Trump urges court to reject BBC’s bid to secure records from his family in defamation case

President Donald Trump has requested a federal judge to deny the BBC's request for assistance in obtaining testimony and documents from his family members in a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster. The BBC is seeking "politically-driven leverage" over Trump by issuing subpoenas to his daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and son Donald Trump Jr., according to his personal lawyers in a court filing on Friday.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz in Miami has not yet ruled on the matter. Kuntz, nominated to the bench by Trump, inherited the president's lawsuit from another judge a week ago. The previous judge had set a February trial date. In May, a BBC process server attempted to serve subpoenas on Ivanka Trump and Kushner at their home but was stopped by Secret Service agents, who denied authorization to accept the documents.

The process server also tried to serve Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in New York several days later, but those efforts were unsuccessful. Last week, the broadcaster asked the court for permission to serve subpoenas on Trump's family members via certified mail instead of in person. Trump's lawsuit, filed in December, accuses the BBC of deceptively editing portions of his speech delivered near the White House on January 6, 2021, during a mob attack on Congress to prevent the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory.

The suit claims the BBC intentionally misrepresented Trump's statements by splicing together separate parts of his speech. The broadcaster aired the documentary a week before the 2024 presidential election in an attempt to influence the outcome to Trump's detriment.