A Trump-appointed federal judge said Friday that he will not recuse himself from a lawsuit related to the Steele dossier.
Trevor McFadden, a judge in Washington, D.C., issued the ruling in response to a recusal request submitted last month by Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the dossier.
Fusion sought McFadden’s recusal as part of an attempt to avoid complying with a subpoena issued by a Russian businessman who is suing BuzzFeed News for publishing the unverified dossier. The businessman, Aleksej Gubarev, seeks depositions and documents from Fusion GPS as part of the lawsuit.
Fusion has argued that McFadden has several potential conflicts of interest warranting his removal from the case.
The firm pointed to McFadden’s past work for a law firm that represented a Russian banker who is suing Fusion GPS over the dossier, which was written by former British spy Christopher Steele. McFadden should also step down from the case, Fusion argued, because of volunteer work he did for the Trump campaign.
Fusion argued that the volunteer work is a conflict of interest because the dossier makes direct allegations about Trump, namely that he is being blackmailed by the Russian government and that members of his campaign coordinated with Kremlin operatives to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. – READ MORE
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