Trump Maneuvers To Block ‘Irrelevant’ Jack Smith From Testifying in $10 Billion BBC Defamation Suit Over January 6

President Trump is seeking to block Special Counsel Jack Smith from testifying in the president’s defamation suit against the British Broadcasting Corporation, docketed last year in federal court in Florida. The latest move underscores the lingering antagonism between the prosecutor and the White House.The suit stems from Mr. Trump’s accusations that the BBC defamed him with deceptive editing in a 2024 documentary about the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Mr. Trump wants $10 billion from the British broadcaster. The BBC, seeking to defend itself, has issued a subpoena to Mr. Smith to testify. In a filing on Monday Mr. Trump contends that Mr. Smith, who prosecuted him for election interference as well as the storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, “lacks any personal knowledge regarding the issues in this matter. He was not present when President Trump’s January 6, 2021, speech (the “Speech”) was made, nor did he participate in its preparation.” The president calls the special counsel’s prospective testimony “irrelevant.”The BBC responds that none of Mr. Trump’s “arguments for blocking the deposition of Mr. Smith can withstand scrutiny.” “No one forced Plaintiff to file this lawsuit and to dispute that his speech on January 6 incited the violence that followed at the Capitol. But as long as he chooses to maintain the case, he cannot commit the fundamental injustice of preventing the BBC from obtaining the evidence it needs to robustly defend itself on every element of his claim,” the network reasons in its response.Mr. Trump also argues that Mr. Smith’s testimony in this case would be “duplicative” because the special counsel has already been offered multiple opportunities to present his view on Mr. Trump’s culpability for the events of January 6. Mr. Trump writes that “On January 7, 2025, Smith published his 174-page Final Report of the Special Counsel regarding his conclusions on January 6, 2021.” In that final report the special counsel reckoned that “but for” Mr. Trump’s reelection, he would have been convicted.Mr. Smith also shared that view under oath in January, when he was summoned to testify before Congress. The special counsel declared that Mr. Trump was “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” for what he called a “criminal scheme” to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election. In testimony before the Senate last month Mr. Smith declared that his “investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation.”On Friday the magistrate judge on the case, Enjolique Lett, threatened to levy sanctions against Mr. Trump for failing to “participate” in his own lawsuit after the BBC informed the court that the president had backed out of a planned deposition in the case and suggested he would not be available to be interviewed until next year. Mr. Trump has also resisted subpoenas issued to members of his family and inner circle. The BBC argues that it is “not the court’s role, nor that of opposing counsel, to drag a party kicking and screaming through the discovery process,” especially when it is Mr. Trump who filed the case in the first place.Mr. Trump’s lawsuit centers on the BBC’s “Panorama” series documentary, which edited together two separate parts of a speech Mr. Trump gave on January 6. The edit presented Mr. Trump as declaring, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol … and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” In reality, Mr. 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.”The BBC has apologized to Mr. Trump — it calls the edit an “error in judgment” — but insists it was not defamatory. The suit was filed just as the British government began its once-a-decade review of the broadcaster’s royal charter. The BBC is funded by a licensing fee of roughly $232 assessed each year to every household with a television, or about 80 percent of homes. That raises more than $5.4 billion every year, which amounts to 65 percent of the BBC’s budget.The BBC maintains that Mr. Trump “cannot prove it would be false to imply that he fomented the violence of January 6.” It also contends that Mr. Trump’s reelection in 2024 contravenes any claim that he suffered harm from the splicing of the footage. The fallout, though, has claimed the jobs of the BBC’s director-general, Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness.

Trump Maneuvers To Block ‘Irrelevant’ Jack Smith From Testifying in $10 Billion BBC Defamation Suit Over January 6

Trump Maneuvers To Block ‘Irrelevant’ Jack Smith From Testifying in $10 Billion BBC Defamation Suit Over January 6

More from the New York Sun

GOP Senator Who Charged Interest on Medical Debt, Had Female Patients Arrested Is Being Painted as ‘Shylock-Type Guy,’ Trump Says

Syria’s New School Curriculum Glorifies Jihad, Terrorists, and Martyrdom While Promoting Antisemitism, Report Finds

Democrats Pull Money From Red House Districts They Once Hoped To Flip

Ukrainian Drone Flies Wounded Soldier Out of Combat Zone in World First Rescue Mission

Trump’s Half-Hearted Supporters in the GOP Risk Legitimizing the Democrats’ Sniveling Over the Iran War

Welcome to Washington: Democrats Open a Lead in Early Vote Turnout — but Does It Matter?

‘Resident Evil’ Heralds the Return of Fun Back Into Horror Movies

Lauren Yee’s Kind of Theatrical Magic

More from the New York Sun

GOP Senator Who Charged Interest on Medical Debt, Had Female Patients Arrested Is Being Painted as ‘Shylock-Type Guy,’ Trump Says

Syria’s New School Curriculum Glorifies Jihad, Terrorists, and Martyrdom While Promoting Antisemitism, Report Finds

Democrats Pull Money From Red House Districts They Once Hoped To Flip

Ukrainian Drone Flies Wounded Soldier Out of Combat Zone in World First Rescue Mission

Trump’s Half-Hearted Supporters in the GOP Risk Legitimizing the Democrats’ Sniveling Over the Iran War

Welcome to Washington: Democrats Open a Lead in Early Vote Turnout — but Does It Matter?

‘Resident Evil’ Heralds the Return of Fun Back Into Horror Movies

Lauren Yee’s Kind of Theatrical Magic