Donald Trump ordered to sit for deposition as his lawsuit against BBC advances

Earlier today, lawyers appeared in a hearing before US Magistrate Judge Enjolique Lett in Miami to address when Mr Trump will be available for deposition.

Last week, the BBC’s legal team requested that the US President appears after having to move the date from October 16 for “matters of national importance”.

Mr Trump’s team had indicated it would quickly propose an alternative date.

Instead, the lawyers eventually suggested their client could be available in the second or third week of January.

But, now, Judge Enjoliqué Lett, declared the US President must sit for the deposition by December 11.

If he fails to abide by the deadline, the entire case could come face-to-face with dismissal – unless the discovery period is extended.

Mr Trump filed the lawsuit against the BBC after its Panorama programme spliced together two clips in a 12-second segment from the 2021 Capitol riots in its 2024 “Trump: A Second Chance?” documentary.

In the clip, Mr Trump supposedly said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”

However, it later emerged that the footage had been “mangled” together with a 50-minute gap separating the two moments.

In court documents, the US President claimed that the edit had damaged “the value of his brand, properties, and businesses,”.

In November, the BBC issued a grovelling apology for the “error of judgement”.

It read: “This programme was reviewed after criticism of how President Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech was edited.

“During that sequence, we showed excerpts taken from different parts of the speech.

“However, we accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.”

The corporation confirmed that the programme would not be broadcast again on any of its platforms.

A BBC spokesman said that while it “sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim”.

Back in July, the President agreed to drop his defamation claims against the broadcaster’s production and commercial wings – but vowed to press on with his lawsuit against the main corporation, court documents revealed.

It read: “All claims in this action asserted against the Studios Defendants are hereby dismissed with prejudice, with each party to bear its own costs and attorney’s fees.

“President Trump shall continue prosecuting his causes of action against Defendant British Broadcasting Corporation.”

The US Presdient has said he feels an “obligation” to see the lawsuit through, with the case now set for trial in Florida in February 2027.