Trump fights BBC’s push to subpoena family members amid legal battle

President Trump is attempting to block the BBC’s efforts to subpoena his family members for the channel’s defense in his ongoing $10 million defamation lawsuit.

In Saturday court filings , Trump’s lawyers wrote that the British broadcaster’s attempts to subpoena the president’s family members — son Donald Trump Jr., daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner — were “cynical” and a part of a “sweeping, politically-charged discovery campaign that has already been rejected by this Court.”

“The Motion wrongfully seeks politically-driven leverage over the President’s family, not tailored discovery,” they added.

The BBC’s motion, filed last week , argued Trump’s children “have personal knowledge and likely have possession, custody, or control of records” that would be relevant to this case. The broadcaster claimed previous attempts to deliver subpoenas had been thwarted.

Trump’s attorneys confirmed the BBC tried and failed to deliver subpoenas to his daughter, son and Kushner. They added that, in May, the BBC attempted to serve Ivanka Trump and Kushner at their residence before the Secret Service stopped them.

But the filing alleges that agents did not say they “would obstruct proper service” of subpoenas, only that they couldn’t accept them themselves.

The broadcaster’s process servers, according to court filings, also visited Trump Tower during the same month, telling building personnel he had “legal documents for the Trump organization” without specifying that the documents were for Trump Jr.

The BBC did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

Trump first filed the lawsuit in 2025, claiming the BBC’s editing of a clip in a documentary about Jan. 6, 2021, spliced clips together in a way that made “it appear President Trump explicitly called for violent action and rioting” ahead of the U.S. Capitol attack.

The BBC has since apologized to the president for the editing in its documentary but maintains that it did not defame him.