A federal judge in Florida ordered President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC by Dec. 11, according to a spokesperson for the president’s personal legal team.
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The judge, Enjoliqué A. Lett, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, issued the ruling at a hearing on Thursday, days after British broadcaster’s lawyers told the court that Trump had attended a campaign rally on the day he canceled an earlier deposition. The lawyers have argued that Trump was delaying testifying under oath.
Both sides had initially agreed to hold the deposition on Oct. 16, according to court records. But on Sept. 28, Trump’s legal team told the BBC that he was no longer available because of “matters of national importance.”
On Monday, Charles Tobin, a lawyer for the BBC, said in a court filing that on Oct. 16, Trump “attended and addressed a campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia,” alongside other candidates in the state’s coming Senate and governor’s races. He then traveled to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, for a Republican National Committee fundraiser.
Trump sued the BBC last year, accusing it of defamation and violating Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team confirmed on Friday that Lett made the order.
Trump’s lawsuit stems from a 2024 BBC documentary called “Trump: A Second Chance?” The documentary showed two spliced-together portions of a speech, originally 50 minutes apart, that Trump gave near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, giving the impression he was encouraging participation in the events that took place later that day.
The BBC previously acknowledged misleadingly editing the documentary about the attacks on the U.S. Capitol but disputed that there was a basis for a defamation claim.
A representative from the BBC declined to comment.