President Donald Trump filed suit on Monday is seeking $10 billion in damages to the BBC and accuses the British broadcaster of doing this slanderand misleading and unfair business practices.
The 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting a “representation.” false, defamatory, misleading, derogatory, inflammatory and malicious by President Trump,” calling it “a blatant attempt to interfere in and influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election.”
He accuses the BBC of “combine two completely separate parts of speech by President Trump on January 6, 2021” 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 did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. The network apologized to Trump last month for its editing of the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded BBC rejected allegations of defaming him, after Trump threatened legal action.
BBC President Samir Shah described it this way a “misjudgment”which led to the resignation of the BBC boss and its head of news. The speech took place in front of some Trump supporters broke into the Capitol of the United States as Congress prepared to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election Trump falsely claimed he was robbed.
The BBC had released the hour-long documentary titled “ “Trump: A second chance?”Days before the 2024 US presidential election. Three quotes put together of two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered nearly an hour apart and in which It seemed like one date. in which Trump urged his supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section in which Trump said he wanted his supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
Trump said earlier Monday that he would sue the BBC. “For putting words in my mouth.”
“They actually put terrible words in my mouth that had to do with January 6 that I didn’t say, and there are beautiful words that I said, right?” the president said without being asked during an appearance in the Oval Office. “They are beautiful words that speak of patriotism and all the good things I said. They didn’t say that, but they used terrible words.”
The president’s lawsuit was filed in Florida. The deadlines for filing the case in the British courts They expired more than a year ago.
Legal experts have therefore raised possible challenges to a case in the United States The documentary was not shown in the country.
The lawsuit alleges that people in the United States can watch original BBC content, including the “Panorama” series, which included the documentary, through the subscription streaming platform BritBox or a virtual private network service.
The BBC, 103 years oldis a national body funded by an annual license fee of £174.50 ($230) paid by every household that watches live television or BBC content. It is required to be impartial by the terms of its charter and typically faces particularly intense scrutiny and criticism from both conservatives and liberals.
With information from Associated Press
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