US President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing the British broadcaster of defamation and misleading and unfair business practices.
The 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, misleading, derogatory, inflammatory and malicious portrayal of President Trump,” calling it a “brazen attempt to interfere and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
It accuses the BBC of “joining together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021” in order to “intentionally distort the meaning of what President Trump said.”
The suit, filed in a Florida court, seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.
The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Last month, the network apologized to Trump for editing the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded BBC rejected claims it had defamed him, after Trump threatened legal action.
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BBC chairman Samir Shah called it an “error of judgement”, which triggered the resignation of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news.
The speech came before some Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress prepared to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, which Trump had falsely claimed was stolen from him.
The BBC had broadcast the hour-long documentary entitled Trump: a second chance? — days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. He consolidated three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered nearly an hour apart, into what appears to be a quote in which Trump urged his supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the deleted portions was a section in which Trump said he wanted his supporters to protest peacefully.
Trump said earlier Monday that he was suing the BBC “for putting words in my mouth.”
“In fact, they put terrible words in my mouth about January 6 that I didn’t say, and they were beautiful words that I said, weren’t they?” » declared the president spontaneously during an appearance in the Oval Office. “They’re beautiful words, they talk about patriotism and all the good things I said. They didn’t say that, but they put terrible words.”
The president’s lawsuit was filed in Florida. Deadlines for bringing the case to the British courts expired more than a year ago.
Legal experts have cited potential challenges in a U.S. case, given that the documentary has not been screened in the country.
The lawsuit alleges that Americans can watch original BBC content, including the “Panorama” series, which included the documentary, using the subscription streaming platform BritBox or a virtual private network service.
The 103-year-old BBC is a national institution funded by an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds ($230) paid by every household that watches live television or BBC content. Bound by the terms of its charter to impartiality, it is generally the subject of particularly intense scrutiny and criticism from conservatives and liberals.
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