A judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition as part of his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett said Trump must give his deposition by Dec. 11 unless the discovery deadline is extended beyond Dec. 18.
This followed complaints by the BBC’s legal counsel about the delay in the deposition after Trump had canceled a previously scheduled deposition for Oct. 16.
“The formerly respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 presidential election,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told Fox News Digital.
“The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda. President Trump’s powerhouse lawsuit is holding the BBC accountable for its defamation and reckless election interference just as he has held other fake news mainstream media responsible for their wrongdoing.”
A spokesperson for the BBC declined to comment.
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The BBC previously filed a motion to compel Trump’s deposition. The BBC had said it understood that Trump’s deposition requires “additional planning,” and he “accepted the obligations of civil litigation” when he chose to file the lawsuit.
Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC late last year for its 2024 “Panorama” documentary that distorted his remarks to supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. Critics claim the documentary was misleading because it omitted Trump’s call for supporters to protest peacefully, splicing together separate portions of a lengthy address to give a wrong impression.
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. And I’ll be there with you. And we fight — we fight like hell,” the documentary showed Trump saying.
In reality, Trump said, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. And we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
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It wasn’t until 54 minutes later that Trump called on his supporters to “fight like hell” for election integrity.
The BBC previously issued an apology for the erroneous edit and said it had pulled the program from its platforms. Despite the apology, the broadcaster has insisted the mistake is not enough for a defamation claim.
The controversy led to the resignations of BBC News CEO Deborah Turness and BBC Director-General Tim Davie.
Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood contributed to this report.