Against Buzzfeed, Fusion GPS Over Dossier
“Enough is enough of the fake Russian Dossier.”
Michael Cohen, the personal attorney for President Donald Trump, has filed two defamation lawsuits over the dossier against then-candidate Trump.
He filed the suit against Fusion GPS, which produced the dossier, in federal court and filed the suit against Buzzfeed, which published the dossier in January 2017, in state court.
Enough is enough of the #fake #RussianDossier. Just filed a defamation action against @BuzzFeedNews for publishing the lie filled document on @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and me!
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) January 10, 2018
From ABC News:
In both suits, Cohen claims that the infamous dossier of salacious but unconfirmed allegations of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russian agents compiled by Fusion GPS and later published by BuzzFeed contained “false and defamatory” allegations that resulted in “harm to his personal and professional reputation, current business interests, and the impairment of business opportunities.”
According to the federal complaint, Fusion GPS, co-founded by former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson, “recklessly placed [the dossier] beyond their control and allowed it to fall into the hands of media devoted to breaking news on the hottest subject of the day: the Trump candidacy.”
Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed, wrote in an op-ed of The New York Times the pride he still feels for publishing the dossier one year later:
Our choice to publish the dossier was greeted by outrage from two sources. Journalistic traditionalists didn’t like the idea of sharing an unfiltered, unverified document with the public, whatever the caveats and context. NBC’s Chuck Todd told me on air, “You just published fake news.” Mr. Trump agreed. He described CNN’s reporting on the dossier as “fake news” and called BuzzFeed a “failing pile of garbage.”
But a year of government inquiries and blockbuster journalism has made clear that the dossier is unquestionably real news. That’s a fact that has been tacitly acknowledged even by those who opposed our decision to publish. It has helped journalists explain to their audience the investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 election. And Mr. Trump and his allies have seized on the dossier in their efforts to discredit the special counsel leading the investigation, Robert Mueller.
Without the dossier, Americans would have found it difficult to understand the actions of their elected representatives and government officials. Their posture toward Mr. Trump was, we now know even more comprehensively than we did in January 2017, shaped by Mr. Steele’s report. The Russia investigation, meanwhile, didn’t turn out to be some minor side story but instead the central challenge to Mr. Trump’s presidency.
Well, actually, Chuck Todd and other journalists who lashed out against BuzzFeed may be correct. I blogged before that even former FBI Director James Comey told Congress that the dossier was filled with “salacious and unverified” allegations against Trump and those who work with him.
Back in November, Byron York reminded everyone that the FBI has not verified the information in the 35 page dossier. The House Intelligence Committee has become frustrated by testimony from FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe since he did not provide them with more information on the dossier and contradicted testimony of former witnesses.
McCabe told the panel that the FBI worked hard “to verify the contents of the anti-Trump ‘dossier’ and stood by its credibility.” However, he could not tell the lawmakers if “the bureaur has been able to verify the substantive allegations in the dossier, or even identify a substantive allegation that has been corroborated.”
The lawmakers asked him which part of the dossier was true and McCabe only pointed to the part “that the unpaid, low-level Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page visited Moscow in July 2016.”
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Comments
Well, Trump always said he wanted tougher defamation laws. The sort of informal smear campaigns we’ve seen in recent years (including Roy Moore) say that he’s right.
What says the Trump is right? Shouldn’t you, at least, wait until the suit reaches its conclusion before you reach your conclusion.
BTW, I guess Ted Cruz’s father was part of the Kennedy Assassination or was that defamation?
BTW, I guess you are FOS and a commie hack.
No, your an undercover commie hiding your affiliation by accusing others.
“…shouldn’t you wait…”
Unlike you, I don’t need to be given my opinion from a list of talking points. Smear campaigns are bad; they are bad because they aren’t designed to reach the truth, and in fact are usually designed to cloud it.
So was Ted Cruz’s father a conspirator in JFK assassination? Did Trump say he was? Was the purpose of that accusation to expose some truth or to smear another candidate.
FYI, I have not given or taken my ‘talking points’. But lets assume I have been. Don’t you think that if I was given points they would be very good ones? Why don’t you deal with the points instead of engaging in an ad hominem attack?
I guess you would if you could – but you can’t.
Discovery. Could be interesting.
Buzzfeed was sure that the FBI would back them up – they probably even believed some of the stories, because they wanted to. Now everyone is disavowing the details, and Buzzfeed is left holding the bag – at least for the public dissemination of it.
Remember how Gawker turned out? And right up until the last day, Gawker’s founder was full of bluster and “Confidence” that they were going to win the case.
Rolling Stone has ended up making some big payouts over their fake rape story, too – hurt them a lot more that they like to let on.
btw, as to the only publicly confirmed “fact” in the Dossier, that Carter Page traveled to Moscow – he told multiple people publicly that he was going, and what his plans were, months before this dossier was even put together. That part was never a secret from anyone.
When fighting a war and the front has become stagnant … open another one. Not necessarily a decisive battlefield, but one with room for maneuver.
Huh. The article talks about everything that was learned about the dossier since they published but forgot to mention we learned who paid for it.
Yes. The Obama/Clinton/DNC axis denied the Democrat nomination to the Jew. Everyone knows, everyone knew that the axis is rabidly diverse. The cover-up will hide, change nothing. Black, feminist, Jew, in order of Democrat leverage. It’s time to move on.
Ben Smith of Buzz feed wrote, “But a year of government inquiries and blockbuster journalism has made clear that the dossier is unquestionably real news.” No Ben, it shows the power of the media to manipulate and create an agenda. Most of us were already aware of that power.
“But a year of government inquiries and blockbuster journalism has made clear that the dossier is unquestionably real news.”
Major gossip rags can also claim blockbuster jourNOlism, so yes, the dossier is real news, but I think the contents of the dossier being real is open to question. That question has been asked for the last year, without resultant corroboration.
“…but I think the contents of the dossier being real is open to question.”
No, they most clearly are not. No question at all.
I wonder if Trump will like the precedent. If he can sue for libel or defamation, then he can be sued by Summer Zervos and the others who Trump called liars.
I cannot see how he could possibly argue that he can sue while he is president, but he is immune to being sued. I don’t think it will take long for Summer’s lawyers to catch on to that.
I wonder if you were born insane. Or is it the result of drug use?
Let me make this very, very simple for you.
If Trump can sue on a personal matter, then he an be sued. QED
Got it.
Born, then drugs.
I have not read ANY news reports on this, but the LI article says that COHEN filed these two lawsuits. There is NO MENTION whatsoever of any lawsuit being filed by the President.
Little bit of reading comprehension trouble, people?
Speaking of libel and that sort of thing:
Can any Dem (how ’bout it,snake?)enlighten me
as to the progress Allred is making in her
quest to slay Roy Moore?
Or did things get sort of quiet there, since after all, the immediate goal had been reached, so they decided to quit while they were ahead?