The Felon's BBC Lawsuit Backfires

The Felon likes to file lawsuits to intimidate both critics and the news media outlets that accurately report on his failed policies and misdeeds.  Often the targets of the Felon's intimidation either roll over and pay money to make the lawsuits go away or reach some other kind of settlement. One such defendant, the British Broadcasting Corporation ("BBC") is not rolling over as the Felon expected and the rules of federal court discovery in lawsuits now has the Felon - and other Trump family members - dodging depositions where testimony would be under oath and perjury charges could be applied to parties giving false testimony (the only thing that comes out of the Felon's mouth). The Felon hates anything and any forum where he is not free to lie at will. As pieces in the New Republic and Politico lay out the Felon is again trying to dodge being deposed and is claiming to be unavailable until after the court ordered discovery period is over.  Hopefully, the court will force him to testify or dismiss the case with prejudice so that it cannot be revived down the road.  Here are excerpts from The New Republic:

[The Felon] President Trump is trying to get out of testifying in a lawsuit that he initiated.  As part of his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC, Trump was scheduled to sit for a deposition with the U.K. broadcaster’s lawyers on Friday. However, according to a court filing Tuesday, the president’s attorneys canceled the session, saying he would be unavailable for about two months, well after the discovery period in the case ends, Politico reports. . . . The broadcaster is trying to get a federal judge to force Trump to commit to a date for the deposition.

“Nearly eight months into discovery, after seven depositions of BBC witnesses, and with only 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,” BBC attorney Charles Tobin wrote in the filing. “There is hardly a more crucial and relevant piece of discovery in a defamation lawsuit than the deposition of the Plaintiff.”

Trump’s lawyers had reportedly agreed in July that Trump would testify on October 16 as long as both sides agreed to keep the location and other details secret. But on September 28, the president’s attorneys said that the previously agreed date no longer worked. This past Friday, they finally suggested moving the deposition to the second or third week of January, nearly one month after the discovery period ends.

Now the BBC’s lawyers want the judge on the case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett, to add the deposition’s scheduling to the agenda of a hearing scheduled for next week.  

Trump sued the BBC last year, claiming the broadcasting company funded by the British government defamed him by deceptively editing one of his speeches on January 6, 2021, for a documentary aired one day before the 2024 presidential election. 

Since then, the lawsuit has backfired for him, as the court ordered the release of Trump’s finances, as well as records from special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. Even Trump’s children are dodging subpoenas from the BBC’s lawyers for records related to the January 6 Capitol insurrection.   

The BBC is trying to get Trump’s case thrown out entirely, pointing out that the documentary never aired in the U.S. and that the south Florida federal court where Trump filed the lawsuit doesn’t have jurisdiction over the case. Trump’s refusal to testify on camera is probably going to help the BBC’s efforts and expose his attempts to browbeat news organizations he doesn’t like. 

The piece in Politico notes how the Felon has avoid being deposed in other lawsuits of his own instigation:

In 2023, Trump dropped a lawsuit he’d filed against his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, after a judge ordered Trump to sit for a deposition in the case and refused further requests to change the established date. Trump said through a spokesperson that he had elected to “pause” the suit, rather than cancel a campaign rally he had planned in New Hampshire for the same day as the testimony. The suit was never refiled.