A US magistrate judge has ruled that the trust holding Donald Trump's business assets must hand over financial documents to the BBC, which is defending itself against the president's $10 billion defamation lawsuit. The lawsuit stems from a BBC documentary that edited together separate parts of a January 6 speech to make it appear Trump directly incited the Capitol riot, a case that has already cost the corporation's director general and head of news their jobs. The ruling matters because it gives the BBC access to material it says it needs to challenge the scale of damages Trump is claiming, while the judge simultaneously reined in how far the network can probe into the broader events of January 6.

Judge Enjoliqué Aytch Lett granted part of the BBC's motion to compel documents from the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, covering nearly 400 entities, but limited the subpoena to records from 1 January 2023 onwards, saying this would let the BBC assess Trump's finances before and after the documentary aired in October 2024. She also restricted enquiries into January 6 itself, stating that only the impressions created by Trump's statements were relevant, not a "full relitigation" of that day. Trump is seeking $5 billion in defamation damages and a further $5 billion under Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act; the BBC previously apologised for an "error of judgement" over the edit but has not offered any financial settlement.