Trump sues BBC for $5 billion

President Donald Trump filed suit Monday against the British Broadcasting Company, seeking more than $5 billion from the venerable news outlet over what he contends was deliberately misleading editing of a speech he gave on Jan. 6, 2021, as the Capitol riot was getting underway.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, complains that the BBC “maliciously” strung together two comments Trump made more than 54 minutes apart in order to convey the impression that he’d urged his supporters to engage in violence as electoral votes were set to be tabulated by Congress.

“It would have been impossible for BBC’s journalists and producers to splice together two distinct parts of the Speech from nearly 55 minutes apart unless they were acting intentionally,” the suit claims. “Such a dramatic distortion could never have occurred by accident.”

The BBC apologized to Trump last month over the splicing, but argued that it did not amount to the basis for a defamation suit. A network spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The new suit is Trump’s latest bid to extract a large payout from news organizations he has routinely attacked. One recent suit against CNN — demanding damages from the network over its use of the term “big lie” to describe Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election — was tossed by a federal appeals court.

Trump has also, however, reached multimillion-dollar settlements with ABC and CBS in lawsuits he brought accusing them of false reporting or deceptive editing. Trump’s suits against The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal remain pending.

Trump is facing a lawsuit in Washington, D.C. stemming from his Jan. 6 speech, with lawmakers and police officers injured that day alleging that his remarks incited the violent riot at the Capitol that threatened the transfer of presidential power.

The judge presiding over that case found that despite Trump’s claim to have encouraged supporters to march “peacefully” to the Capitol, many had already departed his rally by the time he issued the call for order, and his speech was so full of incendiary rhetoric that his belated mention of “peaceful” behavior may not have been sufficient to calm the crowd’s fury.

Legal experts have said they expect the BBC to challenge the federal court’s jurisdiction over the case, particularly in light of the network’s claim that the documentary did not air in the U.S. and the digital version was not available to U.S. audiences.

Trump’s suit seeks to counter that argument by noting that at least two websites published instructions about how to watch the documentary in the U.S. via a virtual private network or VPN, although one of those posts came in recent months. Trump’s attorneys also contend that the BBC shot many of the scenes in Florida, including in and around Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. The complaint also notes that the BBC maintains an office in Coral Gables, just south of Miami.