Aleksej Gubarev, CEO of the multimillion-dollar global tech firm XBT, filed a lawsuit against BuzzFeed News Friday for publishing a controversial dossier claiming the Russian Kremlin held compromising intelligence on President Donald Trump. A separate lawsuit was filed against the report’s alleged author, Christopher Steele, for including Gubarev’s name and company.
BuzzFeed News’ unverified, 35-page document dump featured unsubstantiated claims Gubarev became a “significant player” in hacking the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election immediately after publishing the data online. The site immediately withdrew any mention of Gubarev’s name and his company throughout the report, apologizing hours later for including the businessman.
Gubarev “has found his personal and professional reputation in tatters,” wrote that in his lawsuit against BuzzFeed News, adding the safety of his family has been jeopardized since the data dump. He also noted his multiple companies have been negatively impacted by allegations of working with the Kremlin to cyber-attack the American election process.
The Russian businessman’s lawsuit called BuzzFeed’s publishing of the dossier “perhaps one of the most reckless and irresponsible moments in modern ‘journalism.'”
“We have redacted Mr. Gubarev’s name from the published dossier, and apologize for including it,” Matt Mittenthal, a spokesperson for BuzzFeed, told CNNMoney. Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, has since defended the site’s publishing of the dossier, saying he has no regrets for deciding to release the document in full.
“We’re proud we published it and I feel three days later it seems clear it was the right thing to do if you look at how much more we know than we knew three days ago and I think in three months it’ll look even clearer,” Smith told CNN Friday. “[BuzzFeed] thought that it was important when you have a blanket claim, like ‘[Trump] was compromised by Russian intelligence,’ to share the details.”
Trump addressed the dossier during a press conference as president-elect in January, claiming it was entirely false. He said he was “very much a germaphobe” after allegations insinuating the president hired Russian sex workers to perform a “golden shower” went viral.
Meanwhile, Gubarev has maintained his innocence since the report was originally published Jan. 10.
“I have a multimillion dollar business. Why do I need these connections with hackers?” Gubarev told CNN. “It’s absolutely not true, and I can go to the court and say this.”
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