WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has requested a federal judge dismiss the BBC’s move to obtain testimony and documents from three of his family members. This comes amidst his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster.
The BBC is attempting to serve subpoenas to Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr., claiming they aim to gain political leverage over Trump. Trump’s personal lawyers argue against this in a court filing submitted on Friday.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz, based in Miami, is currently overseeing the case after inheriting it from another judge less than a week ago. Kuntz, appointed by Trump, has not yet made a decision on the matter. The previous judge had set a trial date for February.
In May, a process server for the BBC attempted to deliver subpoenas to Ivanka Trump and Kushner at their home. Secret Service agents, not authorized to accept them, turned the server away according to Trump’s legal team. Another attempt was made at Trump Tower in New York to serve Donald Trump Jr., which also failed. Last week, the broadcaster sought court approval to deliver subpoenas via certified mail instead.
Trump’s defamation suit, initiated in December, accuses the BBC of manipulating edits in his speech from January 6, 2021, to misrepresent his words. During that day, his supporters stormed the Capitol to disrupt Congress certifying Joe Biden’s victory. The lawsuit suggests the BBC’s documentary, broadcasted a week before the 2024 presidential election, was intended to harm Trump’s campaign.
Trump’s legal team argues that the BBC’s pursuit of discovery is politically motivated and already deemed excessively broad by the court.
The BBC, while apologizing to Trump for the editing error, maintains they did not defame him.