The former British spy who wrote a dossier alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government has said for the first time that the document includes "unverified" information, The Washington Times reported on Wednesday.
Christopher Steele made the statement in a court filing in Great Britain responding to a lawsuit by Russian executive Aleksej Gubarev, who says he is falsely accused in the dossier of operating a computer hacking scheme against the Democratic Party.
Steele, a former MI6 agent, admitted that the part of the 35-page dossier that cited Gubarev as a rogue hacker came from "unsolicited intelligence" and "raw intelligence" that "needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified."
Steele said the dossier was not supposed to be made public and that he did not authorize Fusion GPS, the company that hired him for the job, to make it available to reporters, according to the Times.
Fusion specializes in opposition research for Democrats.
He insisted that he followed proper channels by giving the dossier to Sen. John McCain so that the American government would be aware of the dossier's existence.
Steele said that BuzzFeed is responsible for the dossier's publication, since it posted the entire 35 pages even though the media company knew it was unlikely that some of the accusations were true.
Gubarev also sued BuzzFeed in a Florida court in February, CNN reported.
Steele's revelation in the British court filing comes a day after President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, said he is considering legal action against both BuzzFeed and Steele.
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