The judge said he would first consider an amended complaint from Trump that could narrow the case to reputational harm and potentially remove the need for those disclosures, India Today reported.
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The case stems from a BBC documentary in 2024 that used edited footage of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington. Trump says the edit was misleading because it left out, among other parts, a section in which he said he wanted supporters to protest peacefully. The lawsuit is one of several steps he has taken during his second term against media coverage he opposes, through the courts, executive action and public attacks. A trial in the BBC case is provisionally set for February.
Trump filed the lawsuit in December, seeking USD 5 billion in defamation damages and another USD 5 billion for unfair trade practices. The BBC, which is publicly funded, has apologised to Trump over the edit but has rejected the claim that it defamed him. The controversy also led to the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news.
In Thursday’s order, US District Judge Roy Altman granted Trump a short reprieve from an earlier direction by Miami-based magistrate judge Enjolique Lett, who had ordered him to start producing financial records by Thursday from businesses held by his family trust. Altman said he found it “compelling” that an amended complaint might make those disclosures unnecessary, though the BBC disagrees. The revised complaint has not been made public.
“If the plaintiff’s amendment obviates the need to compel a non-party to disclose confidential financial information,” wrote Altman, a 2019 Trump appointee, “we think it’s prudent to enter a brief stay of the Order until the amendment request is resolved.”
Seth Stern, advocacy director at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said Trump could still drop the case if the BBC succeeds in arguing that financial records remain relevant even if the claim is limited to reputational harm. “Trump has a history of filing lawsuits and then just dismissing them before they get to discovery,” Stern said. “So there’s a chance he’ll do that and I’m sure it’ll give him a day or an hour of embarrassing headlines. But as we’ve seen countless times with Trump’s administration… no one headline seems to stick for very long, and I suspect that one would be no different.”
