The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) will file a motion to dismiss the $10 billion lawsuit brought by President Trump over its deceptive editing of a documentary surrounding the events of January 6, 2021.
In December, Trump accused the BBC of making a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction” of him that was “fabricated and aired by the Defendants one week before the 2024 Presidential Election in a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”
Doctoring Trump’s speech, “in the form of distortion of meaning and splicing of entirely unrelated word sequence,” the lawsuit says, “is part of the BBC’s longstanding pattern of manipulating President Trump’s speeches and presenting content in a misleading manner in order to defame him, including fabricating calls for violence that he never made.”
According to the BBC’s new court filing, the defamation case “arises out of a documentary that Defendants the British Broadcasting Corporation (‘the BBC’), BBC Studios Distribution Ltd., and BBC Studios Productions Ltd. did not create in Florida, produce in Florida, or air in Florida.”
“As Defendants will set forth in their dispositive Motion to Dismiss, this Court lacks personal jurisdiction over them and Plaintiff fails to state claims for defamation or violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (‘FDUPTA’),” the filing adds, calling for the court to “stay merits-based discovery until a reasonable period of limited jurisdictional discovery has concluded and the Court has resolved the threshold question of personal jurisdiction.”
The case centers on a Panorama program called “Trump: A Second Chance,” which was broadcast a week before the 2024 election and showcased a “doctored” video of Trump saying, “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you, and we fight. We fight like [removed], and if you don’t fight like [removed], you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”
Instead, Trump directed protesters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
