Donald Trump has failed to pay a £300,000 legal bill for a former MI6 spy he attempted to sue over Kremlin sex tape allegations, it was claimed yesterday.
The former US president has allegedly breached a High Court order that he should pay the legal costs of Christopher Steele, following a failed legal action over allegations that the Kremlin had a sex tape of him with a prostitute.
Mr Trump, 77, launched legal action over a dossier compiled by Mr Steele which claimed he hired prostitutes and ‘engaged in perverted sexual behaviour’ in Moscow, and took part in sex parties in St Petersburg.
But a High Court judge ruled his attempt to sue Mr Steele’s consultancy firm Orbis Business Intelligence was ‘bound to fail’ and dismissed his claim, and ordered he should pay legal costs.
Mr Steele, a former head of MI6’s Russia desk, said Mr Trump had failed to pay and was in breach of the judge’s order.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, he said the Republican frontrunner in this year’s US presidential election race could face ‘enforcement’ if he travelled to Britain.
He said: ‘Earlier this year, when he lost his English High Court case against us, the judge ordered Donald Trump to pay Orbis an initial £300k in costs.
‘Trump, who claims to respect the UK, has now been in breach of this order for two months and faces enforcement if he travels here again.’ Mr Steele told Sky News he had only received £10,000 so far, which Mr Trump paid to the court ahead of the hearing as a security against costs, and claimed his conduct was ‘an attempt to take vengeance against us or to keep us quiet’.
He said he had no means of recouping his costs from Mr Trump’s UK assets, because his golf courses in Scotland were held in trust structures.
He added: ‘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.
‘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.’
Last week Mr Trump became the first US president to be convicted of a felony, when he was found guilty of charges relating to hush money paid to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels. He is appealing that verdict.
His office did not respond to a request for comment.
He has previously vehemently denied the allegations in the Orbis dossier and said it contained ‘numerous false, phony or made-up allegations’.
He attempted to sue Orbis using data protection laws but the High Court ruled his case was invalid because it was brought too late, without making any finding over his claims the file contained false information. He was subsequently denied leave to appeal.
Much of the information in the dossier was unverified and Mr Steele said it was never intended for publication, and was leaked to the website Buzzfeed without his knowledge or permission.