The Trump-Russia scandal has reached critical mass.
The investigation is about to explode.
And one lawsuit could be the key to everything.
The allegations of collusion between Trump and Russia reached a fever pitch in the media when Buzzfeed published an opposition research memo put together by ex-British MI6 agent Christopher Steele.
Steele’s document contained explosive allegations of meetings between Trump officials and Russian intelligence agents and that the Russian government possessed compromising information on Trump.
The media was whipped into a frenzy that evidence existed proving Trump was a Russian agent.
But it was fake news.
Steele’s document contained easily verifiable information and it turned out to contain multiple false allegations.
Some of the people named in the document Buzzfeed published filed a lawsuit against the outlet.
Russian technology executive Alexi Gubarev filed a libel suit after Buzzfeed published an unredacted version of the Steele memo that named him as someone involved with alleged Russian hacking efforts during the 2016 election.
Buzzfeed has subpoenaed the FBI, CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence about how those agencies distributed and treated the Steele memo.
Politico reports:
“The subpoenas seek information about the existence and scope of the federal government’s investigation into the dossier, initially compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. The requests for documents say the information could bolster BuzzFeed’s claim that publication of the document was protected by the fair report privilege, which can immunize reports based on official government records.
A spokesman for BuzzFeed News, Matt Mittenthal, confirmed that the media outlet is seeking to use the court process to nail down details of when and to whom information on the dossier was distributed.
“As part of the discovery process, we have subpoenaed key federal agencies for evidence that the dossier was circulating at the highest levels of government, and therefore clearly in the public interest,” Mittenthal said.
BuzzFeed also subpoenaed several individuals, although the details of those requests were not immediately available.”
Buzzfeed’s subpoena could reveal just how important the Steele memo was in the FBI’s decision to launch an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The FBI has been stonewalling Congress on answering questions about the document including if they paid Steele for his work.
Buzzfeed – which kicked off the collusion hysteria – could ironically be the media outlet to put it to rest.
Their subpoena could finally shed light on how the intelligence community used fake news to launch a witch hunt into President Trump.