Lawyers argue BBC demanded “shockingly broad” information with “political motivations”
A Miami-based judge ruled in July that Trump must begin handing over detailed financial records to the BBC, according to The Guardian. The records would reveal information about hundreds of businesses held in the president’s family trust.
Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion, arguing that the network’s 2024 documentary “Trump, A Second Chance” damaged his business interests. The documentary included a scene that spliced lines from a speech Trump delivered on Jan. 6, 2021, in a way that made it appear he directly urged supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol. The BBC has apologized for the edit but says the defamation claims have no merit, The Guardian reported.
Trump has separately claimed that the BBC “used AI” to insert words into his speech. The network has categorically denied this, according to the report.
Ahead of the Aug. 6 deadline, Trump’s attorneys filed the request to pause enforcement Wednesday. In their request, the lawyers argued the BBC had demanded a “shockingly broad amount of information based on clearly political motivations.” They also asked the court to amend the original lawsuit to focus instead on the “reputation harm” caused by the documentary, which they said would keep the required disclosures “proportional to the needs of the case.”
The Guardian reported that Trump’s exact net worth is unclear, though recent financial disclosures showed he made more than $2.2 billion during his first year back in office.
The BBC lawsuit is one of several legal actions Trump has pursued against media outlets. The Guardian reported that on the same Wednesday, his attorneys argued that a separate $10 billion defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal should proceed to trial. That case concerns a letter the president reportedly included in a birthday book for financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. Trump’s Justice Department also recently issued and then recalled subpoenas to New York Times journalists after the newspaper reported on security concerns around the Air Force One presidential jet.