Judge pauses Trump financial disclosures in BBC lawsuit

A federal judge has temporarily blocked an order requiring Donald Trump to hand over detailed financial records to the BBC in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit, giving the president time to try to narrow the claims at the center of the case.

U.S. District Judge Roy Altman paused the disclosure while he considers Trump’s request to amend his complaint against the broadcaster. The records were due to begin being filed Thursday after a judge in July granted the BBC’s request for financial information tied to Trump’s claim that the documentary damaged his business interests.

Trump is suing the BBC over a Panorama episode, described by The Guardian as the 2024 documentary Trump: A Second Chance, that edited together two separate sections of a speech he gave before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The lawsuit, filed in Florida, accuses the BBC of “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring” the speech.

The BBC has apologized for an editing error that gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.” But it has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the program does not meet the legal criteria for defamation and was not made available on its U.S. platforms.

Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency motion this week seeking to pause the financial disclosures, saying the release of the records would cause him “irreparable harm.” They argued that no records should be turned over until the court rules on their objection to the disclosure order.

According to The Guardian, Trump’s attorneys also said the BBC had demanded a “shockingly broad amount of information based on clearly political motivations.” The records sought would have included extensive information on hundreds of businesses held by the Trump family trust.

Trump has asked to revise his central complaint so it no longer claims the BBC documentary damaged his brands and businesses. His lawyers want the case to focus instead on damages for “the reputational injury to the President, full stop.”

In his order, Altman said the disclosure requirement would be paused until the amendment issue is resolved. The Guardian reported that Altman said Trump’s effort to remove claims about damage to his brand and businesses could reduce the BBC’s need to obtain his financial records.

The BBC opposed the delay, calling it “a transparent effort to evade this court’s clear and direct order and to continue to avoid the discovery obligations that the plaintiff took on when he chose to file this lawsuit.”

“In fact, this is just the latest in [Trump’s] months-long refusal to provide documents, sworn answers to interrogatories, deposition dates, any meaningful information to support his pursuit of $10bn from the BBC for a documentary the BBC never aired in the United States,” the broadcaster said.

The BBC has argued that Trump’s business value remains relevant because his public reputation was closely tied to his success as a businessman. Its lawyers also said Trump’s proposed amended complaint, which has not been made public, still seeks $10 billion in damages, an amount they argue would be hard to support if the case were limited to reputational harm.

Last month, Trump’s lawyers acknowledged they had no evidence that the documentary was available in the United States on the BBC’s BritBox subscription service, BBC.com, BBC Select or through U.S. broadcasters. Trump also recently agreed to drop the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Studios, from the lawsuit after the broadcaster argued the company had “no role in creating or producing the documentary.”