Donald Trump must hand over the financial records of nearly 400 companies controlled by his eldest son Donald Trump Jr, court has ruled.
This is a humiliating blow in the President’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC, despite his lawyer’s efforts to prevent the information from being revealed in court.
The president sued the publicly funded British broadcaster in December, claiming it had defamed him by ‘intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively’ editing two parts of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech to make it seem as though he had encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol.
US Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett after a three-hour hearing in Miami on Tuesday ruled that Trump’s own complaint had dragged his empire into open court.
‘All of President Trump’s brand, properties and businesses are impugned or said to have been impugned. Reputational, economic damages, all of that is now at issue in this case,’ she said, per Politico.
Lett also refused to quash the dozens of subpoenas the BBC has aimed at Trump’s family and closest advisers including Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Stephen Miller and Don Jr.
The BBC wants every message the six exchanged about the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally, plus everything they handed to federal investigators probing the riot.
The broadcaster says it is seeking to establish Trump’s state of mind on the day.
The defamation case spins on a 12-second edit of his January 6, 2021 address, spliced together for a Panorama film broadcast weeks out from the 2024 election.
Viewers heard him say: ‘We’re going to walk down to the Capitol … and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.’
The fight lines came more than 50 minutes later which Trump says made it look like he incited the mob.
