Trump seeks to block BBC subpoenas for family members in $10B suit

President Donald Trump's attorneys have asked a federal judge to deny the BBC's request for court assistance in serving subpoenas on three of his family members, calling the move a politically driven attempt to gain leverage in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the broadcaster.

In a filing on Friday, the president's personal lawyers argued that the BBC's effort to obtain testimony and documents from Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr. is part of a broader discovery campaign that has already been deemed improperly overbroad by the court.

The dispute is now before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz in Miami, who inherited the case less than a week ago from another judge. No reason was given for the reassignment, and the previous judge had set a trial date for February. Kuntz, a Trump appointee, has not yet ruled on the matter.

The BBC has been trying to serve subpoenas on the family members since May. According to the president's lawyers, a process server attempted to deliver subpoenas to Ivanka Trump and Kushner at their residence but was turned away by Secret Service agents who said they were not authorized to accept them. A later attempt to serve Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in New York also failed.

Last week, the broadcaster asked the court for permission to serve the subpoenas by certified mail instead of in person.

The underlying lawsuit stems from a December filing in which Trump accused the BBC of deceptively editing portions of his speech on January 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol. The suit claims the broadcaster spliced together separate parts of the speech to intentionally misrepresent his words, and that the documentary aired a week before the 2024 presidential election in an attempt to influence the outcome against him.

The BBC has apologized for the misleading edit but denies defaming the president.