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A federal judge joined Buzzfeed in a defamation suit on Wednesday, saying the media had the legal right to publish the so-called Steele case.
Judge Ursula Ungaro, George H.W. A Bush appointee ruled that Buzzfeed reported a "formal process" in the publication of the case.
"[T] he has the privilege of protecting the media while gathering the information necessary to enable the public to exercise effective control over the government," Ungaro wrote in the decision.
Ungaro also felt that Buzzfeed's presentation was fair and true.
The case decided Wednesday was introduced in 2017 by the Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev, accused in the case of piracy of the Democratic National Committee.
The Steele file, formed by former British agent Christopher Steele and funded in part by opposition research to the Trump campaign, contains a number of salacious and unverified claims. Buzzfeed released the entire file with the warning issued in January 2017.
Although the court ruled against parts of Buzzfeed's defense, including stating that Gubarev was not not a public figure, the judge felt that the "privilege of good reporting" or the information provided by the newspaper The right to report on official documents or proceedings outweighs other statements of Gubarev.
"When we published Steele in 2017, we were outraged on all sides," Ben Smith, editor of Buzzfeed, said in a statement. "Today, almost two years later, a federal judge has justified our decision."
"As Judge Ungaro said in her judgment, one of the fundamental principles of First amendment is that the public has the right to know the measures taken by his government. As we have said from the beginning, a document circulating at the highest levels of the government, under active investigation by the FBI and communicated to two successive presidents, is clearly the subject of an "official action" ". has contributed to the understanding of the American people about what is happening in their country and their government, "he added.
My statement: pic.twitter.com/apt7j3BToX
– Ben Smith (@ BuzzFeedBen) 19 December 2018
The case, which has become the focus of the ongoing investigation into the links of the Trump campaign with Russia and the possible bias of the FBI and the Ministry of Justice at the launch of the investigation, detailed Russia's so-called efforts to coordinate with Trump. campaign to meddle with the 2016 presidential election. It also includes commendable details about the possible blackmail that the Russia compiled on Trump during his visits to Moscow.
Gubarev initiated the lawsuit in February 2017, claiming that his reputation and that of his companies had been damaged by what he claimed to be false allegations in the file they were involved in hacking against the Democratic Party in 2016. Buzzfeed retroactively blacked out any reference to Gubarev or his companies, but the record had already been widely shared without these changes.
The federal investigators corroborated some of the details of the case, but they have not yet been able to prove the veracity of the document in its entirety.
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