United States President Donald Trump has sued the BBC for up to $10 billion in damages over edited clips of a speech that made it appear he directed supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol.
Trump accused the BBC of defaming him by splicing together parts of a January 6, 2021, speech, including one section where he told supporters to march on the Capitol and another where he said “fight like hell”.
The edited speech omitted a section in which the president called for peaceful protest.
Trump’s lawsuit alleges the BBC defamed him and violated a Florida law that bars deceptive and unfair trade practices.
He is seeking $5 billion in damages for each of the lawsuit’s two counts.
Trump, in his lawsuit filed on Monday in Miami federal court, said the Britain’s publicly owned broadcaster despite its apology “has made no showing of actual remorse for its wrongdoing nor meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses.”
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The BBC has apologised to Trump, admitted an error of judgement, and acknowledged that the edit gave the mistaken impression that he had made a direct call for violent action. But it has said there is no legal basis to sue.
British minister Stephen Kinnock, representing the government in early media interviews, said the BBC had been right to apologise, but said it was now right to oppose any legal action.
“It’s right that the BBC stands firm on that point,” he told Sky News on Tuesday.
The BBC is funded through a mandatory license fee on all TV viewers, which UK lawyers and analysts say could make any payout to Trump politically fraught.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said in a statement 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 respond to a request for comment after the lawsuit was filed.
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