Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have urged a federal judge to reject a request from the BBC to help secure testimony and documents from three of his family members as part of a $10 billion defamation lawsuit.
The BBC is attempting to gain "politically-driven leverage" over Trump by serving subpoenas on his daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and son Donald Trump Jr., the president's personal lawyers argued in a court filing Friday.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz in Miami is overseeing the dispute. Kuntz, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, inherited the case less than a week ago, and a previous judge had set a February trial date.
In May, a process server working for the BBC attempted to serve subpoenas on Ivanka Trump and Kushner at their residence but was reportedly turned away by Secret Service agents. Lawyers for Trump stated that the process server also made an unsuccessful attempt to serve Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in New York.
Last week, the BBC requested the court's permission to serve subpoenas on the Trump family members via certified mail rather than in person.
Trump's lawsuit, filed in December, accuses the BBC of deceptively editing portions of a speech he delivered near the White House on January 6, 2021. The suit claims the broadcaster spliced together separate parts of Trump's speech to intentionally misrepresent his remarks, alleging the BBC aired its documentary a week before the 2024 presidential election in "a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence" the outcome.
Trump's lawyers contend that "the relief that the BBC’s Motion seeks cannot be segregated from the politically charged discovery campaign that it is based on, and which has already been ruled as improperly overbroad by this Court."
The BBC has apologized to Trump for a misleading edit but denies defaming him.