The judge overseeing President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC has told his lawyers the case may not survive what they have failed to hand over.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Aytch Lett warned Trump’s legal team in Miami on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, that his defamation case could be thrown out unless it works harder to produce the material the broadcaster is entitled to receive.
Lett ordered the president to sit for a deposition by Dec. 11, a date she and both sides said will likely be pushed back. She also backed a BBC subpoena seeking membership records at Mar-a-Lago.
The judge said the penalties available to her run up to dismissal of the suit for failing to prosecute the case, and she told Trump’s lawyers this was their last chance to take part in the process. She doubted that anyone on the president’s side had searched thoroughly for internal documents, and she gave them 30 days to turn over what the BBC requested.
“Engaging in discovery is burdensome, but is a burden we undertake, especially if we file a lawsuit,” Lett told Trump’s personal attorneys.
Charles Tobin, the BBC’s lead attorney, told the court the exchange has been entirely one-sided. What has arrived so far came largely from the internet or from the broadcaster itself, and Trump’s side has produced nothing of substance, he said.
The Rally He Attended Instead
Trump’s side had previously agreed to a deposition on Oct. 16. On Sept. 28, his lawyers told the BBC the president was no longer available that day because of other matters of national importance.
A court filing from Trump listed what those matters were: the conflict in Iran, unrest elsewhere in the Middle East, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the White House accord on super intelligence. The BBC countered that the president spent Oct. 16 at a campaign rally in Dalton, Ga., and a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s team, Tobin told the court, had passed along “fake news.”
The president is involved in a range of things each day that the BBC’s lawyers know nothing about, said Alejandro Brito, Trump’s Florida-based attorney. Brito also fought the Mar-a-Lago subpoena, arguing that Trump’s occupation is president of the United States and has nothing to do with the club. Lett allowed the subpoena anyway.
The Camera Stays Switched On
Trump’s lawyers asked the court to bar video of the questioning. Lett refused. The deposition will run seven hours and be videotaped, with the recording accessible only to attorneys in the case.
The lawyers made that video request in a filing on Wednesday, Oct. 21, the same document in which they wrote that the president is not avoiding his deposition. They proposed a window of Jan. 11-22, 2027. Early in October, the same lawyers had told the broadcaster Trump had no availability at all before discovery closes Dec. 18, and offered January 2027 only if the BBC agreed to extend the schedule.
A court order Lett wrote on Friday, Oct. 16, recorded that she had admonished Trump over his lack of participation, to no avail, and that further failures would lead to sanctions. His disregard of the rules governing joint filings, she noted in the same order, had left the BBC to file five motions on its own. An earlier order had set Oct. 21 as the due date for undisputed records.
A Single Document Since July
The BBC told the court in a September filing that Trump had turned over a single document, on July 14, and that his written answers were not signed under oath.
Discovery closes Dec. 18, and Lett said she is bound by that schedule. Only U.S. District Judge Jeffrey T. Kuntz can extend it. Tobin said a later deposition would be acceptable to the BBC if Kuntz adjusts the calendar.
“The lesson for the day is that no plaintiff is above the law, and no plaintiff is above the orders of the court,” Tobin said.
The Edit That Started It
Trump filed the suit in Miami federal court in December 2025 over a BBC “Panorama” documentary. The edit at issue took a passage of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech in which he told supporters to “walk down to the Capitol” and joined it with a later line, “we fight like hell.” The film aired a week before the 2024 presidential election.
He is seeking $5 billion for defamation and another $5 billion under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. The edit damaged him personally, he argues, even though viewers in Florida could not readily watch the broadcast.
The BBC’s chairman, Samir Shah, apologized for the edit in November 2025 and acknowledged that it gave the impression of a direct call for violent action. Tim Davie resigned as director-general over the episode, and Deborah Turness resigned as chief executive of BBC News.
At least 47 subpoenas have gone out from the broadcaster since then to current and former government officials and private advisers in Trump’s circle. They include Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., former Attorney General Bill Barr and former White House counsel Pat Cipollone. Lett ruled on Oct. 9 that the first three could be served by certified mail and by email to Trump’s lawyers, citing Secret Service protection that blocked in-person service.
Former special counsel Jack Smith is the subject of another fight between the two sides, with Trump’s lawyers calling his testimony duplicative and the BBC calling it key.
