LONDON — A British judge on Thursday ordered U.S. President Donald Trump to pay more than 625,000 pounds (US$820,000) in legal costs to a company he unsuccessfully sued over a dossier alleging he took part in sex acts in Russia.
Trump filed a claim in 2022 against Orbis Business Intelligence, a consulting firm founded by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.
Steele was paid by Democrats to compile a 2016 dossier that contained rumors and uncorroborated allegations that caused a political storm just before Trump’s first inauguration.
It said that Trump had been “compromised” by Russia’s security service, and included two memos that claimed Trump had taken part in “sex parties” in St. Petersburg and consorted with sex workers in Moscow.
Trump denies all the allegations. His lawyers said the “shocking and scandalous claims” were false and harmed his reputation.
He sued the company, saying the dossier was phony and Orbis had violated British data protection laws.
In a written witness statement, Trump said the allegations were “wholly untrue.”
Trump said he had not engaged in “perverted sexual behavior including the hiring of prostitutes … in the presidential suite of a hotel in Moscow,” taken part in “sex parties” in St. Petersburg, bribed Russian officials, or provided them with “sufficient material to blackmail me.”
Judge Karen Steyn threw out the case in February 2024, without ruling on the truth of the allegations. She said the claim was “bound to fail,” in part because Trump had waited several years to bring the action.
Steyn ordered Trump to pay Orbis’s costs, which lawyers for the president alleged had been set “absolutely outrageously high.”
After Trump failed to pay the first instalment of 290,000 pounds, a hearing was held earlier this year without him to decide the full bill.
Judge Jason Rowley said Thursday that the president must pay 626,058.98 pounds, with interest accruing daily at 12%.
