President Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the BBC after it deceptively edited speeches made by Trump on January 6, 2021.
According to the lawsuit, the BBC made a false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump” 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.”
The filing asks for $10 billion.
A BBC spokesperson said it will be defending the case. “We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings,” they stated.
A Panorama program called “Trump: A Second Chance,” 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.”
President Trump threatened to sue the BBC in November. Trump attorney Alejandro Brito sent a letter to the broadcaster, demanding that “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” made against the president be retracted.
“Failure to comply will leave President Trump with no choice but to pursue any and all legal rights and remedies available to recover damages for the overwhelming financial and reputational harm that the BBC has caused him to suffer, with all rights and remedies being expressly reserved by President Trump,” the letter states.
