Christopher Steele accuses Trump of making ‘false claims' about him

President included former MI6 officer among targets of his rambling and angry post-acquittal speech

A lawsuit against 'Steele dossier' author Christopher Steele has been thrown out by a US judge (CBSN)

Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer, who produced the report into Donald Trump’s Kremlin connections, has accused the US president of making false claims about the veracity of the document and exaggerating how much his company was paid for it.

Mr Trump renewed his attack on the “fake” dossier during a rambling, angry and vulgar speech following his expected acquittal on impeachment charges by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Throwing insults at his political enemies such as Democrats Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, as well as the head of FBI James Comey who he had fired, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller who investigated him, the president complained of being persecuted by “evil” people.

Mr Trump followed up by claiming that the Democrats had paid “millions” for the Steele report. He had previously said the fee had been as much as “$12 million.”

The Washington-based firm, Fusion GPS, told Congress that they had paid a total of $168,000 more than two years ago.

Mr Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence, tweeted on Friday, “Yesterday @realDonaldTrump made false claims about us. He wildly exaggerated our fees and, contrary to his claims, we have never stated any of our reporting is “fake”. We stand by the integrity of our research on Kremlin interference in the 2016 election and support for Trump.”

After a prolonged period of silence on the matter, Mr Steele and his company have been publicly defending their work. The former MI6 officer recently presented a six-point rebuttal of criticism made of the methodology of the Trump report by a US Department of Justice inspector general.