Judge Gives Trump an Order in BBC Lawsuit

A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Trump to sit for a deposition in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC by Dec. 11. The order from US Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett came as the BBC's lawyers complained that Trump had delayed his appearance. Attorney Charles Tobin said that with two months left in the discovery period, "we still haven't been able to depose the plaintiff," the AP reports.

• He noted there was an agreed-upon date of Oct. 16, but the president canceled it for a "matter of national importance." Tobin said Trump was in fact campaigning in Georgia that day. "He was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition," Tobin said.

• Lett said Trump must sit for a deposition by Dec. 11, or face sanctions up to dismissal of his lawsuit-–unless the discovery period is extended past Dec. 18. The British broadcaster says Trump is trying to delay his appearance until January 2027.
• Trump, who has often avoided depositions, filed his lawsuit against the BBC last December, seeking $10 billion in damages. He accused the publicly funded broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices related to a documentary, Trump: A Second Chance. The BBC acknowledged that filmmakers spliced together quotes from different sections of the speech Trump delivered to his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, before the storming of the US Capitol, to make it seem he was directly urging violence, but it has denied Trump's claims that it defamed him.
• To bolster its defense, the broadcaster subpoenaed former special counsel Jack Smith earlier this month. Trump's lawyers argued that Smith lacks "personal knowledge" of the issues and his testimony would be "duplicative" because he has already testified on the events of Jan. 6.
• The BBC countered that there are few more knowledgeable sources about the events than Smith. "The conclusions of Mr. Smith's report are public—but the evidence that informed those conclusions is not, including the 'strong evidence that the violence that occurred on January 6 was foreseeable to Mr. Trump, that he caused it, and that he and his coconspirators leveraged it to carry out their conspiracies,'" the BBC's lawyers wrote in a Monday court filing, per Deadline. They noted that Smith has not objected to the subpoena.