The BBC has said it will defend itself against a $10 billion lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump on Monday, which alleges the British public broadcaster defamed him in a documentary before last year's presidential election by deceptively editing parts of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech.
In a brief statement, the BBC said it would fight the lawsuit, raising the possibility of a legal battle over whether the edit of the speech caused harm to the president's reputation.
"As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings," a BBC spokesperson said, according to the Reuters news agency.
In a 33-page complaint, Trump's attorneys asked a federal court in Miami for a jury trial and alleged a BBC documentary that aired a week before the 2024 presidential election was “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”
The BBC, BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. and BBC Studios Productions Ltd. — co-producers of the “Trump: A Second Chance” documentary — are named as defendants.
Trump's attorneys alleged that the BBC purposely spliced together parts of his speech to supporters at the Ellipse in Washington, including a section early on in the speech when he urged them to walk to the Capitol and a section nearly 55 minutes later when he told them to "fight like hell."
The suit argued that the documentary is deceptive in its omission of Trump’s encouraging his supporters to engage in peaceful protest, when he said: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night.
Charles B. Tobin, an attorney representing the BBC, said in a letter last month to Trump's attorneys included in Monday's filing that “our client had no intention of misleading anyone” and that the BBC had offered public contrition, a personal apology to Trump sent by email and a retraction that appeared online.
The BBC’s chairman, Samir Shah, previously acknowledged that the documentary's editing "gave the mistaken impression" that Trump "made a direct call for violent action" and apologized for "that error of judgement.”
Trump announced earlier Monday that the lawsuit was coming, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he was suing the BBC "for putting words in my mouth."
"They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn't say, and the beautiful words that I said, right, the beautiful words talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I said, they didn't say that," he said.
The lawsuit relates to an episode of the BBC News show "Panorama," which aired before last year’s election.
Two parts of the speech were edited together to give the impression that Trump said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol... and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
However, Trump said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”
And much later in the same speech he said: “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Trump was accused of encouraging the crowd, who later stormed the Capitol. The House Jan. 6 committee said after an 18-month investigation that Trump spent much of the speech at the Washington rally “amping up his crowd with lies about the election, attacking his own vice-president and Republican members of Congress, and exhorting the crowd to fight.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened to sue the BBC, saying after his election victory last year that he would seek $1 billion in damages.
Trump scored a victory this year when Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, said it would pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit with Trump over his allegations that a “60 Minutes” interview last year with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris was deceptively edited.
ABC last year agreed to pay $15 million as part of a legal settlement with Trump over defamation allegations against anchor George Stephanopoulos during an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.
