Trump Too Busy For A Deposition, Not Too Busy For A Campaign Rally

When you sue someone for $10 billion, it’s generally expected that you’ll find time to talk about it. Under oath, even. But Donald Trump’s lawyers told the BBC their client couldn’t sit for his scheduled October 16 deposition due to “other matters of national importance.” On Monday, the BBC told the court what those matters were: a campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia, and a Republican National Committee fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.

Womp womp womp.

Quick refresher: Trump filed suit in the Southern District of Florida last December, seeking $5 billion for defamation and another $5 billion under Florida’s deceptive and unfair trade practices law over a Panorama documentary that spliced together two parts of his January 6 speech delivered nearly an hour apart. The BBC apologized for the edit, it cost the broadcaster its director general and its head of news, but declined to pay up and has maintained that it didn’t defame anyone. It has spent the months since making discovery deeply unpleasant for the president, who as of July had produced zero documents to the BBC’s 47,500 pages.

The deposition saga, per the BBC’s filings, goes like this. The BBC asked for dates in July. It followed up. And followed up. The parties finally agreed on October 16. Then weeks of silence, until September 28, when Trump’s counsel wrote that “the President is no longer available for his deposition on October 16 due to other matters of national importance” and that counsel would “endeavor to provide you with a replacement date by the end of this week.”

The BBC’s filing adds, with the economy of a broadcaster that has seen some things: “He did not.”

Instead, the first week of October, Trump’s team said he “has no availability whatsoever for a deposition” before discovery closes on December 18, and offered up January instead. I mean he does have a midterm election to fuck up, so there’s that filling up his calendar.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Aytch Lett was not impressed. In an order Friday (yes, the same Friday Trump was working a rally crowd in Georgia) she noted that she had already “admonished” Trump for his “lack of participation” in his own lawsuit, to “no avail,” with the BBC left filing discovery requests on its own because of his “disregard” for the court’s procedures. Then she put it plainly:

Going forward, the Court expects strict compliance with its Order, the failure of which will lead to sanctions.

There’s a hearing Thursday on the BBC’s motion to compel. As BBC counsel Charles Tobin put it, Trump “chose to file this lawsuit and, in doing so, he accepted the obligations of civil litigation.”

And Trump’s sudden interest in avoiding sworn testimony isn’t limited to his own. Monday the BBC moved to depose former special counsel Jack Smith, who spent years investigating January 6 and doesn’t object to being deposed. …But Trump’s lawyers do.

All of this has a familiar ring to 2023 when Trump voluntarily dismissed his $500 million lawsuit against Michael Cohen, also in the Southern District of Florida, days before he was due to be deposed, with a spokesperson explaining that the deposition fell on a day “when he is scheduled to be in the Great State of New Hampshire.”

So if history is any guide, the real question isn’t when Trump finally sits for this deposition, it’s whether his $10 billion lawsuit sticks around long enough for him to have to.

Earlier: Trump Bit Off More Than He Could Chew Suing BBC, So DOJ Will Chew It For Him
BBC Tells Trump To Sod Off … Politely