A US decide has ordered President Donald Trump to reply questions under oath in his defamation lawsuit against the BBC by 11 December.

Trump is suing the BBC over an episode of Panorama that edited collectively two totally different sections of a speech he gave before the riot at the US Capitol in 2021.

Charles Tobin, a lawyer representing the BBC, said in court docket that “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff” with two months left in the discovery interval.

Trump cancelled a earlier deposition on 16 October, citing “matters of national importance” while he was campaigning in Georgia.

In US regulation, a deposition is an out-of-court assertion made under oath in response to questions, which is recorded for use in later proceedings.

The decide in the case, US Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett, said that Trump must sit for the deposition by 11 December, unless the discovery interval is prolonged.

Last week, attorneys requested that Lett compel Trump to face deposition after the last scheduled assembly did not take place.

On that day, Trump attended a midterms marketing campaign rally in Dalton, Georgia and a fundraiser at his property in Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

In a separate submitting on Wednesday, Trump’s attorneys said that the president could seem for the interview between 11 and 22 January next yr, and claimed that the BBC was “wrong to claim that President Trump is avoiding his deposition in this action.”

Trump’s lawsuit – filed in Florida – accuses the BBC of “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring” the speech he gave outside the Capitol on 6 January 2021.

The BBC apologised for the error and said that the broadcast gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump made a direct call for violent action”.

The broadcaster has since requested that the court docket dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the programme does not meet the authorized standards for defamation and was not out there in the US.

In July, Trump’s attorneys conceded that they had no proof that the documentary was out there in the US on the BBC’s BritBox subscription service – as they initially claimed – or on the BBC’s web site, BBC choose or through US broadcasters.

Trump in the end agreed to drop the lawsuit against BBC Studios, its business arm, after the BBC argued that it had “no role in creating or producing the documentary.

Typically, depositions take place in a lawyer’s office – rather than a courtroom – without a judge physically present.

Depositions, however, carry authorized weight and take place under oath. They are recorded verbatim by a court docket reporter, and the transcripts can later be used as proof during trials.