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By Tom Sanders
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The BBC has accused Donald Trump of failing to obey a direct Court Order during his $10 billion lawsuit against the broadcaster, after documents submitted by his legal team contained so many holes that it "strains credulity."
A federal judge ordered Trump to provide a privilege log of correspondence with his legal counsel by November 5, warning that failure to comply with the order could see the lawsuit tossed out.
Trump met the deadline, but court documents filed by the BBC have since queried whether his lawyers carried out an adequate document search after they produced just 26 emails and eight attachments, none of which contain direct communication between Trump and his legal team that would be subject to attorney-client privilege.
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“The log, like Plaintiff’s two document productions to date, does not contain a single communication with Plaintiff or his advisors,” the BBC stated. “Nor does it list any documents that Plaintiff claims are protected under the attorney-client privilege or executive privilege—the only protection claimed is for attorney work-product.
“In this regard, the log does not appear to comport with the Court’s Order,” they added, citing communication between the president and FCC Chair Brendan Carr about his letter to the BBC as an example.
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Elsewhere in the document, the BBC highlighted the vast disparity between Trump’s privilege log and theirs, which contains 2,712 entries spread over 425 pages.
The parties’ document productions are equally one-sided: The BBC made 13 productions, totaling 9,371 documents and 114,266 pages. Trump’s team, meanwhile, made only two productions, totaling just 155 documents and 1,012 pages, “all of which are either documents pulled from the internet shortly before production or pulled from the BBC’s own productions to Plaintiff,” they noted.
The BBC goes on to ask the judge to order Trump’s lawyers to provide a declaration within seven days explaining whose records were searched, what types of documents were searched and how those searches were conducted, stating that the material provided is far from the “strict compliance” required by the Court, and that “it just kind of strains credulity that a thorough search has been done.”
Newsweek has contacted Trump’s legal team for further comment and clarification.
Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion over claims they defamed him by splicing together two different sections of a speech he gave in 2021 prior to the Jan 6 riots. The BBC has apologized for the edit but denies defamation.
The lawsuit is currently in the ‘discovery’ phase, during which both parties provide internal evidence that could be used as evidence during the trial.
Last month, a US judge ordered Trump to answer questions under oath by December 11 or risk having the lawsuit thrown out, after the president failed to appear for a deposition on October 16, citing “matters of national importance.”
Lawyers for the BBC have also accused Trump of flouting the rules by failing to produce the relevant documents and have asked the courts to intervene, arguing it would experience “extreme prejudice” if the president "continues to disregard his discovery obligations".
Responding to the BBC’s complaints, US Magistrate Judge Enjolique A. Lett questioned the size of the president’s privilege log, noting that it "consisted of a mere twenty documents, all of which were previously produced by Defendant and/or retrieved from the internet in the days leading to the production date."
"Given the nature of the requests, the paucity of the production, and the steps counsel undertook to ensure that all responsive documents were collected, the Court has concerns about whether an adequate search for all responsive documentation occurred," she added.
Trump’s legal team has until November 23 to produce the remainder of the documents.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Cannon, Gray R. Thomas
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