Donald Trump in breach of £300,000 legal costs ruling after losing UK dossier case against former MI6 spy
Donald Trump is in breach of a British High Court order to pay £300,000 in legal costs to the former spy who compiled a salacious dossier alleging Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
Sky News can reveal Trump has failed to comply with the costs order and thus far ignored a formal offer to settle with Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who compiled the infamous document.
Trump was ordered to pay costs in February after the High Court threw out his attempt to sue Mr Steele’s company Orbis Business Intelligence.
The former president claimed the report, which included unsubstantiated allegations of bribery and that he used sex workers while on a trip to Moscow, contained inaccuracies and breached his rights under the Data Protection Act.
The judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, did not make any judgment on the allegations but ruled the claim was invalid because it was filed after the six-year limitation period. Trump was subsequently also denied leave to appeal.
On the judge’s order, Trump did pay £10,000 to the court as security against costs ahead of the hearing, which was transferred to Mr Steele in February.
In March, Orbis made a formal offer to settle using the civil court Part 36 procedure, but Trump’s lawyers have not responded.
“The fact is we were awarded a £300,000 initial cost order in February, which was confirmed when his right of appeal was turned down at the end of March. And so he’s been in breach of that order for two months now,” Mr Steele told Sky News.
“Cost is the key issue in all litigation, and particularly in what we call lawfare, which we think this is. It is an attempt to take vengeance against us or to keep us quiet,” he said.
Christopher Steele leaving court in February
Mr Steele, a former head of MI6’s Russia desk, was commissioned to produce the document by Trump’s political opponents including Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Party.
It collated what he says was a “running commentary” on the Russian view of Trump and the election campaign, drawn from multiple intelligence sources.
Much of the information in the dossier was unverified and Mr Steele says it was never intended for publication.
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Following the election it was leaked to the media by a conservative politician with whom it had been shared. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations.
“We stand by the sources we were running and the work we did and the way we handled it,” Mr Steele said. “It’s important to underline that it wasn’t meant for publication. It was leaked by an American Republican who we’d entrusted with it without our permission or our knowledge, and we’ve been involved in litigation as a result ever since.”
The revelation that Trump is in breach of a UK court order comes after he became the first US president to be convicted of a felony. He was found guilty of charges relating to hush money paid to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels last week.
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Voters react over Trump conviction
He is appealing that verdict and faces three other live legal proceedings in the US in the build-up to November’s election.
Were he to be elected, it raises the prospect of his returning to the UK as president in defiance of a British court.
Mr Steele says he has no means of recouping his costs from UK assets owned by Trump, because the golf courses that bear his name in Scotland are held in trust structures.
If Trump does not settle, Mr Steele’s only option would be to seek repayment in the US, incurring further costs.
“We’re talking about perhaps the next president of the US here, who is running for office and claims to love and respect the UK, and in fact is treating our legal system with contempt,” he said.
“I think he’s trying to put off a lot of these legal cases and these fines and these costs until after what he thinks will be his re-election in November, in which case he will just tell us all to go and jump, basically.”
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Trump’s press secretary and his private office failed to respond to Sky News’ request for comment.
Following the initial judgment, a spokesman for the former president told the BBC he would “continue to fight for the truth and against falsehoods such as the ones promulgated by Steele and his cohorts”.
“The High Court in London has found that there was not even an attempt by Christopher Steele, or his group, to justify or try to prove, which they absolutely cannot, their false and defamatory allegations in the fake ‘dossier,” he added.
The man accused of killing right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk has appeared in person at court for the first time.
Tyler Robinson, 22, from Utah, is charged with aggravated murder in relation to the shooting of Kirk on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem.
Charlie Kirk pictured in December 2024. Pic: Reuters
Video of the incident showed Kirk, 31, and a staunch ally of Donald Trump, reaching up with his right hand after a gunshot was heard as blood came out from the left side of his neck. He died shortly after.
Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty.
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How the Charlie Kirk shooting unfolded
On Wednesday’s appearance at Fourth District Court in Provo, Utah, Robinson arrived in court with restraints on his wrists and ankles and wearing a dress shirt, tie and slacks.
Read more: What we can learn about suspect from charging document
According to the Associated Press, he smiled at family members sitting in the front row of the courtroom, where his mother teared up and wiped her eyes with a tissue.
He made previous court appearances via video or audio feed from jail.
Pic: AP
The shooting happened during Kirk’s “prove me wrong” series, which saw the father of two visit campuses and debate contentious subjects; in this case, he was discussing mass shootings.
Prosecutors say the bullet which struck Kirk’s neck “passed closely to several other individuals”, including the person questioning him as part of the event.
President Trump comforts Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika at his memorial service in Arizona in September. Pic: Reuters
A charging document about Robinson from September includes incriminating texts sent between the alleged shooter and his roommate after Kirk’s death.
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Judge Tony Graf also heard arguments on Wednesday about whether cameras and media should be allowed in the courtroom, with Robinson’s lawyers and the Utah County Sheriff’s Office asking for them to be banned.
Mr Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, has called for full transparency and said “we deserve to have cameras in there”.
The judge has already made allowances to protect Robinson’s presumption of innocence before a trial, agreeing that the case has drawn “extraordinary” public attention
US
US won’t ‘stand by and watch sanctioned vessels’, warns White House after tanker seized off Venezuela
The US will not “stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas”, the White House has warned, after American forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters she would not speak about future ship seizures, but said the US would continue to follow Donald Trump‘s sanction policies.
“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world,” she said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt briefing the media. Pic: Reuters
The US is gearing up to intercept more ships, six sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
One source said several more sanctioned tankers had been identified by the US for potential seizure.
Two of the people said the US Justice Department and Homeland Security had been planning the seizures for months.
American forces were monitoring vessels in Venezuelan ports and waiting for them to sail into international waters before taking action, one source added.
It comes after a crude oil tanker, named Skipper, on Wednesday was stormed by US forces executing a seizure warrant.
The ship left Venezuela’s main oil port of Jose between 4 and 5 December after loading about 1.1 million barrels of oil, according to satellite information analysed by TankerTrackers.com and internal shipping data from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
A still from a video of US forces seizing a Venezuelan oil tanker, posted by Pam Bondi. Pic: X/@AGPamBondi
The real reason for Donald Trump’s Venezuela exploits
Donald Trump wants you to know that there is one leading reason why he is bearing down militarily on Venezuela: drugs.
It is, he has said repeatedly, that country’s part in the production and smuggling of illegal narcotics into America that lies behind the ratcheting up of forces in the Caribbean in recent weeks. But what if there’s something else going on here too? What if this is really all about oil?
In one respect this is clearly preposterous. After all, the United States is, by a country mile, the world’s biggest oil producer. Venezuela is a comparative minnow these days, the 21st biggest producer in the world, its output having been depressed under the Chavez and then Maduro regimes. Why should America care about Venezuelan oil?
For the answer, one needs to spend a moment – strange as this will sound – contemplating the chemistry of oil…
US attorney general Pam Bondi said on X, formerly Twitter, that the ship was “used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran”.
“For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organisations,” she added.
Ms Leavitt said that “the United States does intend to get the oil” that was onboard the vessel.
The government in Caracas, led by President Nicolas Maduro, branded the ship’s seizure a “blatant theft” and an “act of international piracy”.
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The US has been ramping up the pressure on Mr Maduro and is reportedly considering trying to oust him. It has piled on sanctions, carried out a military build-up in the southern Caribbean, and launched attacks on suspected drug vessels from Venezuela.
Now America has issued new sanctions targeting Franqui Flores, Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, and Carlos Erik Malpica Flores – three nephews of Mr Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores – as well as on six crude oil tankers and six shipping companies linked to them.
Skipper. Credit: TankerTrackers
By seizing oil tankers, the US is threatening Mr Maduro’s government’s main revenue source – oil exports.
The sources said the US was focusing on what’s been called the shadow fleet – tankers transporting sanctioned oil to China, the biggest buyer of crude from Venezuela and Iran.
They said one shipper had already temporarily suspended three voyages transporting six million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil.
“The cargoes were just loaded and were about to start sailing to Asia,” a source said.
“Now the voyages are cancelled and tankers are waiting off the Venezuelan coast as it’s safer to do that.”
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