President Donald Trump attends a joint news conference with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following a meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
Donald Trump's lawyers admittedly messed up in court and expressed regret, pleading with a federal judge not to order sanctions or other relief in favor of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The filing submitted Tuesday to U.S. District Judge Roy Altman insisted that the president's legal team did not intentionally "disregard" an order to oppose the defendants' motion to dismiss by June 5. Rather, Trump attorneys Alejandro Brito, Edward A. Paltzik and Daniel Z. Epstein represented that they had served an "unredacted copy of the opposition memorandum and all supporting exhibits" that same day.
The lawyers framed the issue as a misunderstanding that was caused by "good-faith efforts to comply with the Protective Order entered in this case" and the Trump-appointed judge's "procedures governing sealed filings." With that in mind, Trump's attorneys said, they were "working diligently under a compressed schedule" to review tens of thousands of pages of depositions and add exhibits to the opposition filing.
Altman on Monday not only warned of possible sanctions for "apparent disregard of court deadlines" but also the prospect of treating the BBC's motion to dismiss Trump's lawsuit as "unopposed." The judge noted that Trump's team did not ask for an extension and did not sufficiently explain why they needed more time. To avoid sanctions, Trump's attorneys acknowledged — in italics — an "oversight" but claimed they didn't intentionally ignore the judge's deadline.
"Plaintiff's counsel acknowledges that the Motion for Leave to File Under Seal should have included an express request that the Court extend the response deadline pending adjudication of the sealing motion, and that a more detailed explanation of the circumstances should have been provided at that time," the plaintiff's explanation said. "Counsel sincerely regrets the oversight. It was not, however, borne of any disregard for the Court's deadlines. To the contrary, it resulted from counsel's attempt to comply with competing obligations under the Protective Order while completing work product under a compressed schedule."
Trump filed the $10 billion lawsuit over "Trump: A Second Chance," a Panorama documentary, after the BBC admitted it "gave the mistaken impression that [he] had made a direct call for violent action" on Jan. 6. The documentary edited together, and out of sequence, "excerpts from different points" of Trump's speech from the Ellipse.
After moving to throw out the "entire" case, arguing that Trump couldn't establish jurisdiction and failed to state a claim, the BBC defendants anticipated that extensive Jan. 6-related discovery would show it's substantially true to say that Trump "fomented the violence."
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