BuzzFeed Is Fighting Back in Lawsuit Over Trump’s “Pee Tape”
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BuzzFeed, the online publication that first told you which type of sandwich best describes your personality, has been gathering information over the last six months to verify some of the “pee tape” dossier allegations the publication made against Donald Trump. The investigation, led by former FBI and White House cybersecurity official Anthony Ferrante, arose after Russian technology executive Aleksej Gubarev sued the website for libel, claiming that they were reckless in publishing the series of memos written by British spy Christopher Steele.
BuzzFeed was the first outlet to publish the dossier, which included allegations that Russia has a sex tape of the president. Last year, The Washington Post revealed that part of the research leading to this dossier was paid for by then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the DNC. BuzzFeed hired Ferrante, who left the White House in 2017 after overseeing the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, landing at FTI Consulting, where he was given the task of verifying the dossier. The 35-page document written by Steele included unverified claims that the servers belonging to a company owned by Gubarev were used to hack the Democratic party’s computer system during the 2016 election.
Evan Fray-Witzer, a lawyer for Gubarev, strongly denies those allegations, mocking BuzzFeed in a statement to Foreign Policy, saying: “They can hire Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, or Sherlock Holmes—you can’t find what doesn’t exist.” Fray-Witzer continues his written statement to FP, saying, “There is a simple reason why BuzzFeed hasn’t found any evidence to support the allegations in the Dossier against Mr. Gubarev: the allegations are false.”