Donald Trump’s legal team is currently resisting demands to disclose financial records in their defense against a hefty $10 billion defamation lawsuit involving the BBC. The case centers around a controversial Panorama documentary that allegedly manipulated footage of Trump’s speech.
The contentious broadcast, which aired on the BBC’s prominent current affairs show in October 2024, edited segments of Trump’s address prior to the Capitol riot, igniting one of the corporation’s most significant scandals. The documentary’s fallout was severe, leading to the resignations of the BBC’s director-general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness, amid accusations of deliberately misrepresenting Trump’s words from January 6, 2021.
The BBC acknowledged what they termed an “error of judgement” and “an editing mistake,” which resulted in Trump seemingly advocating for the Capitol breach. While they issued an apology, the corporation maintained that the broadcast was not defamatory.
Despite the apology, Trump was unsatisfied and announced last November his intention to pursue legal action against the BBC, seeking $10 billion in damages. He accused the BBC of “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively altering” his speech.
Trump contends that the Panorama episode inflicted damage on his “brand, properties, and businesses,” alleging significant harm to his reputation and financial interests.
He alleges the Panorama episode harmed ‘the value of his brand, properties and businesses’ by causing him reputational and financial injury.
At the time he said: ‘We have to do it. They’ve even admitted that they cheated. Not that they couldn’t have done that. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.’
Court documents have now revealed that Mr Trump’s legal team have so far not submitted paperwork BBC lawyers demanded to back up his claim he had suffered financial harm from the broadcast.
They also show the President’s legal team have opposed the presiding judge in the case and have requested to switch judges, suggesting she is biased because of links to his political opponents.
To succeed in a defamation lawsuit, lawyers must prove not only that the false statement was made and related to you but also that it caused harm to your reputation or finances.
In the US, where the case had been lodged, a successful libel claim also requires proof the defamatory words or actions were undertaken with ‘malicious intent’. In the UK, this is not required.
Donald Trump’s (pictured on June 4) lawyers fighting a $10 billion defamation case against the BBC are refusing to share his financial information to back his claim against the broadcaster
BBC lawyers say they cannot assess the financial damage Mr Trump says the broadcast caused him without looking at his finances.
But Mr Trump’s lawyers have refused the demand, accusing the BBC of ‘being on a fishing expedition’.
Lawyers typically collect such financial information during the ‘discovery phase’ of a defamation lawsuit.
To do so, the BBC has apparently served a subpoena on the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust, which holds the president’s business interests and assets, asking for the production of documents which prove he suffered financial harm.
They asked for almost 400 entities owned by or associated with the trust and asked for tax returns, court documents filed last month reveal.
But the trust managed by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, who is the sole trustee, made ‘multiple objections’ to the requests. Its legal team, who are also representing Mr Trump, said it was a “fishing expedition” by the BBC and “that, as a non-party, it need not substantively respond”.
They also criticised the 30-day timeline sought by the BBC to turn over ‘tens of thousands of documents from hundreds of non-parties’ as ‘unreasonable’ and ‘improper’, according to today’s Financial Times.
The President has also separately failed to produce ‘any financial information’, say BBC lawyers.
Meanwhile the BBC handed over more than 45,000 pages of documents last month following 503 requests for document production made by Mr Trump’s lawyers, the filings show.
The BBC blamed the trust’s behaviour on a ‘flat refusal to provide any financial information under subpoena’ to back up Mr Trump’s claims that the BBC injured ‘the value of his brand, properties, and businesses’.
It has also called for the case, which is under the jurisdiction of the Florida court where Mr Trump filed his case, to be dismissed because the documentary never aired in the US.
Meanwhile the BBC are objecting to continued calls from Mr Trump’s legal team to stop Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué A Lett from presiding in the case saying there are ‘no grounds to do so’ and the call is based on a ‘bare assertion that she is biased against him’.
Mr Trump’s lawyers say the judge is not impartial because of links to former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
They also say she is inappropriate because she was initially involved in a separate lawsuit by President Trump – his lawsuit against Capital One for terminating Trump Organization accounts after the January 6 attack – although she was later removed.
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told the FT that the BBC was liable to the president for ‘intentionally and maliciously defaming him by distorting and manipulating his speech’.
‘No amount of attempted legal manoeuvres can change that fact. President Trump will continue to hold accountable the BBC and all those who traffic in fake news,’ they added
The BBC declined to comment.
