BBC Scores Blow Against Trump — As Judge in Defamation Case Orders President to Turn Over Years of Financial Docs

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The BBC scored a blow against President Donald Trump in its defense against the defamation suit he filed when a judge ordered the president to turn over years of financial documents to the British public broadcaster.

The controversy stems from a 2024 BBC Panorama documentary that used an edited clip of Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021 that immediately preceded the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol, as his supporters stormed the building to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College votes for President Joe Biden.

The edited clip had Trump saying: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you and we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”

However, that was a combination of different sections of his speech. That specific phrase as Trump said it that day, near the beginning of his remarks, was: “We’re gonna walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re gonna walk down, we’re gonna walk down any one you want but I think right here, we’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen.”

The part where Trump said, “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” was closer to the end of his speech. A video and transcript of Trump’s full speech can be reviewed here, as posted by NPR.

The BBC issued a correction and apology but refused to offer any sort of payment, and last December Trump sued the British public broadcaster, claiming $10 billion in damages.

The discovery process kicked off a few months ago and a trial date is currently scheduled for February 2027.

Last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett ruled that because Trump was claiming damages to his businesses, the BBC had the right to demand access to documents and information about said businesses.

On Monday, Lett issued a nine-page written order spelling out what documents Trump would have to disclose to the BBC and setting deadlines for that document production.

In the order, the judge noted that Trump had claimed the BBC’s “defamatory” broadcast had caused him to suffer “extensive economic harms,” “injury to [his] business and personal reputation” that caused “massive economic damage to his brand value and significant damage and injury to his future financial prospects,” and “direct harm to his professional and occupational interests, including, without limitation, the value of his brand, properties, and businesses, and severe diminishment and tarnishing of his reputation as a politician, leader, and businessman in the eyes of the American public and around the world.”

The BBC subpoenaed financial records from The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust (the “Trust”). Trump objected; his arguments included that the Trust is not a party to the lawsuit, the request was disproportional and unreasonable, and that his claim of damages to his businesses did not open the door to the Trust’s records.

Trump is claiming damages up to $10 billion which include the “value” of his “brand, properties, and businesses,” wrote Lett, and [a]s represented by the parties, virtually all of these ‘properties and businesses’ are owned by the Trust.”

Trump’s other arguments were quickly dismissed by the judge as contrary to the principles in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allowing broad discovery of non-privileged material. Lett further noted that she was not convinced by Trump’s claims the BBC’s subpoena was unreasonable or unduly burdensome.

To the extent the BBC’s subpoena sought “a substantial amount of information,” that proportionally matched Trump’s claims of a “broad array of damages” to his “brand, properties, and businesses,” wrote Lett, and the fact Trump was claiming $10 billion in damages made the BBC’s ability to conduct this discovery “especially important.”

Lett concluded by ordering the Trust to turn over the requested financial documents but did limit the time period to those dated January 1, 2023 to the present, and set a deadline for the “first substantial production of documents” under the BBC’s subpoena to “occur within ten (10) days of the date of this order and continue every week until complete.”

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