Donald Trump’s road to November’s election is getting rockier by the day. After his guilty verdict in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, his potential departure to jail is still in question. Just when he was dealing with this new blow, claims of his racist behaviour on The Apprentice have resurfaced.
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And looks like that isn’t enough. The former POTUS is understood to be in trouble again but this time in the UK. Reportedly, he has failed to pay a former spy £300K after losing a court battle against him.
Donald Trump fails to pay £300K legal costs to former MI6 spy
The 77-year-old has failed to comply with a UK High Court order that instructed him to pay £300,000 in legal costs to former spy, Christopher Steele. The former MI6 agent compiled a dossier alleging Russian interference in the 2016 US election. The largely discredited dossier was commissioned by Trump's political opponents including Hillary Clinton's Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). They hired the former British intelligence officer Steele to carry out the research in 2016.
According to Newsweek, it contained unverified intelligence reports about Trump’s relationship with Russia. Many Russian experts have dismissed it. Trump sued Steele’s company Orbis Business Intelligence and lost the case in London High Court earlier this year. The court ordered him to pay an initial £300,000 ($381,000) in legal fees, which the GOP leader is in breach of. Taking to X (formerly Twitter) Steele wrote on Friday:
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.
Trump - who may also have to face international travel restrictions after his historic conviction - did pay £10,000 to the court as security against costs ahead of the hearing on a Judge’s order. This amount was transferred to Steele in February.
Christopher Steele reveals Trump’s breach of UK court order
Despite Trump owning assets in the UK, Steele cannot obtain his money through them. Trump’s extensive British assets also include the Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire, Scotland but it is owned by a Trump Organization subsidiary. Steele told Sky News:
The fact is we were awarded a £300,000 initial cost order in February, which was confirmed when his right of appeal was turned down at the end of March. And so he's been in breach of that order for two months now.
Cost is the key issue in all litigation, and particularly in what we call lawfare, which we think this is. It is an attempt to take vengeance against us or to keep us quiet.
Steele claimed that Trump is intentionally trying to ‘put off’ a lot of his legal cases until what he thinks would be his re-election in November so that he can then ‘tell us all to go and jump, basically.’ If Trump doesn’t settle, Steele’s only option would seek repayment in the US - which would incur more costs.
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Sources used:
Newsweek: Donald Trump 'Faces Enforcement' for Failing to Pay Legal Costs
Sky News: Donald Trump in breach of £300,000 legal costs ruling after losing UK dossier case against former MI6 spy
