A judge cleared the BBC to serve subpoenas on Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner after Secret Service protection thwarted in-person delivery.
On Friday, Politico senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein posted that U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjolique Lett granted the BBC’s motion for alternative service in Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the broadcaster, allowing the network to deliver the subpoenas by certified mail to the trio’s home and business addresses and by email to Trump’s lawyers.
The BBC argued the president’s eldest son, daughter and son-in-law likely have “personal knowledge and possession of discoverable information” relevant to the case. Lett wrote that the network “has demonstrated the difficulties with effecting personal service” on the three, who are protected “as members of the sitting President’s immediate family.”
The judge brushed aside Trump’s opposition, writing that it “attempts to impose procedural barriers that are inapplicable at this stage” rather than showing alternative service was unwarranted. She found “no compelling reason” to deny the request.
Trump’s lawsuit accuses the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech” on January 6, 2021, in a Panorama documentary, per an article by Fortune. The BBC has apologized to Trump for the misleading edit but said it had not defamed him.
According to the network’s August motion, BBC lawyers attempted to serve subpoenas on Kushner and Ivanka Trump at their home in Miami in May, but police blocked the attempts. A Secret Service lawyer subsequently told the BBC that the agency was not authorized to accept subpoenas on behalf of the individuals. A separate attempt to serve Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in New York was also unsuccessful, per an article by The Washington Examiner.
The BBC noted that Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump were both present in the Oval Office when Trump was still revising his speech, per Fortune.
Trump’s lawyers had called the subpoena push “politically-driven leverage over the President’s family, not tailored discovery,” The Hill reported.
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