Lawyers for a Russian tech executive suing BuzzFeed for publishing the Steele dossier say that a longtime associate of Arizona Sen. John McCain and two major news outlets are resisting subpoenas seeking their depositions for the case.

In a brief filed in federal court late Wednesday, lawyers for the executive, Aleksej Gubarev, claim that David Kramer, a former State Department official and McCain associate, “has been seemingly avoiding service” of a deposition subpoena for weeks.

And The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are challenging deposition subpoenas they have been served as part of the case.

Gubarev’s lawyers are attempting to find out who gave BuzzFeed the salacious dossier, which the website published to much controversy on Jan. 10.

The dossier, written by former British spy Christopher Steele, alleges that Gubarev and his companies, XBT Holdings and Webzilla, used spam, viruses and porn bots to hack into DNC computer systems. Gubarev vehemently denies the allegations.

Gubarev’s attorneys say that identifying BuzzFeed’s source could shed light on whether the news outlet was warned that information in the dossier could be false. They argue that publishing the dossier despite such warnings would show “reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the information published.”