U.S. President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday searching for $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing the British broadcaster of defamation in addition to deceptive and unfair trade practices.
The 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump,” calling it “a brazen try to interfere in and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
It accused the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021” with a purpose to ”intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”
The lawsuit, filed in a Florida court, seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.
The BBC didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The broadcaster apologized last month to Trump over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech. However the publicly funded BBC rejected claims it had defamed him, after Trump threatened legal motion.
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BBC chairman Samir Shah had called it an “error of judgment,” which triggered the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of reports.
The speech took place before a few of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory within the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.
The BBC had broadcast the hour-long documentary — titled Trump: A Second Likelihood? — days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what seemed to be one quote during which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the many parts cut out was a piece where Trump said he wanted supporters to display peacefully.
Trump said earlier Monday that he was suing the BBC “for putting words in my mouth.”
“They really put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn’t say, and so they’re beautiful words, that I said, right?” the president said unprompted during an appearance within the Oval Office. “They’re beautiful words, talking about patriotism and all the good things that I said. They didn’t say that, but they put terrible words.”
The president’s lawsuit was filed in Florida. Deadlines to bring the case in British courts expired greater than a 12 months ago.
Legal experts have brought up potential challenges to a case within the U.S. provided that the documentary was not shown within the country.
The lawsuit alleges that individuals within the U.S. can watch the BBC’s original content, including the “Panorama” series, which included the documentary, by utilizing the subscription streaming platform BritBox or a virtual private network service.
The 103-year-old BBC is a national institution funded through an annual license fee of 174.50 kilos ($230) paid by every household that watches live TV or BBC content. Certain by the terms of its charter to be impartial, it typically faces especially intense scrutiny and criticism from each conservatives and liberals.
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