Christopher Steele has hit back at Donald Trump after the US president incorrectly claimed the former British spy had admitted a dossier on Russia and the 2016 election campaign was fake.

A private intelligence company co-owned by Mr Steele accused Mr Trump on Twitter of wild exaggerations and making false claims when he spoke at the White House the previous day to celebrate his acquittal from impeachment charges.

“Yesterday @realDonaldTrump made false claims about us,” Orbis Business Intelligence wrote.

“He wildly exaggerated our fees and, contrary to his claims we have never stated any of our reporting is ‘fake’. We stand by the integrity of our research on Kremlin interference in the 2016 election and support for Trump.”

The rebuke was in response to Mr Trump alleging that then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party paid “millions and million of dollars” for “the fake dossier”, referring to work Mr Steele did on allegations of Russian links with the Trump campaign.

The president said: “And now Christopher Steele admits that it’s a fake because he got sued by rich people. I should have sued him too but when you’re president people do not like suing.”

Mr Trump frequently attacks Mr Steele ever since it emerged in January 2017 that the former senior intelligence officer at Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) had written the Trump dossier, which contained allegations of Russian collusion.

However this is the first time Mr Steele has, through his company, hit back directly at the president.

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