Free Republic

The depositions given by former British spy Christopher Steele and a longtime associate of John McCain must be unsealed, a federal judge said Thursday. U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro overruled the objections of both Steele and David Kramer to make the depositions public. The pair gave testimony in a lawsuit brought against BuzzFeed in December 2018 by a Russian Internet entrepreneur. The businessman, Aleksej Gubarev, was referenced in the infamous dossier compiled by Steele about President Trump’s alleged connections to Russia. Gubarev objected to BuzzFeed’s publishing of the dossier in January 2017, which accused him of using his companies...

A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ordered the release of depositions given by former British spy Christopher Steele and a longtime associate of late Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain in a lawsuit filed against BuzzFeed regarding Steele’s anti-Trump dossier. U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro overruled requests by Steele and David Kramer, the former McCain associate, to keep depositions they gave in the BuzzFeed lawsuit under seal. Ungaro dismissed a lawsuit filed against BuzzFeed on Dec. 19, 2018, by Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian businessman accused in the dossier of using his companies to hack into DNC computers.

A federal judge on Wednesday revealed just how widely Christopher Steele distributed his infamous anti-Trump dossier. Rep. Adam Kinzinger and Paul Ryan chief of staff Jonathan Burks received Steele’s reports in December 2016, before BuzzFeed would publish the dossier in full. Court documents say that Steele gave the dossier materials to Kinzinger and Burks, though Paul Ryan’s office claims that Burks has never met Steele and did not receive documents directly from the former British spy. A Republican lawmaker and the chief of staff to House Speaker Paul Ryan were early recipients of the infamous Steele dossier, according to a...

A longtime associate of late Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain provided a copy of the infamous Steele dossier to BuzzFeed News, according to an explosive court filing released Wednesday. David Kramer, a former State Department official who was an executive at the McCain Institute, met on Dec. 29, 2016 with BuzzFeed reporter Ken Bensinger, according to a filing submitted Wednesday by U.S. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro. BuzzFeed published the dossier, which was authored by former British spy Christopher Steele, on Jan. 10, 2017. The disclosure was made as part of a final report ahead of Ungaro’s ruling in favor...