A federal judge warned President Donald Trump could see his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC dismissed if he does not work harder to produce information the news outlet is entitled to in the case, including sitting for a deposition.
“Engaging in discovery is burdensome, but is a burden we undertake, especially if we file a lawsuit,” Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Aytch Lett told personal attorneys for Trump at a hearing Thursday, where she also backed a subpoena from the BBC for membership records at Mar-a-Lago.
Lett expressed skepticism that Trump and his team had done an adequate job searching for internal documents related to the case.
“I tend to agree with the defendant that it strains credulity that a thorough search has been in order to determine that all of the requests have been responded to,” she said.
Lett also ordered that Trump sit for a deposition by December 11, but she and both parties said there was a likely possibility it could be moved back.
The proceedings showed how the president’s litigiousness comes with risks, including that lawsuits can expose Trump and his businesses to scrutiny from the parties he is suing.
Trump filed the lawsuit against the BBC in December 2025. He alleges he was defamed by the media company with a documentary on his political comeback that aired before the 2024 election, because of how the film spliced two parts of the January 6, 2021, speech he gave in front of the White House before his supporters violently attacked the US Capitol.
The documentary joined one section of his remarks, in which he told his supporters to “walk down to the Capitol,” with a later portion, in which he told the protestors that “we fight like hell.”
In response to an earlier round of discovery disputes, the court said that the BBC was entitled to information shedding light on the “message” of the speech and the “impression” it left. But the court said also said then it was not giving the media company a green light to “relitigate” the events of January 6.
In total, the BBC has issued at least 47 subpoenas to former and current government officials, as well as private advisers in Trump’s circle, who had a window into his efforts to overturn the election – including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr, and former White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
