President Donald Trump filed papers on Friday asking a federal court to stop the BBC obtaining testimony from Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr and Jared Kushner, according to Al Jazeera.

The subpoenas are part of the broadcaster's defence against his $10 billion defamation claim, filed in the US District Court in southern Florida. Trump announced the lawsuit in December 2024.

What the case is about

The claim concerns an episode of the BBC's Panorama that spliced together two passages from Trump's speech of January 6, 2021.

The first was: "After this, we're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you, we're going to walk down." The second was: "And we fight. We fight like hell." They were spoken roughly 55 minutes apart. Critics said the edit made them sound like one continuous remark. The BBC apologised and removed the episode.

Why the BBC wants the three witnesses

Each is sought for a specific reason.

Donald Trump Jr was present at the speech and, according to the report, texted the chief of staff urging that the violence be condemned. Ivanka Trump was present and spoke with her father and his inner circle during the events at the Capitol. Jared Kushner was not present but is reported to have drafted a proposed statement condemning the violence.

The broadcaster's purpose is set out plainly: it wants to establish what Trump thought and did that day, in order to argue that it would not be "materially false to imply that he incited violence".

That is the logic of a truth defence. In a defamation case the claimant must generally show the statement complained of was false, so a defendant who can establish the substance of the imputation defeats the claim regardless of how the tape was cut. Which is why the BBC is asking about the president's conduct rather than about its own editing.

What Trump's filing argues

His lawyers describe the effort as a "cynical" campaign involving "harassment of the President's family", and as "a boundless re-investigation of the events". They argue that his interactions with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are "subject to the executive privilege".

The privilege claim is the substantial one. Executive privilege protects certain communications between a president and his advisers. Both Ivanka Trump and Kushner held formal White House roles, which is what makes the argument available; whether it covers the conversations the BBC is asking about, in litigation the president himself started, is a question for the court.

The BBC has said it will fight the lawsuit.

Where it stands

The subpoenas have not yet been served. The BBC tried to deliver them in person in May 2026 and the Secret Service blocked the attempt.

Nothing has been decided. Friday's filing is an opposition, the judge is not named in the account we read, and no ruling has been reported. A president suing a foreign public broadcaster, and that broadcaster seeking testimony from his family, is an unusual configuration, but at this stage it is a discovery dispute and nothing more.

We verified this account from a single publication.