Legal battle looms as Trump files $10bn suit against BBC

Former US President Donald Trump has taken legal action against the BBC, accusing the broadcaster of misleadingly editing a speech he delivered to supporters in Washington shortly before the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

In court papers filed on Monday night, Trump is demanding as much as $10bn in damages, claiming the edited footage broadcast on the BBC’s Panorama programme portrayed him as encouraging violence.

Trump alleges that the broadcaster acted deliberately and dishonestly by splicing together remarks from different parts of his address, delivered nearly an hour apart, to create a false impression of his intent.

The lawsuit seeks $5bn in damages on two separate grounds: defamation and an alleged breach of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

The disputed edit combined excerpts in which Trump spoke about marching to the Capitol and urged supporters to “fight like hell”, a sequence his legal team argues distorted the context of the original speech.

The BBC has yet to issue an immediate response to the filing. However, the corporation had earlier conceded that the editing decision was a mistake, apologising to Trump while maintaining that the broadcast does not meet the legal threshold for defamation.