The BBC has petitioned a federal court in Florida for authorization to subpoena three members of Donald Trump's immediate family as part of its defense against the former president's $10 billion defamation lawsuit.
In a court filing released on Friday, the British public broadcaster's legal team requested permission from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to serve third-party subpoenas to Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner. The subpoenas seek to compel the three individuals to provide testimony and documentation concerning the events of January 6, 2021, during the assault on the U.S. Capitol by the president's supporters.
According to the network's attorneys, these family members possess critical first-hand information. "The Third Parties have personal knowledge and likely have possession, custody, or control of records relevant to multiple elements of Plaintiff's claims against the BBC," the legal team argued in the filing. The broadcaster's lawyers pointed to congressional records released by the U.S. Congress showing that Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump were present in the Oval Office while the former president was actively revising his speech on the morning of January 6. Furthermore, congressional documents indicate that Kushner had drafted a statement for the president to condemn the violence that broke out after his speech, and that Donald Trump Jr. spoke directly with his father after rioters stormed the Capitol.
The court has set a deadline of Friday for Trump's lawyers to formally respond to the filing. A spokesperson for Trump's legal team strongly criticized the move in a statement shared on Monday, accusing the broadcaster of "seeking to harass him, his family, and supporters by abusing the deposition process." The spokesperson added that the BBC is "simply trying to distract away from their own obvious liability." Attempts to reach Trump's attorney, Alejandro Brito, who is representing the president in the ongoing litigation, did not receive an immediate reply on Monday, while the BBC's press office declined to comment on the case.
Trump initiated the lawsuit in December, accusing the BBC of defamation along with deceptive and unfair trade practices. The legal battle centers on the way a 2024 BBC Panorama documentary edited a speech delivered by Trump in Washington prior to protesters attacking the Capitol. Trump's lawyers contend the documentary deceptively edited the speech before the crowd marched to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers were preparing to vote to confirm national election results in favor of former President Joe Biden. Trump's legal team argues that the two clips in question were actually recorded 55 minutes apart, and that the BBC's edit omitted a key statement calling for peace.
Although the BBC issued a public apology last year—acknowledging that the edited video had given "the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action" and promising not to show the 2024 program again—the network has argued since Trump filed his lawsuit that the video is not legitimate grounds for a defamation claim. The newly released court documents also reveal that the BBC previously attempted to serve subpoenas to the family members in May but was unable to do so. Representatives trying to serve Ivanka Trump, the president's eldest daughter, and her husband Jared Kushner at their Florida home were prevented from doing so by local law enforcement officers, and the network was later informed by the Secret Service that the agency could not accept the subpoenas on behalf of the couple. Meanwhile, an attempt to serve Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in New York was unsuccessful after a concierge told the representative that the person who normally took such documents may have been at lunch.
