United States President Donald Trump has filed a $5 billion (£3.7 billion) defamation lawsuit against the BBC, accusing the broadcaster of deceptively editing his January 6, 2021 speech in a Panorama documentary.
Court documents filed in Florida allege that the BBC defamed Trump and violated trade practices laws by “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively” altering his remarks ahead of the 2024 US presidential election.
The lawsuit centres on an edited clip from Trump’s speech delivered shortly before the US Capitol riot. In the documentary, Trump was shown saying:
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” However, the statements were made nearly an hour apart in the original speech.
Trump argues the edit falsely portrayed him as issuing a direct call to violence.
“They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth,” he said last month while announcing plans to sue.
The BBC apologised in November for the edit, acknowledging it gave “the mistaken impression” that Trump had encouraged violent action.
However, the broadcaster rejected Trump’s demands for compensation and maintained there was no basis for a defamation claim.
The BBC has not yet commented on the lawsuit.
The legal action follows a leaked internal BBC memo that criticised the editing process and led to the resignations of Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News chief Deborah Turness.
In its earlier response to Trump’s legal threats, the BBC said the edit was not malicious and argued that Trump suffered no harm, noting that he was re-elected shortly after the documentary aired.
The broadcaster also said the programme was not distributed on its US platforms and was restricted to UK audiences on BBC iPlayer.
Trump’s lawsuit disputes that claim, alleging the documentary was accessible in the United States through third-party licensing agreements, VPN use, and the streaming service BritBox.
The suit argues that increased VPN usage in Florida suggests residents there accessed the programme before it was removed.
Neither the BBC nor the third-party distributor named in the lawsuit has responded publicly to the claims.