Trump Files $10bn Lawsuit Against BBC Over Edited Capitol Riot Speech

US President Donald Trump on Monday instituted a lawsuit seeking at least $10 billion in damages from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) over a documentary that edited his 2021 speech ahead of the January 6 US Capitol riot.

Filed at a federal court in Miami, the suit demands “damages in an amount not less than $5,000,000,000” on each of two counts against the BBC, citing alleged defamation and violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Earlier on Monday, Trump, 79, had hinted that legal action was imminent, accusing the BBC of having “put words in my mouth,” and suggesting that “they used AI or something.”

The documentary in question aired last year, ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, on the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Panorama.

According to Trump, the programme spliced together two separate portions of his January 6, 2021 speech in a way that falsely suggested he explicitly urged supporters to attack the US Capitol as lawmakers met to certify 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 controversy sparked renewed scrutiny of the BBC last month after media reports revisited the edited clip. The fallout reportedly led to the resignation of the broadcaster’s director-general and its top news executive.

In the lawsuit, Trump alleged that the edited speech was “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 rejected Trump’s defamation claims. However, BBC chairman Samir Shah wrote a letter of apology to Trump and later told a UK parliamentary committee that the organisation should have responded more quickly after the error was flagged in an internal memo that was later leaked to The Daily Telegraph.

The action against the BBC is the latest in a series of lawsuits Trump has brought against media organisations in recent years, some of which have resulted in multi-million-dollar settlements.

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