Trump urges court to reject BBC's bid to secure records from his family in defamation case

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has urged a federal judge to reject the BBC's request for the court's help in securing testimony and documents from three family members in response to his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster.

The BBC is trying to gain "politically-driven leverage" over Trump by serving subpoenas on daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and son Donald Trump Jr., personal lawyers for the Republican president argued in a court filing Friday.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz in Miami did not immediately rule on the dispute.

Kuntz, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, inherited the president's lawsuit from another judge less than a week ago. Court filings did not immediately specify a reason for the case's reassignment. The previous judge has set a February trial date.

In May, a process server working for the BBC tried to serve subpoenas on Ivanka Trump and Kushner at their residence but encountered Secret Service agents who said they were not authorized to accept it, according to the president's lawyers. They said the process server also visited Trump Tower in New York several days later in a failed attempt to serve Donald Trump Jr.

In a court filing last week, the broadcaster asked for the court’s permission to serve subpoenas on Trump’s family members by certified mail instead of in person.

Trump's lawsuit, filed in December, accuses the BBC of deceptively editing portions of the speech that he delivered near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's victory over Trump. The suit claims the BBC spliced together separate parts of Trump’s speech to intentionally misrepresent what he said.

The lawsuit alleges the BBC aired its documentary a week before the 2024 presidential election in “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the outcome to Trump's detriment.

“The relief that the BBC’s Motion seeks cannot be segregated from the politically charged discovery campaign that it is based on, and which has already been ruled as improperly overbroad by this Court,” Trump's lawyers wrote.

The BBC has apologized to Trump for the misleading edit, but it denies defaming him.

FILE - Pedestrians walk outside the BBC Headquarters in London, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, file)

LONDON (AP) — Seven people, including two police officers, were killed early Saturday in a head-on collision in northeast England following a pursuit.

Cleveland Police said that a Volkswagen Passat carrying five people was traveling the wrong way down the A66 highway near Middlesbrough and collided with a police vehicle on the same road going in the right direction.

The seven people were pronounced dead at the scene after the crash at 3:39 a.m.

The two officers were identified as Matthew Blades and Tom Clough, Cleveland Police Chief Constable Victoria Fuller said.

Police were still working to formally identify other victims. The families of those already identified have been informed and were offered specialist support, police said.

Cleveland Police were investigating the crash, alongside the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which is always involved when such incidents take place.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said that he was “devastated” to hear about the loss of life and urged “people to avoid speculation at this time.”

Police officers at the scene of a fatal crash involving a police car and a Volkswagen Passat on the A66 in South Bank, near Middlesbrough, England, Saturday Aug. 22, 2026. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP)