Legal Battle Over Edited Speech

Court filings show that representatives for the BBC’s legal team attempted in May to serve subpoenas to the president’s son Donald Trump Jr., his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner. The president is suing the BBC over an episode of Panorama that edited together two different sections of a speech he gave before the 2021 Capitol riots.

The BBC has previously apologised for the edit but denied it was grounds for defamation. In the latest filing, the BBC’s lawyers argue Trump’s family members “have personal knowledge” of his intentions in delivering the speech, making their testimony and documents relevant to the president’s defamation claim.

Attempts to Serve Subpoenas

Drawing on evidence previously gathered by a US congressional committee, the filing says Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump were present when their father revised and delivered his speech, adding Jared Kushner drafted a proposed statement for him which would have condemned the use of violence. The filing asks the court to allow the subpoenas to be served by email and certified mail, saying attempts to serve them by hand were unsuccessful.

In one instance, according to the document, a representative for the BBC’s legal team tried to deliver a subpoena for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner at their home in Florida, but was refused entry at a police checkpoint and was later told by the Secret Service that the agency could not accept the subpoenas. Similarly, according to the filing, a representative tried to serve a subpoena for Donald Trump Jr at Trump Tower in New York but was told by the concierge that the person who normally takes such documents may be at lunch.

During another attempt two days later, the representative was told the “legal department” was not in that day, according to the filing; President Trump’s legal team has been approached for comment. The BBC press office declined to comment.

Legal Arguments and Developments

Last December, Trump sued the BBC and subsidiaries BBC Studios Productions and BBC Studios Distribution over the 2024 Panorama episode. Trump’s lawsuit – filed in Florida – accuses the BBC of “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring” the speech he gave outside the Capitol on 6 January 2021.

The BBC has apologised for an editing error that gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”. However, the BBC has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the programme doesn’t meet the legal criteria for defamation and wasn’t made available on its US platforms. Last month, Trump’s lawyers admitted they had no evidence that the documentary was available in the US on the BBC’s BritBox subscription service, as they had originally claimed, or on BBC.com, BBC Select or through US broadcasters.

Trump also recently agreed to drop the BBC’s commercial arm BBC Studios from his lawsuit, after the BBC argued the company had “no role in creating or producing the documentary”. Earlier this month, the judge in the case granted Trump’s request for a delay in him handing over a financial documents to the broadcaster as part of the suit. The BBC has asked for some of Trump’s financial records in relation to his argument that the documentary damaged the president’s business interests; the president’s legal team said disclosure of the financial records would cause him “irreparable harm”.

A trial date in February 2027 has been scheduled, should the case progress, and BBC News is editorially independent from the wider corporation. The BBC is being represented by the law firm Ballard Spahr, which has also defended several publications facing lawsuits from Trump and his allies, including the New York Times and the Associated Press. It is one of several media organizations that Trump has targeted after they published critical reporting of him — the Wall Street Journal is also facing a $10bn lawsuit for its reporting.