A federal judge in Miami ruled Thursday that Donald Trump must sit for a deposition by Dec. 11 in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC, warning that failing to do so could result in penalties including the dismissal of the case.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett issued the order following a hearing addressing multiple discovery disputes between the broadcaster and Trump’s legal representatives, according to The Associated Press and The Guardian US. The court also denied a bid by Trump’s attorneys to forbid the seven-hour session from being recorded on video, though the footage will remain restricted to legal counsel involved in the litigation.
Dispute Over Canceled Testimony
Trump had originally been slated to undergo questioning on Oct. 16, CBS News reported. Late last month, his attorneys informed the British broadcaster that he could no longer participate “due to other matters of national importance.”
Lawyers for the BBC countered that Trump instead spent the day campaigning in Georgia alongside Republican candidates for governor and the Senate, followed by an evening at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for a Republican National Committee event. Charles Tobin, an attorney representing the BBC, told the court that Trump “participated in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition,” according to the AP.
Trump’s Florida-based counsel, Alejandro Brito, argued the president manages numerous pressing obligations every day that opposing counsel cannot assess, The Guardian US reported. In court filings, Trump’s team proposed making him available during the second or third week of January. Lett maintained that the Dec. 11 deadline stands unless District Judge Jeffrey T. Kuntz chooses to push back the broader Dec. 18 cutoff for pretrial discovery.
Court Scrutinizes Document Production
Beyond the deposition schedule, Lett criticized Trump’s side over its compliance with record requests, granting the plaintiffs 30 days to turn over necessary materials.
“It strains credulity that a thorough search has been done in order to determine that all of these requests have been responded to,” Lett told Brito, calling this Trump’s “last opportunity to do so.”
Tobin argued that the president’s legal team had submitted almost nothing of value, instead providing publicly available web pages and materials the BBC had already shared. In addition, the judge allowed a BBC subpoena directed at Mar-a-Lago regarding membership records and initiation fees to move forward, ruling the club is intertwined with Trump’s professional standing and trade.
Roots of the $10 Billion Claim
Trump initiated the lawsuit in December over an installment of the investigative program Panorama titled “Trump: A Second Chance,” which aired in October 2024 shortly before the presidential election. The lawsuit claims the program deceptively edited audio and video of Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, address outside the White House, making it appear that he explicitly directed backers to assault the U.S. Capitol.
Following blowback over the broadcast, BBC Director General Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness resigned. While the network apologized for what it termed an error of judgment and withdrew the documentary from its platforms, it maintained that the editing did not constitute defamation.
Lawyers for the broadcaster have also sought deposition testimony from Jack Smith, the former special counsel who brought federal criminal election-subversion charges against Trump that were subsequently dropped. Trump’s lawyers contend Smith lacks direct personal insight into the Jan. 6 address, leaving Kuntz and Lett to determine the final parameters of remaining witness testimony before discovery concludes in December.
