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Anonymous ID: 35d335 Dec. 20, 2018, 7:18 a.m. No.4390643   🗄️.is 🔗kun

https://nypost.com/2018/12/20/ex-official-with-ties-to-mccain-gave-buzzfeed-access-to-steele-dossier-court-filing/amp/

 

BuzzFeed obtained the infamous Steele dossier from a former State Department official with ties to Sen. John McCain, it was revealed Wednesday in a court filing connected to a defamation case against the website.

 

A BuzzFeed reporter got the dossier — which details salacious but unverified allegations against President Trump — during a meeting with David Kramer, a McCain institute fellow and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, according to the court document.

 

The news was revealed in a ruling by a Florida judge that sided with BuzzFeed in a defamation case brought against them by a foreign business man named in the dossier.

 

Kramer appears to have given varying accounts during the defamation case on how BuzzFeed got the dossier.

 

“Kramer testified that [Ken] Bensinger took photos of the Dossier when Kramer was out of the room, even though he asked Bensinger not to,” wrote Judge Ursula Ungaro, in her ruling, adding that, “in a later declaration, Kramer stated that he had no objection to Bensinger taking a hard copy and had provided hard copies to other journalists.”

 

Judge Ungaro also wrote that Kramer traveled to London and received most of the dossier from Steele after McCain had asked him to do so.

 

In the ruling, Ungaro found that BuzzFeed could not be found liable because of the “Fair Report Privilege” that allows journalists to report accurately on the content of government investigations. She noted that two presidents had been briefed on the content of the dossier.