WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – Russians included on a political consulting firm’s report on President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign can’t sue the firm for defamation, a District of Columbia court has ruled.
On June 18, the D.C. Court of Appeals granted the Anti-SLAPP motion of Orbis Business Intelligence Limited. Anti-SLAPP laws allow defendants to fight lawsuits by claiming their conduct was protected speech.
Orbis and Christopher Steele conducted opposition research in 2016 in both the primary and general elections. They compiled the results of an investigation into Russian interference into Company Intelligent Reports that became known as the “Steele Dossier.”
Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan – owners of a Russian business conglomerate known as “Alfa” – claimed they were defamed in the dossier. It said Alfa and the men were giving informal advice to Russian President Vladimir Putin and had a close relationship that included “significant” favors being exchanged.
The source Steele used to gather this information was unnamed. Media coverage of the dossier followed its publishing on Oct. 31, 2016.
In 2018, the three men of Alfa filed suit that claimed Steele “did not know the unverified, anonymous, inherently harmful accusations” to be true.
The trial judge granted Steele’s Anti-SLAPP motion, finding the “First Amendment protects not only statements of pure opinion but also statements of fact and of opinions that imply or rely on provably false facts, unless the plaintiff proves that the statements are false and that the defendant’s fault in publishing the statements met the requisite standard.”
The judge found the Alfa plaintiffs were public figures and failed to prove Steele acted with actual malice, a requirement in defamation lawsuits.
“Appellants have identified nothing in the record to suggest that Steele learned the information he published through an anonymous tipster,” Court of Appeals Judge John Fisher wrote.
“Nor have appellants identified anything showing that Steele did not test the veracity of the intelligence he gained, assuming that it did derive from a source unknown to him.”