Gubarev v. Buzzfeed, Inc.

340 F.Supp.3d 1304

Aleksej GUBAREV, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.BUZZFEED, INC., et al., Defendants.

Case No. 1:17-cv-60426-UU

United States District Court, S.D. Florida.

Signed December 19, 2018

Brady James Cobb Dylan Michael Fulop, Cobb Eddy,PLLC, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Evan Fray-Witzer, Pro Hac Vice, Ciampa, Fray-Witzer, LLP, Boston, MA, Valentin Gurvits, Pro Hac Vice, Matthew Shayefar, Boston Law Group, PC, Newton, MA, for Plaintiffs.

Cary McClelland, Pro Hac Vice, Katherine M. Bolger, Adam Lazier, Davis Wright Tremaine, LLC, New York, NY, Alison Schary, Pro Hac Vice, Nathan Siegel, Davis Wright Tremaine, LLC, Washington, DC, Jared M. Lopez, Roy Eric Black, Black Srebnick Kornspan & Stumpf, Miami, FL, for Defendants.

ORDER

URSULA UNGARO, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

THIS CAUSE comes before the Court upon Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (D.E. 214/226).¹ For the reasons discussed below the motion is granted.

BACKGROUND

The facts recited below are undisputed except as otherwise noted.

I. The Parties

Plaintiff Aleksej Gubarev is a resident of the Republic of Cyprus. D.E. 212-2 ¶ 3. Until January 1, 2018, he was the chairman and CEO of Plaintiff XBT Holdings S.A. ("XBT"). Id. ¶ 1. XBT is a Luxembourg company. D.E. 38 ¶ 7. Plaintiff Webzilla, Inc. ("Webzilla"), which is a Florida corporation, is a subsidiary of XBT. Id. ¶ 8; D.E. 212-2 ¶ 2.

Defendant BuzzFeed, Inc. ("BuzzFeed") is a Delaware corporation with offices in eighteen cities around the world, including New York. D.E. 38 ¶ 9. Defendant Ben Smith is BuzzFeed's editor-in-chief, and he resides in Brooklyn, New York. Id. ¶ 10.

II. The Dossier

This case arises out of Defendants' decision to publish an article on January 10, 2017, entitled These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties to Russia (the "Article"), which included a 35-page dossier (the "Dossier"). D.E. 1-3 ¶ 1; D.E. 38 ¶ 1; D.E. 1-2, p. 19–21. In the Article, BuzzFeed described the Dossier as a compilation of memoranda assembled "for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British Intelligence agent." D.E. 1-2 p. 20. The last of the seventeen memoranda ("Report 166" or "the Report"), dated December 13, 2016, contains statements about Plaintiffs. As published by BuzzFeed, the pertinent portion of the Report appeared as follows:

[redacted] reported that over the period March-September 2016 a company called XBT/Webzilla and its affiliates had been using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data, and conduct "altering operations" against the Democratic Party leadership. Entities linked to one Alexei GUBAROV [sic] were involved and he and another hacking expert, both recruited under duress by the FSB,² Seva KAPSUGOVICH were significant players in this operation. In Prague, COHEN³ agreed [sic] contingency plans for various scenarios to protect the operation, but in particular what was to be done in the event that Hillary CLINTON won the presidency. It was important in this event that all cash payments owed were made quickly and discreetly and that cyber and other operators were stood down/able to go effectively to ground to cover their traces. (We reported earlier that the involvement of political operatives Paul MANAFORT and Carter PAGE in the secret TRUMP-Kremlin liaison had been exposed in the media in the run-up to Prague and that damage limitation of these also was discussed by COHEN with the Kremlin representatives).

D.E. 1-3 ¶ 26, D.E. 1-2 p. 19–21.

The Article included the following disclaimers:

The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations .... BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them ... [The Dossier] is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors.

Id. ¶ 3, D.E. 1-2, p. 20.

Plaintiffs allege that the Dossier's statements about them are false. D.E. 1-3 ¶ 27. Plaintiffs also allege that, although BuzzFeed tasked its reporters with investigating the allegations, Defendants never contacted Plaintiffs to determine whether the allegations that they hacked the Democratic Party had merit. Id. ¶ 28; D.E. 38 ¶ 28. Plaintiffs assert that because Defendants could not verify the Dossier and knew that it contained "some clear errors," Defendants published it without reasonable care for, or with reckless disregard as to, the truth. Id. ¶ 43. They go on to allege that Defendants' decision to publish the Dossier defamed them. Id. ¶ 51.

Defendants assert, among other affirmative defenses, that their decision to publish the Dossier is protected by the fair report privilege. D.E. 32.

III. The Origins of the Dossier

In the fall of 2015, Fusion GPS ("Fusion"), a private research firm headed by Glenn Simpson, was retained—first by a Republican and later by a law firm working for the Democratic National Committee—to conduct research on Donald Trump. D.E. 214-2 ¶ 7. Fusion retained Orbis Business Intelligence Limited ("Orbis") to investigate business ties between Trump and Russian interests. Id. Orbis was founded by Christopher Steele, who worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1987 until 2009. Id. ; D.E. 214-19, 31:11–20. From 1990 to 1993 he served as Second Secretary in Moscow. D.E. 214-19, 31:11–20.⁴

During the course of his research, Steele received information that Russia was interfering in the 2016 presidential election to support Trump and that Russia held compromising information about the candidate. D.E. 214-2 ¶ 8. Steele took the information he found credible and wrote a total of seventeen reports, which became the Dossier. Id. ¶ 9. In deciding what he found credible, Steele weighed the possibility that his sources might try to provide false information. Id.

IV. Government Officials Receive Portions of The Dossier

According to two congressionally drafted memoranda (the "Nunes Memo" and "Schiff Memo"), Steele had been a "longtime FBI source" who had credibly reported on Russia and other matters for several years.⁵ Id. ¶ 10; 214-30 (Nunes Memo); 214-31 (Schiff Memo). Steele shared his research with an FBI agent until late October 2016.⁶ D.E. 214-2 ¶¶ 11–12; Nunes Memo, p. 5; Schiff Memo, p. 3. Steele also shared his research with Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Nunes Memo, pp. 4–6; Schiff Memo, p 7. However, before receiving Steele's reports, the FBI had opened a counterintelligence investigation into potential links between Russia and the Trump campaign. D.E. 214-2 ¶ 13; Nunes Memo, pp. 4–6; Schiff Memo, pp. 2–3.

The FBI terminated its relationship with Steele in October 2016 after Steele spoke with journalists. D.E. 214-2 ¶ 17. Nevertheless, after Steele's termination, an independent unit within the FBI conducted a "source validation" assessment of the credibility of Steele's reports. Id. ¶ 19; Nunes Memo, p. 5. Additionally, the Department of Justice used Steele's reports, as well as other source material, in its applications to obtain and renew a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA") warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a Trump advisor that the FBI believed had been targeted for recruitment by Russian intelligence. D.E. 214-2 ¶¶ 15, 46; Nunes Memo, p. 4; D.E. 214-33.

In November 2016, Senator John McCain and his chief of staff, Christopher Brose, attended the Halifax International Security Forum. D.E. 214-2 ¶ 20. There, they met David Kramer, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova. Id. ¶ 21. They also met Sir Andrew Wood, the former British Ambassador to Russia and an informal advisor to Orbis. Id. ¶ 20. Wood told the three others that he was aware of information collected by Steele suggesting that Russia both colluded with the Trump campaign and had compromising information about the candidate. Id. ¶ 23. McCain asked Kramer to go to London to meet with Steele, which he did on November 28. Id. ¶ 23. Kramer read the sixteen extant reports (again, Report 166 had not yet been written) in London and later obtained copies of them from Glenn Simpson in Washington, D.C. Id. ¶¶ 25–28.

On November 30, Kramer met with McCain and Brose in Washington, D.C., where they reviewed Steele's reports. Id. ¶ 28. Kramer advised McCain to share the reports with the FBI and the CIA. Id. ¶ 29. Some days after that meeting, at McCain's behest, Kramer met with Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Affairs, and Celeste Wallender, the Senior Director for Russian Affairs at the National Security Council ("NSC"), to see if the Dossier "was being taken seriously." Id. ¶ 30; D.E. 214-16, 113:1–117:11. The two officials were aware of the existence of the Dossier and of Steele, whom they believed to be credible, but Kramer did not share the Dossier with them. D.E. 214-16, 115:1–117:24. After those meetings, on December 9, McCain met with James Comey, the FBI Director, and gave him the first sixteen reports. Id. ¶ 31.

V. Steele Drafts and Shares Report 166

On December 13, Steele wrote the last of the seventeen reports, Report 166, which names Plaintiffs.⁷ Id. As with the sixteen prior reports, Steele compiled Report 166 using information he found credible. Id. ¶ 32. Steele gave Report 166 to Kramer, an unnamed senior British security official, Ms. Wallender at the NSC, Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), and House Speaker Paul Ryan's Chief of Staff, John Burks. Id. ¶¶ 34–39. The record does not reveal what, if anything, these people did with the Report. At some point prior to BuzzFeed's publication of the full Dossier, the FBI also possessed Report 166. D.E. 214-11 ¶ 6 (FBI Declaration).

VI. Intelligence Directors Brief The President and President-Elect

On December 6, President Obama ordered an inter-agency assessment of Russian interference in the presidential election, which included the CIA, FBI, and NSA. D.E. 214-2 ¶ 41; D.E. 214-36, pp. 38–39 ...