US President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit seeking at least $10 billion from the BBC over an edited documentary of his 2021 speech ahead of the US Capitol riot.
The legal action, lodged in federal court in Miami on Monday, demanded “damages in an amount not less than $5,000,000,000” for each of two counts, citing defamation and violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Trump had said earlier that the lawsuit was imminent, claiming the BBC had “put words in my mouth” and even suggesting “they used AI or something.”
The documentary in question aired last year on the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, “Panorama,” prior to the 2024 US presidential election.
The video allegedly spliced two separate parts of Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech, creating the impression that he directly encouraged supporters to attack the Capitol as Congress certified Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said, “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.”
“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 spokesperson added.
The controversy over the edited footage prompted a period of turmoil at the BBC last month, leading to the resignation of its director-general and top news executive.
Trump’s lawsuit claims the broadcast “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 denied Trump’s defamation claims, though chairman Samir Shah has sent an apology to Trump and admitted before a UK parliamentary committee that the broadcaster should have addressed the error sooner.
The BBC’s statement followed the leak of an internal memo to The Daily Telegraph detailing the editing mistake.
Trump’s action is the latest in a series of lawsuits against media companies, several of which have resulted in multi-million-dollar settlements.