Trump calls for ‘sick’ author of 2016 dossier to be jailed

President Trump on Saturday called for Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous 2016 Steele dossier, to be sent to the U.S. and jailed.

“This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail. A sick lier who was paid by Crooked Hillary & the DNC!” Trump tweeted. 

This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail. A sick lier who was paid by Crooked Hillary & the DNC! https://t.co/ywMBeAgaGz

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2020

“Bring back Steele!!!” he added in a follow-up tweet. 

Bring back Steele!!! https://t.co/jL5c8WF28Z

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2020

The tweets come days after a judge in London, where Steele lives, ordered his intelligence firm to pay roughly $23,000 in damages to two Russian bankers over inaccuracies in his 2016 report. The case surrounded the specific allegation that billionaires Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman sent “large amounts of illicit cash” to Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was serving as a deputy mayor in St. Petersburg. 

Steele, whose dossier was published by Trump’s political rivals, aired a series of scandalous yet unsubstantiated allegations, most notably claiming that Putin had compromising material on Trump during the 2016 election. 

Some officials have said he may have been duped by Russian disinformation, though Steele has defended the veracity of his dossier.

The document has come under intense fire from congressional Republicans and other allies of Trump who say the FBI leaned too heavily on Steele’s allegations in its subsequent probes of Russia’s election meddling.