Trump sues BBC, seeking $10 billion compensation

United States President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing the United Kingdom's national broadcaster of defamation and unfair trade practices.

The civil complaint, filed in the US state of Florida on Monday, concerns edited clips of Trump's Jan 6, 2021 speech, aired one week before the 2024 US presidential election, that allegedly made it appear as if Trump directed supporters to storm the US Capitol building, while omitting a call for peaceful protest.

The legal action asserts the BBC aired a "false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump", calling it "a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence" the election.

The lawsuit alleges the BBC defamed Trump and violated Florida's law against deceptive and unfair trade practices, seeking $5 billion in damages for each of the two counts, reported Reuters.

"The Panorama documentary falsely depicted President Trump telling supporters: 'We're going to walk down to the Capitol and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore,'" the lawsuit says. "President Trump never uttered this sequence of words."

The BBC has vowed to contest the case and offered no further comment. The broadcaster had apologized last month to Trump, acknowledging an error of judgment, and conceded the edit created a mistaken impression of a direct call for violent action, while asserting there are no legal grounds for the lawsuit.

A leaked internal BBC memo, first published by The Daily Telegraph newspaper on Nov 6, had flagged concerns about how the speech was edited. The BBC's director-general, Tim Davie, and head of news, Deborah Turness, both stepped down last month over the broadcaster's handling of the case.

The UK government has backed the BBC, with UK Minister of State for Social Care Stephen Kinnock telling Sky News on Tuesday the public service broadcaster was right to stick to its stance that there is no legal case to answer.

"It's right that the BBC stands firm on that point," he said. "I think they have apologized for one or two of the mistakes that were made in that Panorama program, but they've also been very clear that there is no case to answer in terms of Mr Trump's accusations on the broader point about libel or defamation."

On the BBC's position, he said: "I think the broader argument that they were making — they are right to stick by their guns on that. And I hope that they will continue to do so as an independent organization, of course, funded by the license fee — a hugely important institution."

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing mounting pressure from some politicians to defend the BBC, with Ed Davey, the centrist Liberal Democrat leader, urging Starmer to "stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous legal threat".