A high-stakes legal battle between former U.S. President Donald Trump and the British Broadcasting Corporation has taken a dramatic new turn, as the public broadcaster moves to compel testimony and document disclosure from three of Trump’s closest family members as part of its defense against a $10 billion defamation claim.
Court records made public reveal that the BBC’s legal team first attempted to serve legal subpoenas in May to Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former senior White House advisor. The lawsuit stems from a 2024 episode of the BBC’s long-running investigative documentary series Panorama, which edited together two separate segments of a speech Trump delivered ahead of the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump launched the defamation suit against the BBC last December, filing the claim in a Florida court. He alleges the broadcaster intentionally and maliciously altered his speech to falsely imply he directly called for violent action on January 6, arguing the edit caused severe harm to his business and personal reputation. While the BBC has issued a public apology for the editing error that created the misleading impression of Trump advocating violence, it has repeatedly denied the error meets the legal standard for defamation and is pushing to have the entire case dismissed. The network has also noted the documentary was never made available to audiences on its U.S.-facing platforms.
In its latest court filing, the BBC’s legal team argues that the three Trump family members hold unique, firsthand knowledge of the former president’s intentions when he delivered the January 6 speech, making their testimony and relevant documents critical to the defense against the defamation claim. Drawing on evidence previously compiled by the U.S. House committee that investigated the Capitol riot, the filing notes that Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump were present while their father revised and delivered the speech. It adds that Jared Kushner personally drafted a proposed version of the speech that included explicit language condemning political violence, a detail that could undermine Trump’s current claims about the content and intent of his final remarks.
The filing also details repeated failed attempts by the BBC’s legal representatives to serve the subpoenas in person, prompting the network to ask the court for permission to serve the documents via email and certified mail. When a process server attempted to deliver subpoenas for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner at their Florida residence, they were denied access at a police checkpoint and later informed by the U.S. Secret Service that the agency could not accept the legal documents on the couple’s behalf. Separate attempts to serve Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in New York also stalled: on the first attempt, building staff said the employee responsible for accepting legal documents was out at lunch, and on a second visit two days later, the server was told the entire legal department was off-site that day.
Recent weeks have already seen major shifts in the case. Last month, Trump’s legal team was forced to concede that they had no evidence to back their original claim that the Panorama episode was available to U.S. audiences on the BBC’s BritBox streaming service, BBC.com, BBC Select, or through any U.S. broadcast partners. Shortly after that, Trump agreed to remove BBC Studios, the corporation’s commercial production arm, from the lawsuit after the BBC argued the unit played no role in creating or distributing the documentary. Earlier this month, the judge overseeing the case granted Trump’s request to delay turning over financial records to the BBC, which has requested the documents to challenge Trump’s claim that the edit caused substantial damage to his business interests. Trump’s legal team has argued that disclosing the records would cause irreversible harm to the former president. If the case proceeds through pre-trial proceedings, a trial is scheduled to begin in February 2027.
As of this reporting, no response has been issued by Trump’s legal team to the BBC’s latest subpoena request, and the BBC’s press office has declined to comment on ongoing litigation.