It’s a Liberal Thing

TRUMP ACCUSES BBC AND FEDERAL JUDGE OF CONSPIRING TO DEPOSE HIM — IN THE LAWSUIT HE FILED

WASHINGTON — The President on Thursday accused a federal magistrate judge and the British Broadcasting Corporation of conspiring to depose him, citing court filings in the case that describe the upcoming proceeding, repeatedly and in writing, as a “deposition.” His attorneys confirmed that he will attend.

The accusation rests on a specific reading of the word. In the President’s usage, to depose is to remove a ruler from office suddenly and forcefully — the dictionary’s first definition of the verb, and the one his statement employed throughout. The court’s usage is the legal one: a deposition is testimony given under oath outside the courtroom, in the presence of attorneys and a court reporter, in a lawsuit the witness himself has filed. A White House aide, asked whether the President was aware of the second meaning, said the President was aware of it and regarded it as “the cover story.”

The order at issue was issued Thursday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett in the Southern District of Florida. It directs the President to sit for a deposition by December 11 in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC, which he filed last year over a documentary that spliced together remarks from his speech at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021. If the President does not appear, the judge warned, his claim may be dismissed. The BBC has acknowledged the splice and denies that the President was defamed or damaged, noting that the program never aired in the United States.

The President was first scheduled to be deposed on October 16. The sitting was canceled by his side, which cited a matter of national importance. In court, the BBC’s attorney, Charles Tobin, identified the matter of national importance as a political rally and a fundraiser. “He was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition,” Tobin said. The White House statement on Thursday did not address the rally. It described the rescheduling effort as “the second phase of the deposition plot, in which the conspirators, having failed to depose the President in October, regrouped and obtained a judge’s signature.”

Allies took up the charge in the President’s sense of the word. “I don’t know what else you call it when a foreign broadcaster and a federal judge combine to depose a sitting President,” one Republican senator said. “The docket calls it a deposition. I take the docket at its word.”

Allies also objected to the proceeding’s opening formality, in which the President will be asked to swear an oath to tell the truth. “The President has taken an oath, on a Bible, before the Chief Justice,” one supporter said. “Now a notary from Fort Lauderdale proposes to administer him a second one, in a conference room, as if the first had lapsed. A lesser oath, sworn to a stenographer, is how they get the signature on the deposition.”

By evening, allies in the House had introduced the Presidential Testimony Nomenclature Act, which would strike the word “deposition” from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure wherever the witness is a sitting President, substituting “an audience with the President.” The bill has forty-one co-sponsors. Its text does not define the substitute proceeding, beyond providing that it shall not be videotaped.

The President’s attorneys also asked that the word “deposition” be redacted from the public docket and replaced with “[TESTIMONY EVENT],” so that citizens reading the filings would not be misled into believing an overthrow was being scheduled by the court. The docket, as of Thursday evening, still says deposition, eleven times.

The court’s other rulings were cited as corroboration. Judge Lett has ruled that the deposition may be videotaped, over the objection of the President’s attorney — a provision the statement described as “the conspirators’ demand for footage of the overthrow.” The judge also declined to quash a BBC subpoena seeking Mar-a-Lago membership records, on the grounds that the President’s own lawsuit claims injury to his “profession, occupation and trade,” making the club’s business records relevant. The statement called the subpoena “an inventory of the palace, taken in advance.”

A BBC spokesman said the corporation does not comment on terminology. It is seeking the plaintiff’s testimony, which the plaintiff offered to provide when he sued.

Judge Lett’s order does not address the terminology. It addresses the calendar. Discovery in the case closes December 18, a deadline only the district judge, Jeffrey Kuntz, can extend, and the BBC’s position, stated in court, is that the President “is the single most important witness in the case, since he’s the one who claims he suffered billions of dollars in damages.”

A spokesman for the President’s legal team, asked how the President could denounce the proceeding as an overthrow and also submit to it, clarified the position. “The President’s remarks referred to the character of the proceeding,” the spokesman said. “He will, of course, appear. He is the plaintiff.”

The deposition has not yet been given a date within the December 11 deadline. The White House said the President looks forward to it as an opportunity to clear his name — “because,” a spokesman said, “the President has nothing to hide, and ten billion dollars to recover.”

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