Buzzfeed is pressing for more information regarding how the federal government managed and oversaw a dossier with scandalous allegations against President Trump.
As a result, Buzzfeed lawyers are requesting a federal court in Washington demand a group including the Justice Department, the FBI, former FBI Director James Comey, and former director of national intelligence James Clapper to answer a total of nine questions concerning how officials managed the dossier when Buzzfeed published it on January 10, according to Politico.
The questions and facts they would like clarified include whether the content of the dossier was being investigated as of Jan. 10, whether the DOJ had all the pages of the dossier that Buzzfeed published, and whether a summary of the dossier’s contents was included in material provided to President-elect Trump.
Buzzfeed filed a motion for the agencies, and Comey and Clapper to answer subpoenas issued after Russian internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev, who was mentioned in the dossier, sued the media outlet. Gubarev was mentioned in the dossier and the document discussed information the Russians allegedly were amassing in an attempt to blackmail Trump.
Gubarev said the references were false and defamatory and filed suit in February, identifying Buzzfeed and its editor-in-chief Ben Smith as the defendants.
Buzzfeed is claiming that they need the information in order to protect themselves in the libel suit, which is currently pending in a federal court in Miami.
Comey, who was fired in May by Trump, said in congressional testimony that he briefed Trump on the accusations in the dossier prior to the inauguration. Clapper has also publicly acknowledged the dossier. However, the federal government has not agreed to give a testimony in the Buzzfeed case.
“The requested information here is highly relevant to Buzzfeed’s ability to establish that the publication of the Article, including the Dossier, is a fair and accurate report of records that were a basis of official government actions and thus is protected by a fair report privilege pursuant to state statute, common law and/or the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States,” attorney Nathan Siegel and other lawyers for Buzzfeed wrote.
The Justice Department has maintained that the remarks from Clapper and Comey regarding the dossier to not equate to official recognition of the investigation and that responding to Buzzfeed’s request will reveal classified information.
Buzzfeed originally requested information about the dossier in June but did not seek court intervention. The filing reveals Buzzfeed is not seeking government documents, but rather, responses to a list of questions.
