A federal judge has warned President Donald Trump that he could face sanctions for failing to participate in his lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué A. Lett said in a court order last Friday that she has already “admonished” Trump for his “lack of participation” in his $10 billion lawsuit against the United Kingdom’s public service broadcaster, accusing it of defamation and deception. The BBC has apologized for the edit but denies defamation.
But she said this has been to “no avail,” with the BBC filing five requests on its own because of Trump’s “disregard” of the court’s procedures for discovery disputes, Lett said. The dispute is currently over the BBC’s request for Trump to be questioned under oath.
Trump’s team agreed on a date in October, after months of the BBC following up, but cancelled this late-September citing “matters of national importance,” BBC lawyers said. A few days ago, the BBC asked a court to compel Trump to appear in the case, accusing him of trying to delay a deposition.
“Going forward, the Court expects strict compliance with its Order, the failure of which will lead to sanctions,” Lett said in her Friday order. It came with a separate order that set a discovery hearing for Thursday to consider the BBC’s request to compel Trump and ordered the president to respond to the BBC’s arguments by the same date. This is not an order to sit for questioning, but to assess whether the court should make it.
Trump’s Legal Team Responds
Trump’s legal team has not directly addressed Lett’s orders, but when Fox News Digital asked for a response, a spokesperson said: "The formerly respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election. The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda. President Trump’s powerhouse lawsuit is holding the BBC accountable for its defamation and reckless election interference just as he has held other fake news mainstream media responsible for their wrongdoing,"
Newsweek contacted Trump’s attorney Alejandro Brito, via email, on Monday, for comment.
...
Trump’s Lawsuit Against BBC
Trump filed his lawsuit against the BBC in Florida last December, accusing it of a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of" him,” calling it “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
It was over an episode of the BBC’s Panorama documentary series, called Trump: A Second Chance? which combined portions of Trump’s January 6, 2021, speech delivered nearly an hour apart, making them appear to be part of one continuous statement.
Trump alleges the edit falsely suggested that he directly encouraged supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol, damaging his reputation, brand and businesses. His lawsuit seeks $5 billion for alleged defamation and another $5 billion for alleged unfair trade practices.
The BBC apologized for the edit and acknowledged that it created the mistaken impression of a direct call for violent action. But the broadcaster denies that it defamed Trump and is seeking to have the case dismissed.
BBC Asks Judge to Force Trump Deposition
In the BBC’s mid-October filing, calling for Trump to be ordered to face questions under oath, the broadcaster accused the president of trying to delay the sitting until next January.
“Two months of discovery remaining, the BBC still has not been able to depose, and does not even have a schedule to depose, the most central figure in this case: Plaintiff himself,” attorney Charles D. Tobin wrote in the filing. “Those delays have flouted the cooperative spirit of discovery and precluded the BBC from obtaining the evidence necessary to robustly litigate its defense.”
Lawyers said that they first requested dates for the deposition in July, and followed up repeatedly, until both sides agreed on October 16.
They said there was weeks of silence before “Plaintiff’s counsel responded on September 28, 2026, indicating that ‘the President is no longer available for his deposition on October 16 due to other matters of national importance’ and that counsel would ‘endeavor to provide you with a replacement date by the end of this week.’”
The BBC said Trump’s team told them in the first week of October that Trump “has no availability whatsoever for a deposition” before discovery is set to close on December 18, and that Trump would instead make himself available the second or third week of January.
Trump “chose to file this lawsuit and, in doing so, he accepted the obligations of civil litigation,” the attorneys wrote.
What to Know About the BBC Documentary
The story broke at the end of last year, after a memo written by ex-BBC adviser Michael Prescott was leaked through British press. In the memo, which Prescott said he wrote in "despair at inaction by the BBC Executive," he said the documentary was "neither balanced nor impartial."
"It seemed to be taking a distinctly anti-Trump stance," Prescott said, adding that he took his concerns to the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee, and its senior editorial adviser David Grossman.
"He concluded the main contributors to the documentary were heavily weighted against Trump, with just one supporter against 10 who questioned his fitness for office," Prescott said. "Worse still, David highlighted alarming concerns about how Panorama had edited Trump's speech to his supporters on January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol Hill riot."
"Examining the charge that Trump had incited protesters to storm Capitol Hill, it turned out that Panorama had spliced together two clips from separate parts of his speech. This created the impression that Trump said something he did not and, in doing so, materially misled viewers."
In the documentary, Trump appeared to say: "We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore."
Trump did say these things but separately. He said "we’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you" 15 minutes into the speech and the lines "and we fight, we fight like hell …" came 54 minutes later, according to the BBC's latest coverage of the scandal.
BBC Director General Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness resigned over the memo, while BBC chair Samir Shah apologized for the editing, saying: "We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologize for that error of judgment."
But he pushed back on Prescott’s suggestion that the BBC "sought to bury" issues. He said this was "simply not true" as the BBC had taken measures including publishing corrections, changing editorial guidance "to make the BBC's position on issues clearer," and carrying out disciplinary measures.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Anthony Murray and Matthew Cannon.