US President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against the BBC on Monday, demanding at least $10 billion over a documentary that altered his 2021 speech to supporters ahead of the US Capitol riot.
The case, filed in federal court in Miami, demands “damages in an amount not less than $5,000,000,000” for each of the two charges against the British broadcaster, alleging defamation and violating the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Trump, 79, had already stated on Monday that the lawsuit was impending, saying the BBC had “put words in my mouth,” even speculating that “they used AI or something.”
The documentary in question aired on the BBC’s flagship current affairs program “Panorama” last year, ahead of the 2024 election.
The video stitched together two unrelated pieces of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, giving the impression that he directly encouraged supporters to attack the Capitol, where senators were confirming Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
“The formerly respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement to AFP.
“The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda,” the statement added.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, whose audience extends far beyond the United Kingdom, experienced difficulty last month after a media article resurfaced the modified clip.
The controversy forced the BBC’s director-general and top news officer to quit.
Trump’s complaint alleges that the modified remarks in the documentary is…
“fabricated and aired by the Defendants one week before the 2024 Presidential Election in a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”
The BBC has rebuffed Trump’s legal defamation charges, albeit its chairman, Samir Shah, has sent him an apologetic letter.
Shah also told a UK parliamentary committee last month that the broadcaster should have acted sooner to admit its blunder when it was revealed in a document leaked to The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
The BBC lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal proceedings filed by Trump against media corporations in recent years, several of which have resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements.
