Donald Trump is suing Briitain’s BBC alleging it intentionally misrepresented his Jan. 6 speech to try to influence the outcome of the 2024 election.
Dec. 16 President Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion, alleging it intentionally misrepresented a speech he gave before the Jan. 6 storming of Capitol Hill in order to influence the result of the 2024 presidential election.
The lawsuit was filed in a Florida court on Monday, more than a month after Trump threatened to bring litigation against Britain’s public broadcaster over the editing of a speech he gave to supporters in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, in the documentary Trump: A Second Chance.
Trump’s lawyers described the documentary’s depiction of him as “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory and malicious”, alleging it was aired “in a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”
The suit is for $5 billion in damages, plus interest, costs, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and other relief the court finds appropriate.
The BBC declined to comment Tuesday but vowed it would fight the case.
“As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings”, said a spokesman.
The Panorama documentary aired in Britain on Oct. 28, 2024, just days ahead of the Nov. 5 election. The BBC stresses it was not broadcast in the United States and that it did not make it available to view there.
In the documentary, video of Trump’s speech was edited to piece together two comments the president made about 50 minutes apart, while omitting other parts of his speech.
“[T]he BBC “intentionally and maliciously sought to fully mislead its viewers around the world by splicing together two entirely separate parts of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021”, his lawyers state in the lawsuit.
