Trump Sues BBC Over Edited Jan 6 Speech, Seeks Up To $10B in Damages

President Donald Trump has sued the BBC for defamation over edited clips of a January 6, 2021 speech that he says made it appear he urged supporters to storm the US Capitol, opening an international front in his long-running battle with media organisations he deems unfair or inaccurate.

 

In the lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Miami, Trump accused Britain’s publicly funded broadcaster of splicing together portions of his speech, including remarks urging supporters to march on the Capitol and the phrase “fight like hell”, while omitting a section in which he called for peaceful protest.

 

Trump alleges the BBC defamed him and violated a Florida law barring deceptive and unfair trade practices. He is seeking $5 billion in damages on each of the lawsuit’s two counts.

 

The BBC has previously apologised to Trump, acknowledging an error of judgment and conceding that the edit gave a mistaken impression that he had made a direct call for violent action. However, the broadcaster has said there is no legal basis for a lawsuit.

 

In his filing, Trump said the BBC, despite its apology, “has made no showing of actual remorse for its wrongdoing nor meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses”.

 

The BBC is funded through a mandatory licence fee paid by UK television viewers, a structure that legal experts say could make any potential payout politically sensitive.

 

A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the BBC “has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda”.

A BBC spokesperson told Reuters earlier on Monday that it had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point. Our position remains the same.” The broadcaster did not immediately respond to a further request for comment after the lawsuit was filed.

 

Describing the episode as one of the biggest crises in its 103-year history, the BBC has said it has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any of its platforms.

 

The disputed clip appeared in an episode of the BBC’s Panorama documentary series aired shortly before the 2024 US presidential election. The programme triggered a public relations crisis for the broadcaster and led to the resignations of its two most senior officials.

 

Trump’s lawyers say the edit caused him significant reputational and financial harm.

 

The documentary came under scrutiny after the leak of an internal BBC memo from an external standards adviser, which raised concerns about how the footage was edited as part of a broader investigation into political bias at the publicly funded broadcaster. The programme was not broadcast in the United States.

 

Legal experts say Trump may have filed the case in the US because defamation claims in Britain must be brought within a year of publication, a deadline that has passed for the Panorama episode.

 

To succeed under US law, Trump will need to show not only that the edit was false and defamatory, but also that the BBC knowingly misled viewers or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, overcoming constitutional protections for free speech and the press.

 

The BBC could argue that the documentary was substantially true and that its editing did not create a false impression, or that the programme did not harm Trump’s reputation, experts said.

 

Trump has previously settled lawsuits with other media organisations, including CBS and ABC, following his return to the presidency after the November 2024 election. He has also filed suits against the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and a newspaper in Iowa, all of which have denied wrongdoing.

 

The January 2021 attack on the US Capitol was aimed at preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

 

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