U.S. President Donald Trump gestures after delivering remarks at Red Rock Casino Resort Spa in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., August 5, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
A Trump-appointed judge shielded President Donald Trump's business finances Wednesday, blocking a court order that had threatened to expose records from more than 400 companies.
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman granted the emergency stay in Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC.
The stay blocks Trump's trust from having to hand over tax returns, financial statements, and records tied to hundreds of business entities — at least until Altman rules on a separate request by Trump to amend his complaint.
Altman said the amendment could make the entire disclosure order moot, according to the ruling.
"If the Plaintiff's amendment obviates the need to compel a non-party to disclose confidential financial information, we think it's prudent to enter a brief stay of the Order until the amendment request is resolved," Altman wrote.
The disclosure order grew directly out of Trump's own lawsuit.
When Trump filed the case in December 2025, his complaint alleged the BBC's documentary caused "massive economic damage to his brand value" and harm to "the value of his brand, properties, and businesses."
U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett ruled last month that those allegations put Trump's finances squarely at issue in the case.
"All of President Trump's brand, properties and businesses are impugned or said to have been impugned," Lett said, according to the order. "Reputational, economic damages, all of that is now at issue in this case."
Facing that order, Trump's attorney Alejandro Brito made a last-minute declaration to Lett at a July hearing that the president was dropping business damages from his claim entirely.
"It is simply the reputational injury to the President, full stop," Brito said, according to the ruling.
But the BBC's attorneys told the court Trump is still seeking $10 billion, according to Politico. BBC lead attorney Chuck Tobin argued the narrowing was meaningless anyway.
"You cannot separate the man and his reputation from his operation of his businesses," Tobin said, according to Mediaite.
The BBC also argued Trump had no real "emergency" — he had simply waited until the day before the court's deadline to ask for relief.
"Simply because the Trump Trust faces an obligation it does not agree with, and is confronted with an imminent deadline of its own making by waiting to file its stay motion until the day before its first Court-ordered disclosure day, does not make its request an emergency," Tobin wrote.