The Spygate Scandal

[Mystic Wanderer]

More justice coming to those involved with the Russia, Russia scandal.    

• A British judge ordered Christopher Steele to pay damages to Russian bankers that the former British spy accused in the infamous Trump dossier of having illicit ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
  
  
• The judge ruled that Steele’s allegations were inaccurate and that he failed to verify the information before putting it in the dossier.
  
  
• The ruling marks Steele’s first loss in a dossier-related lawsuit. Other aspects of Steele’s report have been debunked by reports from the special counsel’s office and the Justice Department’s inspector general.
  

He better get more than a slap on the wrist for his part in trying to take down a duly elected POTUS!   

A British judge on Wednesday ordered former British spy Christopher Steele to pay damages to two Russian bankers he accused in the infamous Trump dossier of having illicit ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The ruling, handed down by Sir Mark Warby, a justice on the High Court of England and Wales, marks Steele’s first loss in a dossier-related lawsuit.

Warby ordered Steele and his firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, to pay £18,000 to Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, two owners of Alfa Bank, for violating their rights under the Data Protection Act.

Fridman, Aven and a third Alfa Bank owner, German Khan, sued Steele in the British court in May 2018 alleging that he violated their rights under the Data Protection Act, a British law that grants individuals legal remedies to ensure information about them in the public domain is accurate.

The bankers sued Steele over a Sept. 14, 2016 memo that the ex-spy compiled as part of an investigation for the Clinton campaign of Donald Trump’s possible ties to the Russian government.
Steele, a former MI6 officer, alleged that the bankers made “illicit” cash payments to Putin in the 1990s, and continued to do “significant favours” for the Russian leader.

Warby determined that Steele’s allegation about illicit payments was false, and that he failed to conduct due diligence to verify the information once he received it from a source he used to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign and Russia.

Warby ruled that Steele’s allegations were “inaccurate or misleading as a matter of fact.”

“The steps taken to verify [this] proposition fell short of what would have been reasonable,” the justice also said, adding that “the allegation clearly called for closer attention, a more enquiring approach, and more energetic checking.”

“My findings are analogous to a finding of liability for libel,” Warby said.
Christopher Steele in London (VICTORIA JONES/GETTY IMAGES)

Warby emphasized Steele’s admission during cross-examination in mid-March that the dossier contained inaccurate information regarding a Russian he claimed served as the bag man for an alleged scheme between the bankers and Vladimir Putin.

Steele alleged that Oleg Govorun made the secret payments on Alfa’s behalf to Putin when he served as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg.

But the bankers’ lawyer, Hugh Tomlinson, forced Steele to concede that the allegation was inaccurate because Govorun did not start working for Alfa Bank until after Putin was no longer deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. Steele testified that he conducted a single internet search regarding Govorun before adding the information to the dossier.
“It is unclear what efforts Mr Steele made to verify this allegation, other than the one relevant internet search to which he has referred,” Warby said in his ruling. “Mr Steele’s evidence as to the single relevant internet search he undertook was unimpressive.” 

Warby determined that other allegations that Steele made in his memo about Alfa Bank did not violate the Data Protection Act.

Fridman, one of the Alfa Bank owners, celebrated Warby’s decision, saying that it confirmed that Steele’s memo about the bankers was “inaccurate and misleading.”

“Ever since these odious allegations were first made public in January, 2017 my partners and I have been resolute and unwavering in our determination to prove that they are untrue, and through this case, we have finally succeeded in doing so,” Fridman said in a statement provided to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Fridman and Aven plan to donate the damages they receive from Orbis to charity.

“This suit was never about money, it has always been about principle and truth,” said Geraldine Proudler, a lawyer for the bankers.

Oh good, there's more charges on the way.  

Steele goes to trial in another dossier-related lawsuit later this month. Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian tech executive, claims that Steele falsely accused him of using his companies to help Russian hackers steal information from Democrats in 2016.

Read much more:  Source