The president filed a motion to block the broadcaster from accessing details relating to his business activities the night before they were due to be disclosed
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NEED TO KNOW
- President Donald Trump has made a last-minute bid to hide his financial records from the BBC amid his ongoing $10 billion lawsuit against the broadcaster
- Trump’s attorneys argued in an emergency motion on Wednesday, Aug. 5, that the BBC’s request for his records — due to be disclosed the following day — was politically motivated and overly broad
- The president, 80, claims the BBC defamed him by editing the speech he gave to supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, in a 2024 documentary
President Donald Trump has made a last-minute bid to shield financial details regarding his business activities from the BBC as part of his ongoing $10 billion lawsuit against the broadcaster.
Trump, 80, sued the BBC in Florida in December 2025, claiming that it defamed him by “intentionally, maliciously and deceptively” editing the speech he gave to his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, before many of them stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to overturn his 2020 election loss, in a 2024 documentary.
The complaint argued that the BBC’s editing damaged the value of the president’s “brand, properties and businesses,” prompting Judge Enjoliqué Lett to order the president to release information relating to more than 400 companies owned by the Trump family trust to the broadcaster by Thursday, Aug. 6.
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However, the previous night, Trump’s attorneys asked the court to pause the order in an emergency motion.
They argued the BBC requested a “shockingly broad amount of information based on clearly political motivations,” adding: “The BBC’s motive could not be more transparent — to wrongly exploit this litigation for its own political benefit, as well as the benefit of President Trump’s other political opponents.”
Trump’s attorneys also asked the court to allow an amended complaint that would focus on the “reputational harm” they allege the documentary caused, stating this would keep disclosures “proportional to the needs of the case.”
Lawyers for the BBC responded with a filing of their own, in which they claimed the information was “critically relevant” in assessing “reputational harm” and the damages Trump is seeking. They added that any documents could be placed under a protective order to ensure no wider disclosure.
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They argued that the president had spent months refusing to offer “any meaningful information” to support the $10 billion suit, describing the emergency motion as a “transparent effort to evade this Court’s clear and direct order.”
Trump’s 2025 suit focuses on a portion of the BBC’s Panorama investigative documentary series, in which two clips of Trump saying, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol,” and, “Fight like hell. If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore,” were spliced together.
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The president also claimed earlier this year that the BBC “used AI” to insert words into his speech, per The Independent, which the BBC has denied.
The broadcaster previously apologized for the way it edited the two remarks, which were made about an hour apart, while its legal team has argued that, because Trump later won the 2024 election, he “cannot plausibly claim that the documentary harmed his reputation,” via Politico.
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