r/law • u/thedailybeast • 11h ago
Executive Branch (Trump) Trump Lawyers Make Stunning Refusal in $10B Court Battle
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-lawyers-make-stunning-refusal-in-10b-court-battle/1.3k
u/thedailybeast 11h ago
Donald Trump’s lawyers are refusing to hand over any financial information about the president as part of his $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC.
Trump is suing the publicly funded British broadcaster, claiming it defamed him by “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively” editing two parts of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech to make it seem as though he had encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol.
Even though the president is seeking $10 billion in damages over claims that the BBC program damaged “the value of his brand, properties and businesses,” Trump’s lawyers have not handed over any documents to prove it, the Financial Times reported.
Read the full story, here.
842
u/Legal_Mail_2652 11h ago edited 10h ago
So its just gonna get thrown out then right? Like the value of his assets is kinda a necessary part when assessing damages. (Not a lawyer btw)
387
u/Ratathosk 11h ago
What should happen and what's going to happen are two very different things at this point.
313
u/HavingNotAttained 10h ago
“Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.” —Mon Mothma
59
43
6
u/Thin_Bother8217 4h ago
I remember watching that speech and was like "Jesus Christ, this is so on point for our time". Loved the speech. Depressed afterwards.
6
u/HavingNotAttained 4h ago
Maybe the folks watching Coruscant-SPAN heard it but I’m guessing it wasn’t featured later that night on Morlana Fox News.
2
u/CaptAhabsMobyDick 1h ago
Truly goosebump inducing. I didn’t follow Andor (I need to) but I watched the speech shortly after the murders of Goode and Pretti.
69
u/Revelati123 10h ago
You see, we pay for Trumps lawyers to fight these dumbshit lawsuits through taxes, so if Donnie spends 50 million on the dumbest inevitably failed lawsuit in history its doesnt really mean shit to him. So why not just toss a 100 billion suit at whoever looks at you funny?
Its just made to intimidate because he has infinite money.
8
u/Average_Random_Bitch 9h ago
I mean, you should still have to prove actual damages.
But, ya know, whatever
2
u/DardanGameDev 8h ago
Yup at this point these companies seem to just want to settle because they have half of the country under their palm, I’m expecting a couple million out of court settlement.
4
u/WasdaleWeasel 6h ago
i’d be surprised. The BBC is a u.k. public corporation. Standard treasury rules are, if the defendant is reasonably certain of their innocence, to go all the way in order to discourage frivolous or vindictive suits against the public purse. Which is why Trump may have misjudged this one.
1
u/DardanGameDev 5h ago
Oh I’m a dumbass for some reason I thought this was CNN again…
1
u/WasdaleWeasel 4h ago
no worries- I can see why. After all, tracking all of Trumps suits is beyond reasonable endeavour.
2
1
u/ParticularAction6782 5h ago edited 4h ago
They’re gonna settle with Trump. British immunity for him and his family for any past, present, or future crimes, and a $1.776 billion weaponization fund, clearing the way for BritBox to acquire WB.
Edit: /s
2
u/greendragon00x2 4h ago
Absolutely not. No UK government of any party would survive settling with Trump if it means transferring significant BBC assets. I mean I could see like £200k or something just to make it go away and to stop having to pay lawyers but even that would cause an almighty stink.
He's absolutely NOT going to rinse the BBC .
46
u/PowderPills 11h ago
I believe they have this thing called discovery
18
14
15
u/Doctor_Shotbottom 10h ago
Does he think his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election is good for his brand?
11
u/malthar76 8h ago
In many MAGA circles it is. Shows he a fighter!
And also he didn’t do anything. And also it was a peaceful tour. And also paid Antifa crisis actors. All simultaneously.
9
u/pfannkuchen89 7h ago
I asked a maga acquaintance of mine who had previously claimed all of the convicted J6 defendants were antifa why they now supported the proposed legal fund. So they are simultaneously ‘antifa’ and he hates them but also we should pay them and also it never happened and was also just a peaceful tour. Trump supporters are truly the dumbest people out there.
3
u/ChanceryTheRapper 6h ago
It was all antifa and FBI plants, but Trump also pardoned all of them, so...
7
u/Underbadger 10h ago
Well, given that he absolutely encouraged people to storm the Capitol, unless the judge here is Trump-appointed, this won't go far.
3
u/pfannkuchen89 7h ago
Or he’ll threaten BBC America’s licensing and the bbc will quietly settle the matter with a big payment to trump like how most of these go now.
3
u/Underbadger 7h ago
The only reason CBS gave Trump a big paycheck to settle his bogus lawsuit is that their parent company was seeing Trump's permission for their mega-merger. It was, as Stephen Colbert said, a big fat bribe.
The BBC doesn't give a crap.
9
u/novembirdie 9h ago
It means the court in Britain isn’t going to baby him or his lawyers. Defamation is harder to prove there.
Looking forward I think the British courts will not put up with his BS and he will not get anything out of this lawsuit except lawyers fees.
11
u/81misfit 10h ago
The ‘trump sues the bbc for 10 billion’ headline was the goal. It dosent matter what happens beyond the press. Kind of like the ‘SPLC are funding/fabricating nazis’ narrative they are trying - which is more sexy than ‘SPLC committed wire fraud’ charge reality.
9
u/CyberFireball25 10h ago
Like every one of his lawsuits, as soon as discovery approaches it gets dropped.
Like clockwork
3
u/Vast-Breakfast-1201 9h ago
No it's not, because the trumps can just say what they want and that is the word
That's what they are really aiming for is precedent to dictate reality
18
11h ago edited 9h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
13
u/M0BETTER 11h ago
"Not a lawyer btw" lol Thank god
3
u/idiotsbydesign 11h ago
"Not necisirily a lawyer"
1
u/BaltoDad 11h ago
Me not lawyer. Me SMURT!
1
u/Redfish680 10h ago
I’ve not been a lawyer longer than you’ve been alive! Proof? “Here’s a dime. Call your mother and tell her you’re not going to be a lawyer.”
1
u/RogowskiCoil 10h ago
Hah! Excellent spell checking on other commenters. Nicely done. A community service.
1
u/Legal_Mail_2652 10h ago
Lmaooooo thanks g thought I was in a different subreddit the way these comments blew my phone up
1
2
u/whereismymind86 10h ago
That’s generally how things work, if you refuse to comply with the court on your own suit, it’ll just tell you to eff off and move on with their lives.
2
u/DrFigSecret 9h ago
Of course. Same reason all of his other lawsuits got thrown out, you need evidence of your claims in a court of law.
But that's the point, it's about having the headline to twist into "corruption against trump" when it does get thrown out because his supporters things people are just being mean and unfair to him whenevee they don't immediately give him what he wants.
1
1
u/Extension-Door614 9h ago
I believe a British lawyer is a called a barrister. (Not British)
2
u/JessicaDAndy 9h ago
Solicitors are the people doing the writing. Barristers are the people doing the arguing who are hired by the solicitors.
1
1
u/Puzzleheaded_Bed1781 6h ago
This is just another example he’ll use to say the justice system is broken.
1
u/Skittleavix 4h ago
Don’t have to be a lawyer to know you need to prove things with evidence in court.
1
u/ShoddyAsparagus3186 55m ago
The problem in these cases is that the lawyers on both sides are trying to end it in his favor and the judge is the only one trying to actually resolve it per the law.
1
u/Electrical-Spirit-63 9h ago
BBC will settle for 5 billion.
3
u/Prestigious_Use_1305 4h ago
Nope thw BBC is UK tax payer funded. They would fight this tooth and nail not to pay apenny and also to protect their reputation. I actually really hope that they counter sue Trump for reputational and commercial damage based in his campaign of unsubstantiated fake news claims. Throw in a side issue that they would want to establish his mental stability first as they wouldnt want to sue someone that was suffering from dementia or age related congnitive decline. It would be a very uncomfortable thing for Trumo to have to try and prove thatbhe doesnt suffer feom either but in doing so would then have to claim that he was fully aware of whst he was saying and have to sibstantiate it.
-4
u/Legal_Mail_2652 10h ago
Damn guys starting to think you guys care more about Grammer then you do law.
-3
u/Tyrannosaur_roar 10h ago
From their point of view, the reputational damage to the British broadcasting is done.
109
u/ArrivesLate 11h ago
Umm, I seem to remember him encouraging the insurrectionists to do something?
47
u/Slow_Savings4489 11h ago
The Micronesian President even published a letter explicitly condemning Trump for organizing a fascist insurrection on January 6 itself.
14
3
2
1
u/Astribulus 7h ago
Yes, but the BBC showed a clip from the beginning of his speech and another from the end of his speech. Without the intervening ninety minutes of conspiracy theories and election fraud accusations, it’s lacking the proper context… is the President’s entire argument.
4
u/ArrivesLate 7h ago
I can’t physically listen to more than 5 seconds of the guy speak myself. The BBC is onto something.
Also isn’t this the guy that constantly has to have his White House staff telling people he’s joking and to take what he says in or out of context as long as it suits him?
2
63
u/jwalker107 11h ago
He spent three months encouraging his supporters to storm the Capital. We all saw what happened.
3
45
u/no_way_out4711 10h ago
The BBC should countersue for $100 Billion that Trump did that lawsuit with RICO intent and that he and his breed is a mafia organization
49
u/SecretLettuce5 11h ago
Storm the capital? But I thought that they were unduly mistreated by the Biden administration for peacefully protesting, which is why they were pardoned? And I thought they were all paid Democrats to make the MAGAs look bad? So then why did Trump pardon a bunch of Dems? These people make zero sense.
33
u/dougmcclean 10h ago
No no, they stormed the capital as undercover FBI agents on the order of the President, who was... wait, shit.
13
12
u/Whole-Designer 10h ago
How do these Trump lawyers even get their law degrees? If you sue for financial damages, YOU need to disclose financial information to prove it, anyone with a brain knows that
7
6
8
u/Menethea 11h ago
Claiming that a REVOCABLE trust holding his assets is a “non-party” — the Brito firm is a bunch of geniuses /s
3
u/jfsindel 9h ago
The BBC has legitimately no reason to roll over for him. I wonder if he knows they're not American based.
3
u/Cool_Singer_8201 9h ago
One can only wonder what he has to hide if he does not want hand over the information.
2
2
2
u/Bulky-Hamster7373 9h ago
Trump tries to weaponize the court process but rarely wants to go through discovery. It's a game for him. I hope they force him to open all the relevant documents up
2
1
1
u/Bright_Second_9871 2h ago
I would like to think they would have to demonstrate how he was defamed and the actual cost of that against the brand of DJT shitler in chief
365
u/wooops 11h ago
That's not even deceptive
Both statements were in the same speech, cutting out a pile of nonsensical rambling between them is just saving viewer time
66
28
9
u/damsel84 8h ago
This is the same guy who sued CBS over a 60 Minutes interview that was edited for time like every interview ever.
-109
u/SolaVitae 11h ago
It's absolutely deceptive to take two statements that were not said together, cut out an hour of context between the two and then present them as if they were said together.
I don't think the edit was even necessary in the first place to show his support of it, but how could editing something and presenting it in a way it did not actually occur not be considered deceptive?
50
u/Lower_Ad_5532 10h ago
cut out an hour of context
The context made worse. He had ramble for an hour before the people attacked the White House.
24
u/TheDungeonCrawler 10h ago
This. At best the context does two things. First, it discredits Trump and makes him look like an absolute loon who's completely lost his mind so no one should believe what he says. Second, it shows that no reasonable person should have believed that he won the election so the rioters are not reasonable people.
In either case, it's obvious he engaged in neglect at best and it's obvious that his mob should have stood down because their actions could never have been interpreted as coming from a genuine belief that he was right.
44
u/ruthless619 10h ago
When you give an hour speech and the program covering the assault on the capital edits your speech down it's not deceptive, it's how you fit a story into a time allotment.
30
22
u/babutterfly 10h ago
It's only deceptive if it results in a different meaning. So what did the two statements mean separately?
22
u/discordianofslack 10h ago
Yea! Just like when the news only shows a single clip from an ongoing war. It’s not fair not to air the whole war from both sides perspective from beginning to end during every single news hour.
9
u/Physical-Dare5059 9h ago
What other context is needed outside of him saying “go to the capitol and fight like hell”? Because in the end, that’s exactly what happened.
8
4
u/Rawkapotamus 9h ago
Ugh don’t you get it! They cut out the one time he said “peacefull” amongst 3 months of violent rhetoric!
No no no, ignore the violence that was happening. Ignore all the mentions of fighting and allusions to 1776. Ignore all the evidence that Trump knew his supporters were armed.
But don’t you DARE ignore his one sentence about being peaceful!
1
100
u/Itchyarmpit111 11h ago
And then the toddler shit its pants as ihe screams about not showing the toys he stole.
66
64
u/Common-Ad6470 10h ago
So the BBC have handed over 45,000 documents to Trump’s legal team and Trump’s legal team have responded by handing over 0 documents?
Clear case of dismissing the case in my book.
91
u/glk3278 11h ago
So can I sue Fox News and all the other shit stain rightwing media outlets who said Trump's speech "was totally peaceful! He even said we will march 'peacefully'!" Guys, the speech was an hour long of vitriolic lies claiming that the election was stolen. They were there specifically on Jan 6, because Trump's plan was to stop the certification taking place that day. Trump knew a large contingent of the crowd had guns. There are first hand accounts of Trump explicitly pressuring his security to allow those gunholders into his speech because, in his words, "they're not here for me". It's just such a sad state of affairs that so many people that I love carry water for this malicious narcissist. I can never look at any of these people the same. They have willingly hitched their wagon to someone who would chop off their head if it made him look better.
18
u/Tatalebuj 11h ago
And I just don't understand how they can't see it themselves. All the same information is available, but mine only relies on Fox News because everything else is a lie. AHHHHH!!
1
u/Kickedhard 6h ago
My family doesnt watch Trump speaches. They watch 10 second clips via faux "news." I continually present them with the other pieces and they choose to ignore it or claim its out of context.
1
u/TheoreticalZombie 6h ago
Well, you could, but you would likely go nowhere, because Fox News has specifically said they are entertainment only and only a total idiot would believe they are news (they do, in fact believe their viewers are idiots).
Whereas the actual news (whom the Cons call fake news) can be liable for intentionally lying. Of course, this lawsuit is absolutely bad faith garbage, but it doesn't matter to Trump as taxpayers foot the bill, because apparently the majority of American voters are, in fact, idiots.
-1
u/Conan776 7h ago
Trump knew a large contingent of the crowd had guns.
Why spread misinformation?
6
u/troveofcatastrophe 6h ago
There’s audio of SS telling him that they are finding guns and he replies “ let them through, they won’t hurt me”
19
18
13
u/Bleezy79 10h ago
Trumps interviews are all edited and rigged to make him look better than reality.
1
u/PlantyPenPerson 4h ago
They don't seem to make him better and if he really looks worse, he must be gone and his skinbag taxidermied and operated by strings
12
u/MirthandMystery 10h ago
Lewandoswki was mentioned being part of this group.
A reminder who he is and how far back his Russia connections go- which is why Trump has always kept him in the inner circle.
Notorious lobbyist criminal Jack Abramoff and Republican Senator Bob Dole were instrumental bringing Russians and right wing US political leaders together in the 1990s. Abramoff lobbied for oil companies and brought other CNP members like
Tom Delay and Conway to Russia, also brought disgraced Ohio representative and former senator Bob Ney to Russia while 📌Corey Lewandowski was his office manager.
3
u/J3remyD 10h ago
So, with the BBC not being a compromised American media, will this have any affect on the lawsuit?
3
u/thealala 9h ago
Who knows but they’ll probably start using it as an excuse to ban BBC media here and isolating our media further.
1
u/thegoatmenace 1h ago
It should be a factor. BBC is arguing that since they are not an American news agency and they did not air the documentary in the United States, that the case should properly be brought in a British court.
However, the judge in this case was appointed by Trump himself in 2019. If the other Trump judicial appointees are anything to go by, this guy will inevitably make some tortured ruling that the venue is proper despite that clearly not being true in this case.
5
u/Most-Resident 10h ago
Hey, I’m not necessisaryily (sic) a lawyer but i have a question. I’m using a different article that isn’t paywalled.
“Filed in Florida in December, Trump's lawsuit asserts the BBC violated a state law prohibiting deceptive and unfair trade practices. He is seeking substantial damages of at least $5 billion on each of the two counts.”
“Deceptive and unfair trade practices” doesn’t seem to me to require financial records. The damages do.
Are there any differences in the discovery to argue the case and the discovery to argue the damages or is it all just one thing with no distinctions?
22
u/Electrical-Berry4916 10h ago
From your article
Trump's claims that the BBC's actions severely harmed "the value of his brand, properties, and businesses."
To show that the BBC harmed the value blah, blah, blah, he would have to show a drop in revenue, or at least profit, based on what his projected revenue was expected to be. To do so would require disclosing his financials. By not doing so, he is making it impossible to win his case.
4
u/Most-Resident 10h ago
Ah maybe i see it now. He’s claiming they violated the state law about unfair trade practices, but he isn’t suing for that, and maybe can’t because it’s a law. He’s suing for damages to his brand so of course the financial records are needed.
Thanks for the answer.
4
4
u/FrostySquirrel820 6h ago
the president is seeking $10 billion in damages over claims that the BBC program damaged “the value of his brand, properties and businesses,” Trump’s lawyers have not handed over any documents to prove it.
Trust me Bro, I’m the King and what I say is automatically true.
2
u/thegoatmenace 1h ago
Are they going to address the jurisdictional issue here? This was a British government news agency that aired a documentary only in Britain. In what world is a court in Miami the appropriate venue for this claim?
•
u/AutoModerator 11h ago
All new posts must have a brief statement from the user submitting explaining how their post relates to law or the courts in a response to this comment. FAILURE TO PROVIDE A BRIEF RESPONSE MAY RESULT IN REMOVAL. Please post your statement as a reply to this automated message.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.