Federal Judge Hands President a Win, Rejects BBC’s Request To Depose Former White House Aide

The federal judge overseeing President Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation has given the president an incremental win by quashing the broadcaster’s request to depose one of his former White House aides. In a ruling on Monday, a district court judge, Jeffrey Kuntz, a Trump appointee, rejected the BBC’s request to depose a former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson. Mr. Trump is suing the BBC over its editing of a 2024 documentary about his January 6, 2021, speech at the Ellipse. The program spliced together his words and left out his comment about his supporters “peacefully and patriotically” marching to the U.S. Capitol, which made his comments appear to be a clear call to violence. The BBC asserts that the burden is on the president to prove that he did not incite a riot. Attorneys for the BBC subpoenaed Ms. Hutchinson, who had shared a dramatic account of Mr. Trump’s actions on the day of the riot, with the hope that she could raise doubts about the president’s claim of irreproachability.Ms. Hutchinson filed the motion to quash the subpoena, saying that the deposition would pose an “undue burden, and wouldsubject her to oppression and harassment.” Judge Kuntz agreed, noting that Ms. Hutchinson had already provided more than 30 hours of testimony to the House committee, and that testimony is available to the lawyers. “Her testimony seems largely irrelevant to the narrow issue in this lawsuit,” the judge wrote.Judge Kuntz pointed out that Ms. Hutchinson is facing a “potential criminal investigation” into whether she lied during her congressional testimony and “has other reasons to avoid the deposition.” He also said that while the subpoena is “directed to the event of January 6, 2021,” the case is “about a documentary aired by the BBC and, specifically, an allegation that the BBC ‘spliced’ two statements together that were actually made more than 55 minutes apart.”“The parties should not turn the discovery in this lawsuit into a fishing expedition. Nor one that unnecessarily burdens a non-party such as Ms. Hutchinson,” he said. In August, the BBC case was reassigned to Judge Kuntz. The move came after Mr. Trump sought to have the previous judge removed. The order handing the case to Judge Kuntz did not provide details, but 16 other cases were reassigned to him by Judge Roy Altman — who is also a Trump appointee. Judge Kuntz previously authored a Florida appeals court decision that rejected the Pulitzer Prize Board’s request to dismiss Mr. Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the panel over its decision to give awards to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their reporting on allegations that his campaign colluded with Russian operatives during the 2016 election. The Pulitzer board argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because only one of the defendants resides in Florida. In February 2025, the Florida court found that because the one Pulitzer Prize Board member who resides in Florida was involved in reviewing and editing a statement defending the prizes, Florida courts do have jurisdiction in the case. The BBC has apologized for its editing but insists it did not defame Mr. Trump.

Federal Judge Hands President a Win, Rejects BBC’s Request To Depose Former White House Aide

Federal Judge Hands President a Win, Rejects BBC’s Request To Depose Former White House Aide

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