Billion-dollar BBC lawsuit threatens to expose Trump’s executive privilege claims
President Donald Trump's $10 billion BBC defamation lawsuit threatens to expose his repeated legal losses to attorney and former special counsel Jack Smith during sealed grand jury proceedings.
The BBC filed a reply brief Wednesday, asking Chief Judge James Boasberg to unseal rulings from the Smith investigation in which courts uniformly rejected Trump's attempts to shield witnesses from testifying under presidential executive privilege.
According to the Smith report, between August 2022 and March 2023, courts rejected Trump's privilege claims in five sealed proceedings, covering 14 witnesses.
Trump is now asserting identical privilege claims to block the BBC from reaching the same witnesses and evidence regarding January 6 incitement allegations, per the reply brief.
The BBC told Boasberg it would be fundamentally unjust to allow Trump to hide behind "already-rejected privilege claims."
Additionally, U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett of the Southern District of Florida ruled Trump must surrender financial records tied to more than 400 companies, Politico reports.
The trial is scheduled for February 2027.
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