3 Russian oligarchs file to drop defamation suit tied to dossier

Three Russian oligarchs who said their reputations were smeared by a dossier of opposition research examining Donald Trump's ties to Russia have agreed to dismiss their defamation lawsuit, according to a notice filed in federal court on Friday.

Businessmen Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan sued Fusion GPS, a research and intelligence firm, and one of its founders, Glenn Simpson, in 2017. The men, co-founders of Russia-based Alfa Bank, alleged they had been defamed by various statements in a Democratic-funded dossier that Fusion had commissioned former British spy Christopher Steele to produce on the relationship between Trump and the Kremlin.

The Steele dossier has been largely discredited since its publication, with core aspects of the material exposed as unsupported and unproven rumors. A special counsel assigned to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe has charged one of Steele's sources for the dossier with lying to the FBI, and has also charged a cybersecurity lawyer who worked for Hillary Clinton's campaign with lying to the FBI during a 2016 meeting in which he relayed concerns about Alfa Bank.

However, recent sanctions were filed against the oligarchs and the bank amid Russia's war with Ukraine.

On Tuesday, lawyers for Fusion GPS asked a federal judge to dismiss the case, noting that sanctions "illustrate in stark detail that the alleged defamatory statements are true, and surely must persuade any reasonable trier of fact that none of these Plaintiffs will ever succeed in meeting their burden of proving these statements false."

The United Kingdom included all three men in a round of sanctions this week, saying it was "going further and faster than ever in hitting those closest" to Russian President Vladimir Putin.