The personal lawyer of President Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, filed a defamation lawsuit against Buzzfeed News because it published a dossier containing allegations about Trump’s links to Russia, Newsweek reports.
The dossier became a key part of the investigations into the alleged Russian meddling in the American presidential election and the alleged connection between Trump and the Russians even though much of the dossier remains unverified. Cohen is featured prominently in the dossier. He is named as a person who helped facilitate communication between the Russian government and Trump campaign. According to the dossier, Trump’s personal lawyer went to Prague in August 2016 to meet with Russian officials, but Cohen has refuted the allegations.
“We have not uncovered a single document that would in any way corroborate the Dossier’s allegations regarding Mr. Cohen, nor do we believe that any such document exists. We believe the allegations are so profoundly wrong about Mr. Cohen that the dossier is libelous and any repetition of its allegations by the Committee should be rejected,” Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen Ryan, wrote in a letter to the House Intelligence Committee last August.
Meanwhile, Cohen did not address the claims made against his client, Donald Trump. The findings of the dossier, compiled by former British intelligence agent Christoper Steele on behalf of Washington-based company Fusion GPS, were handed over to the FBI, former President Barack Obama and Trump last year. Buzzfeed News had a copy of it and decided to publish it in January 2016. Ben Smith, Buzzfeed editor, defended the move.
“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,” Smith wrote for The New York Times.
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