BBC asks judge to force Trump to sit for deposition in $10bn defamation lawsuit

Donald Trump has cancelled his deposition in his $10bn defamation lawsuit against the BBC, with lawyers for the broadcaster asking a federal judge to force the US president to participate on a scheduled date.

According to a Tuesday filing, it had been agreed that Mr Trump would be deposed on Friday after months of securing a location.

However, on 28 September, lawyers for the president informed the BBC’s counsel that he is “no longer available for his deposition on 16 October due to other matters of national importance”.

In the US court system a deposition is an out-of-court testimony taken under oath that can then be used later in legal proceedings.

Mr Trump sued the organisation last December after alleging that a Panorama documentary the BBC aired about the 2020 election and the subsequent Capital riots in Washington DC defamed him by splicing together clips of his speech, to make it sound as though he had encouraged the violence.

The BBC apologised for the editing and the error.

The allegations led the then-BBC director-general Tim Davie to announce his resignation.

Lawyers for the broadcaster have now called upon the US Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett to require Mr Trump’s team to schedule the deposition. While his lawyers have suggested his availability in the second or third week of January, this falls outside of the deadline to complete the discovery portion of the case.

“Nearly eight months into discovery, after seven depositions of BBC witnesses, and with only 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,” BBC lawyer Charles Tobin wrote.

“There is hardly a more crucial and relevant piece of discovery in a defamation lawsuit than the deposition of the Plaintiff.”

In a Miami court filing lodged on September 25, the BBC’s legal team said it had written to Mr Trump’s counsel on 21 September “regarding plaintiff’s continued delays in producing records responsive to BBC discovery requests that are not in dispute – records that plaintiff agreed to produce in his initial responses to the BBC’s requests for production” in April and August.

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said his 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.”

Mr Trump has previously sought to block the release of his financial records as he sought to change his complaint and so limit disclosure, although this appears to be a separate matter as the production of these documents was disputed.

The US president originally alleged the Panorama episode, broadcast shortly before the 2024 presidential election he won, had caused him both reputational and financial injury.

He subsequently moved to narrow his complaint by dropping the claim of broader harm to his brand and businesses.

The broadcaster is seeking to have the case thrown out, warning of the “chilling effect” it would have on “robust reporting on public figures and events”.

It has also challenged the jurisdiction of a Florida court to hear the case given the programme was never aired in the state or the US.