Donald Trump has urged the British government to pursue the spy behind the “golden shower” dossier containing lewd sex allegations against him.
Trump said that the UK should “look at” Christopher Steele, a former operative with the MI6 intelligence agency.
Steele was widely reported as the author of a controversial briefing published by BuzzFeed amid a firestorm of criticism.
Trump spoke about Steele in personal terms in an interview with The Times of London.
It shows his attentions moving on from media outlets (like BuzzFeed, who got brnaded a “failing pile of garbage”) to the man behind the original claims.
In his first interview with a British newspaper, conducted by a former Government minister, he said:
That guy is somebody that you should look at, because whatever he made up about me was false.
He was supposedly hired by the Republicans and Democrats working together. Even that I don’t believe because they din’t work together, they work separately and they don’t hire the same guy. What, they got together?
When I heard it I ripped up the mat… If I did that in a hotel it’d be the biggest thing. They’d have me on the front page of the New York Post, right? And the other thing, I can’t even, I don’t even wnt to shake hands with people now I hear about this stuff
Steele – who spent decades with MI6 before going private – has been in hiding since his identity was made public.
The British Government circulated a rare “D-Notice” to the British media, asking them not to name Steele for his own safety.
But the request was ignored after his identity was published by the Wall Street Journal.
Steele lives in a large, gated house not far from London, but fled by car last week when his name got out.
A neighbour speaking to the Daily Telegraph said: “He asked me to look after his cat as he would be gone for a few days.”