2016 ELECTION/LEGAL/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, filed a defamation lawsuit on Tuesday [1-9-18] in federal court against Fusion GPS, the firm behind a salacious and largely unsubstantiated dossier that purported to lay out how Russia had aided the Trump campaign. The dossier portrayed Mr. Cohen as a central figure in what it described as a conspiracy.
The dossier was first published by BuzzFeed last year, and Mr. Cohen also filed a separate suit against BuzzFeed in a New York state court.
The filings came a day before the statute of limitations for a libel claim would have expired.
Mr. Cohen said on Twitter late Tuesday that he was suing BuzzFeed. He did not mention the lawsuit against Fusion.
The lawsuit against Fusion is likely to play into what has become a wide-ranging conservative campaign to sow doubts about the Russia investigations by raising questions about the dossier and those who put it together. The dossier — a set of reports paid for by Democrats — contains unsubstantiated allegations of questionable real estate deals, secret coordination with Russian operatives who hacked Democratic targets during the 2016 election and evenings that Mr. Trump is said to have spent with prostitutes.”
-Matthew Rosenberg and Maggie Haberman, “Trump’s Longtime Lawyer Sues BuzzFeed and the Firm Behind Russia Dossier,” The New York Times online, Jan. 9, 2018