BuzzFeed is suing the Democratic National Committee to force it to turn over documents relevant to a libel suit the publisher is facing over its publication of former British spy Christopher Steele's unverified dossier on President Donald Trump's ties to Russia, Vanity Fair reported.
BuzzFeed is being sued by a Russian businessman, Aleksej Gubarev, who "says he was libeled in the dossier when it tied him to the Russians' alleged hacking of the [DNC's] e-mail servers," Vanity Fair reported.
BuzzFeed is aiming to retrieve information from the DNC that would "undercut his libel claim," the magazine reported.
"As part of the discovery process, BuzzFeed is attempting to verify claims in the dossier that relate to the hacking of the DNC — which, the dossier alleges, was done with the support of Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian businessman," BuzzFeed News spokesman Matt Mittenthal told The Hill in a statement.
"We're asking a federal court to force the DNC to follow the law and allow BuzzFeed to fully defend its First Amendment rights."
Last year, BuzzFeed published the dossier — which was paid for by the Hilary Clinton campaign and DNC — in full, a decision editor in chief Ben Smith wrote he was proud of.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.