Judge insists Trump must be deposed in his $10B lawsuit against the BBC, warns it could be tossed in fight over records

By Tierney Sneed, CNN

Miami (CNN) — A federal judge warned President Donald Trump could see his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC dismissed if he does not work harder to produce information the news outlet is entitled to in the case, including sitting for a deposition.

“Engaging in discovery is burdensome, but is a burden we undertake, especially if we file a lawsuit,” Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Aytch Lett told personal attorneys for Trump at a hearing Thursday, where she also backed a subpoena from the BBC for membership records at Mar-a-Lago.

Lett expressed skepticism that Trump and his team had done an adequate job searching for internal documents related to the case.

“I tend to agree with the defendant that it strains credulity that a thorough search has been in order to determine that all of the requests have been responded to,” she said.

Lett also ordered that Trump sit for a deposition by December 11, but she and both parties said there was a likely possibility it could be moved back. She also rejected Trump’s request to prevent his deposition from being videotaped, but said that only attorneys in the case could see it.

The proceedings showed how the president’s litigiousness comes with risks, including that lawsuits can expose Trump and his businesses to scrutiny from the parties he is suing.

Trump filed the lawsuit against the BBC in December 2025. He alleges he was defamed by the media company with a documentary on his political comeback that aired before the 2024 election, because of how the film spliced two parts of the January 6, 2021, speech he gave in front of the White House before his supporters violently attacked the US Capitol.

The documentary joined one section of his remarks, in which he told his supporters to “walk down to the Capitol,” with a later portion, in which he told the protestors that “we fight like hell.”

The dispute over the president’s deposition was before the judge after Trump’s lawyers abruptly cancelled plans for him to sit for questioning last Friday, citing matters of “national importance.” BBC’s attorneys, however, noted that Trump spent that day on the campaign trail in Georgia and fundraising from Mar-a-Lago, with the company’s lawyer, Chuck Tobin, arguing Thursday that the president had “prioritized party politics” over his obligations to the court.

Trump attorney Alejandro Brito pushed back on that characterization, telling the judge, “It insults the intelligence of everyone in this courtroom” to suggest those two events were the only things the president was dealing with that day.

In response to an earlier round of discovery disputes, the court said that the BBC was entitled to information shedding light on the “message” of the speech and the “impression” it left. But the court said also said then it was not giving the media company a green light to “relitigate” the events of January 6.

In total, the BBC has issued at least 47 subpoenas to former and current government officials, as well as private advisers in Trump’s circle, who had a window into his efforts to overturn the election – including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr, and former White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

The judge punted on a dispute over whether former special counsel Jack Smith can be deposed by the defendants. She is requiring that Smith and BBC go through the formal process of seeking the approval from his former employer, the Justice Department, for his deposition, and the judge said they could return to the question once DOJ responds.

Why BBC wants to depose Trump

Ordering a December 11 deadline for the deposition, Lett noted that she did not have the power to move back the current December 18 end date for discovery in the case. Trump could ask the US district court judge overseeing the lawsuit to extend that discovery deadline, she said, opening up the possibility for a delay of the deposition.

Lett will rule in writing over a series of objections Trump’s team has issued to documents sought by BBC or questions that they want him to answer. Some of those demands have to do with the January 6 speech, while other requests deal with information about his businesses, and even polling data about his favorability.

In seeking the Mar-a-Lago records, BBC wants to test Trump’s claims that the documentary harmed his profession – and specifically his “profession, occupation and trade”– Tobin said Thursday, quoting from the current version of the complaint. The BBC is seeking records indicating its membership numbers and the dues for those memberships over a six-year span since before the documentary aired.

Trump’s original lawsuit sought damages related to the alleged harm to his businesses and brand, but in August amended it to narrow that alleged harm to his personal reputation.

Lett ultimately agreed with the BBC that removing claims of damages to Trump’s business did not shut the door to probing Mar-a-Lago’s popularity as a metric for alleged harm to Trump’s professional reputation, given the role the resort has played in his presidency.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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