Donald Trump is losing — again. This time, it’s in foreign courts.
A U.K. judge handling appeals has “refused former President Donald Trump’s request to appeal the dismissal of his case against retired British spy Christopher Steele’s company over his controversial 2016 dossier,” as reported Friday by CNN. The Steele dossier was extensively circulated following its surprise release, spreading accusations of links between Trump, his team, and Russian interests. It infamously ferried the idea that such foreign interests held compromising materials ensnaring Trump, which, if real, could have presented a problem — via opening up avenues of pressure — during Trump’s time in the White House.
Though Steele wasn’t the one who even publicly released the dossier, Trump sued him over it anyway. But a judge has dismissed the claims, directing that Trump also cover legal costs incurred by Steele’s side including an initial chunk of £300,000, which works out to about $376,000. Additional payments are subject to future calculations in court proceedings regarding the scope of such payouts.
The U.K.’s Lord Justice Mark Warby concluded Trump’s stab at appealing the earlier rejection of his case had serious flaws like pushing arguments that he didn’t bring forth in prior proceedings. It’s generally demanded that new arguments be confined to the trial level rather than petitioners using entirely new lines of argument in appeals.
The setback — after which the Trump team seemed likely to try appealing again — is part of an extensive trend for Trump, who also lost massively when trying to bring litigation in U.S. courts that advanced his familiar claims that allegations of Russian connections were used in some nefarious scheme to undermine him. Those proceedings ended up producing nearly $1 million in financial penalties on the former president. Lawyer Alina Habba, known for her involvement in other Trump proceedings as well, was also responsible for the penalties from a case in which even Hillary Clinton was among the original targets.
