US President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, November 9, 2026. REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz
President Donald Trump rushed to delay testifying under oath in his lawsuit against the BBC after a judge warned that missing his deadline could cost him the case.
In an appeal filed Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz to lift the sanctions warning in Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett’s order that Trump sit for a deposition with the BBC’s lawyers by Dec. 11.
In a separate motion, they asked Kuntz to pause that deadline and to rule by Nov. 20. The BBC opposes both requests.
The filings came the same day Kuntz refused to throw out Trump’s $10 billion defamation claim over the BBC’s edit of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech in a documentary.
“Failure to do so may result in sanctions, including dismissal of the lawsuit,” Lett wrote in her Oct. 27 order, after directing Trump to sit by Dec. 11. That date falls a week before discovery, the evidence-gathering phase of the case, ends on Dec. 18.
“[T]he only obstacle to that window is a scheduling deadline that the Magistrate Judge acknowledged she has no authority to move,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the appeal, referring to Jan. 11 through Jan. 22, when they say he will testify.
The latest deposition dispute began when Trump’s lawyers canceled the Oct. 16 date both sides had agreed on in a Sept. 28 email citing “other matters of national importance,” the appeal says.
In an Oct. 19 filing, the BBC told the court that Trump spent that day at a campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia, and then at a Republican National Committee fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago club.
“Those matters include, but are not limited to, the conflict in Iran, unrest in other parts of the Middle East, the war between Russia and Ukraine, the White House Accord on Super Intelligence ...,” Trump’s lawyers replied two days later.
Lett heard arguments on the dispute the next day.
“Despite scheduling the deposition for October 16, 2026, President Trump unilaterally cancelled the deposition and did not offer alternative dates within the discovery period,” Lett wrote in the Oct. 27 order. She ordered the deposition with that list before her, and her order does not mention it.
“That is the opposite of a refusal,” Trump’s lawyers insisted in the appeal, pointing to the January dates they offered.
They also argue that Lett failed to follow Supreme Court rulings that call for “the utmost deference to Presidential responsibilities,” a phrase from the 1997 case Clinton v. Jones, a lawsuit filed against the president, while Trump brought this one himself and is seeking $10 billion.
The deposition order was one of three warnings of sanctions that Lett gave Trump’s side in 11 days.
“The Court has admonished Plaintiff for his lack of participation to no avail,” she wrote on Oct. 16, warning that further failures to follow her discovery rules “will lead to sanctions.”
On Oct. 27, Lett wrote that the court had “concerns about whether an adequate search for all responsive documentation occurred.”
“[A]n order that requires production of ‘any remaining responsive documents’ on pain of dismissal ... wrongly places Plaintiff in the untenable position of being sanctioned for failing to produce what he does not have,” Trump's team responded in the appeal. “Predetermined warnings of dismissal, announced before any non-compliance has occurred ... are contrary to law.”
Trump’s lawyers say they will soon ask Kuntz to push back the discovery cutoff and the trial date, possibly in a joint request with the BBC.