Trump seeks to shield his business finances from BBC in libel lawsuit

President Donald Trump is seeking to stave off a court order that requires him to begin giving the BBC financial details on his business empire by Thursday in connection with a defamation lawsuit he is pressing against the network. Trump’s attorneys filed the emergency stay motion Wednesday with Miami-based U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett, urging her to lift the order she issued last month that the British TV broadcaster is entitled to information on the financial performance of hundreds of Trump’s companies because he claimed his “brand, properties and businesses” were damaged by a documentary the BBC aired in the U.K. in 2024. Trump’s lawyers said in court filings that the demands for information are part of an effort by the BBC “to wrongly exploit this litigation for its own political benefit.” The BBC’s attorneys contend that the records are relevant to assessing Trump’s claims of massive damages. His initial lawsuit appeared to seek $10 billion, although a form his attorneys submitted to the court listed $5 billion. Trump’s lawsuit, filed last December, claims that the documentary defamed him by splicing together segments of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech in a manner that made it sound like he was directly calling for the violent attack on the Capitol that followed. The BBC has apologized for the editing, but said it was not an intentional effort to distort Trump’s words and isn’t legally actionable. Trump’s legal team is also asking the judge overseeing the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, to overturn Lett’s order and to allow Trump to amend his lawsuit to trim out some of the language that led the magistrate judge to conclude that the financial performance of Trump’s businesses should be subject to discovery. The proposed new complaint “focuses on President Trump’s damages allegations on the reputational harm that he has suffered, which is at the core of this defamation action,” Trump attorney Alejandro Brito wrote. “That focus matters because third-party discovery here has expanded well beyond the issues actually in dispute.” The text of the new proposed lawsuit is currently under seal, but Trump’s lawyers say it describes “personal reputational harm as the primary compensatory injury” and continues to seek punitive damages against the BBC. The BBC has moved to dismiss the lawsuit on various grounds, including that the court lacks jurisdiction over the London-based broadcaster. Altman, a Trump appointee, has yet to hold a hearing or rule on that motion. Trump’s attorneys say the revised lawsuit they want to file would add new allegations to support the court’s jurisdiction over the suit, including that producers gave interviewees in the U.S. detailed instructions on how to access the documentary over the internet and that the BBC “received contemporaneous notice that its geoblocking [aimed at preventing viewing in the U.S.] was failing.” An attorney for the BBC did not immediately respond to request for comment.