The BBC is asking a federal judge to set a firm date for President Donald Trump to be questioned under oath in his defamation lawsuit against the broadcaster, after Trump’s lawyers canceled a deposition scheduled for Oct. 16. In a court filing Tuesday, the BBC’s attorneys said Trump’s legal team told them Sept. 28 that the agreed-upon date was no longer workable. They said Trump’s lawyers later proposed moving the deposition to January and indicated he would be unavailable through at least mid-December. “The President is no longer available for his deposition on October 16 due to other matters of national importance,” Trump’s attorneys told the BBC’s lawyers, according to the filing. The deposition date had been agreed to in July, subject to keeping its location and other details confidential for security reasons, the BBC’s attorneys said. The broadcaster argues Trump’s testimony is essential because he is the plaintiff in the case, which concerns a BBC documentary about the 2020 election. “Nearly eight months into discovery,” BBC attorney Charles Tobin wrote, the broadcaster had completed seven depositions of its own witnesses but still had no schedule for questioning Trump. The filing says only two months of discovery remain. The BBC is asking the judge to order Trump to commit to a date. The court’s decision could determine whether the broadcaster gets to question him before the discovery period closes.