The BBC yesterday said it would fight a US$10 billion lawsuit brought by US President Donald Trump against the British broadcaster over a documentary that edited his 2021 speech ahead of the US Capitol riot.
“As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case,” a BBC spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the company would not be making “further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, seeks “damages in an amount not less than [US]$5,000,000,000” for each of two counts against the British broadcaster, for alleged defamation and violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Photo: AFP
The video that triggered the lawsuit spliced together two separate sections of Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021, in a way that made it appear he explicitly urged supporters to attack the Capitol, where lawmakers were certifying then-US presidential candidate Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
The lawsuit comes as the British government yesterday launched the politically sensitive review of the BBC’s Royal Charter, which outlines the corporation’s funding and governance and needs to be renewed in 2027.
As part of the review, it launched a public consultation on issues including the role of “accuracy” in the BBC’s mission and contentious reforms to the corporation’s funding model, which currently relies on a mandatory fee for anyone in the kingdom who watches television.
British Minister of State for Care Stephen Kinnock stressed after the lawsuit was filed that the British government “is a massive supporter of the BBC.”
The BBC has “been very clear that there is no case to answer in terms of Mr Trump’s accusation on the broader point of libel or defamation. I think it’s right the BBC stands firm on that point,” Kinnock told Sky News.
Trump, 79, had said the lawsuit was imminent, claiming the BBC had “put words in my mouth,” even positing that “they used AI [artificial intelligence] or something.”
The documentary at issue aired last year before the election, on the BBC’s Panorama flagship current affairs program.
“The formerly respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement.
“The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda,” the statement added.
The BBC last month faced a period of turmoil after a media report brought renewed attention to the edited clip. The scandal led then-BBC director general Tim Davie and top news executive Deborah Turness to resign.
The BBC lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal actions Trump has taken against media companies in recent years, several of which have led to multimillion-dollar settlements.
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