Gareth

Occupy Democrats 2͏h͏ · BREAKING: PANIC! Trump is DESPERATELY trying to stop Jack Smith from testifying in his own $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC. Donald Trump sued the BBC for defamation, asking for a whopping $10 billion in damages. Now, he’s panicking about the one witness who might actually know something about the behavior that led the British broadcaster to publish what it did. According to The New Republic, the BBC subpoenaed former special counsel Jack Smith to testify as part of its defense against Trump’s defamation suit. The suit claims the network defamed him with deceptive editing in a 2024 documentary about the January 6 Capitol attack. Trump’s lawyers filed a motion Friday to block the deposition, arguing that “Smith lacks any personal knowledge regarding the issues in this matter.” Their reasoning: Smith wasn’t at the January 6 speech, didn’t help prepare it, and can’t know what Trump was thinking. They say anything he gathered was “secondhand knowledge” from materials collected from other sources. The BBC’s lawyers weren’t impressed. They wrote that “none of [Trump]’s arguments for blocking the deposition of Mr. Smith can withstand scrutiny.” They noted that Smith himself doesn’t object to testifying, and that Trump still has to prove he “did not foment or incite the January 6 Capitol riot,” which he claims the documentary falsely implied. Then came the line that says it all: “No one forced Plaintiff to file this lawsuit and to dispute that his speech on January 6 incited the violence that followed at the Capitol. But as long as he chooses to maintain the case, he cannot commit the fundamental injustice of preventing the BBC from obtaining the evidence it needs to robustly defend itself.” This isn’t Trump’s only dodge. His attorneys are also fighting efforts to make Trump himself testify, to subpoena his children, and to look into his finances. Trump sued over what the BBC said about January 6, and now he’s fighting every attempt to examine what actually happened. There’s another problem for him. The BBC is funded by British taxpayers, so Trump can’t bully it into a hefty settlement or force it to back off its coverage the way he has with some American media companies. So now he has two choices: drop the case, or actually try to prove his point and live with the consequences. If Trump really believes he did nothing wrong on January 6, a deposition should be no problem. His lawyers’ desperation suggests otherwise. Please like and share if you can’t wait to hear what Jack Smith has to say if the BBC successfully gets him to testify!