President Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Company is backfiring in his face, as a judge has greenlit the subpoenaing of his inner circle.
But on Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett said the BBC can proceed with subpoenas for Trump’s closest advisers and confidants—including his family members, Stephen Miller, and Steve Bannon—to make the case on what Trump’s actual goals were on January 6.
Lett also ruled that Trump must hand over hundreds of financial records, as Trump argued in his lawsuit that the episode hurt his many businesses.
They can just do what Alex Jones did in his defamation trail and refuse to cooperate with discovery. The court can’t make them turn over documents at gunpoint, but the court can threaten to tell the jury that one party refused to cooperate, and to assume the evidence would be very bad for the party refusing to turn it over.
It’s basically giving the other party carte blanche to say whatever they want because you’re admitting you won’t back anything up. So the discovery has to be pretty bad for someone to refuse to cooperate.
Or you have to be really stupid and not understand how bad of a strategic choice it is, which would also be on brand given how his legal escapades have gone so far lol.
I have no doubt they’re bad, but I’m pretty confident he would make a bad choice even if they weren’t cause he seems allergic to competent decisions, especially in the courtroom it would seem lol
That’s not usually what happens. Participating in discovery is NOT optional. A judge that lets a trial go ahead without enforcing discovery is basically asking to lose his bench. It could happen if the discovery seeking side fails to file the proper motions, but if Trump refuses to cooperate in this case there is a 100% guarantee to be massive sanctions involved.
Sure, the court can threaten sanctions and fines against the party not turning over documents, but this is a civil case. It’s not like the judge will file a warrant and send police to collect the documents.
Discovery is, where the rubber meets the road, a voluntary process. Alex Jones refused to cooperate with discovery in his defamation trial, and the plaintiffs just didn’t get any documents from him during the trial. At all.
It went very poorly for him, because refusal to cooperate means you’ll lose very badly (Alex Jones is now liable for billions in damages to the Sandy Hook plaintiffs because of his refusal to cooperate) but the court cannot force you to produce documents in a civil case. They’ll just give the other party exactly what they’re asking for.
It’s just almost always in your best interest to comply.
Which is why refusing to cooperate is so rare.
The running theory is that he refused to cooperate because the trial wasn’t sealed, so documents would end up in the public eye, and we assume that those documents getting published would be more damaging to him than the billions he is now liable for.
And that’s my theory of what will happen here. The specific things the BBC is wanting in discovery could be very damaging to Trump politically, and it could be that losing this court case in spectacular fashion like Alex Jones did is the less damaging outcome for him.
We shall see, but I can’t wait for Mango Mussolini to fall back into spray tan obscurity.