A Miami judge ordered President Trump to sit for a deposition by December 11 in his $10 billion BBC lawsuit or risk the case being dismissed.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett issued the order at a Thursday hearing after BBC lawyers told the court they still had not been able to question the plaintiff, the central figure in the Florida defamation case filed last December.
Just The News reported that Lett warned of sanctions up to dismissal unless Trump appears by the deadline or the discovery window is extended past December 18.
The fight traces to a 2024 BBC Panorama documentary that spliced portions of Trump’s January 6, 2021, speech outside the White House. Trump’s suit claims the edits made it appear he encouraged the Capitol riot and seeks $5 billion in defamation damages plus another $5 billion under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The network apologized for what it called an “error of judgment.” Director-general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness both resigned over the scandal. That did not end the legal battle.
BBC attorneys have asked the court to throw the case out. They argue the documentary never aired in Florida or anywhere else in the United States, that Trump’s claims fall “well short of the high bar of actual malice,” and that he “cannot plausibly claim that the documentary harmed his reputation.”
In one filing the network went further, writing that the film was “prescient in accurately describing the loyalty plaintiff enjoys among his supporters, and that led to his return to the White House.” Trump carried Florida by a wide margin and won the 2024 election roughly a week after the documentary aired.
The New York Post noted the network’s dual track: public apology and leadership exits on one side, a hard procedural push to kill the lawsuit on the other.
BBC lawyers first sought deposition dates in July and settled on October 16. On September 28, Trump’s counsel wrote that the president was “no longer available for his deposition on October 16 due to other matters of national importance” and promised to “endeavor to provide you with a replacement date by the end of this week.”
BBC’s lawyers answered in an October 13 filing: “He did not.”
At the Miami hearing, BBC attorney Charles Tobin told the court the network still had no date and only two months of discovery left.
Tobin said:
"we still haven't been able to depose the plaintiff."
He also told the judge Trump “was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition,” pointing to campaigning in Georgia. Trump had spoken at a rally in Pendleton, South Carolina, the day before the hearing. His team later offered dates in the second or third week of January, after discovery is set to close.
Tobin put the bind in writing:
"Two months of discovery remaining, the BBC still has not been able to depose, and does not even have a schedule to depose, the most central figure in this case: Plaintiff himself."
Daily Mail reporting detailed the same stalled schedule and the judge’s warning that missing the new deadline could sink the entire $10 billion action unless the discovery period is extended.
The BBC is also chasing testimony from Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr. Process servers were turned away at Ivanka and Kushner’s Miami home in May; a bid to serve Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower failed. A Secret Service lawyer said the agency was not authorized to accept subpoenas for Ivanka and Kushner.
On October 9, Lett cleared the way for service by certified mail to home or business addresses and by email to Trump’s lawyers. That ruling does not settle objections to the scope of those subpoenas. The BBC contends Ivanka and Kushner were with Trump as he revised and delivered the January 6 speech, and that Kushner drafted a statement condemning the Capitol violence that the White House never issued.
Earlier this month the network also subpoenaed former special counsel Jack Smith. Smith charged Trump in August 2023 with four felony counts tied to January 6; the Justice Department dropped the case after the 2024 victory under its longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Smith released a lengthy final report in January 2025 and has already testified for hours in other settings.
Trump’s lawyers filed jointly to block the Smith deposition, arguing he “lacks any personal knowledge regarding the issues in this matter,” “was not present when President Trump's January 6, 2021, speech... was made, nor did he participate in its preparation,” and that “Smith's testimony would be duplicative” because “the entirety of his testimony is publicly available.”
BBC lawyers answered that it is “difficult to imagine a more authoritative source on these issues than Mr. Smith, who spent years gathering evidence on those topics with the force of the Justice Department and the power of the grand jury behind him.” They added: “No one forced Plaintiff to file this lawsuit and to dispute that his speech on January 6 incited the violence that followed at the Capitol.”
Smith’s own final report stated that prosecutors did not develop direct evidence of “Trump's subjective intent to cause the full scope of the violence that occurred on Jan. 6.”
Lett’s order leaves Trump a binary choice: sit for the deposition by December 11 or risk sanctions that can include outright dismissal. Discovery still closes December 18 unless the court expands it. The BBC frames the schedule fight as proof Trump has “no availability whatsoever” before that cutoff. Trump’s side has called the network’s moves a hunt for “politically-driven leverage.”
The network that already lost its top two news executives over a documentary edit is now using every procedural tool available to keep the president from a jury on a $10 billion claim. Court calendars, not press releases, will decide whether that strategy works.
