Trump sues BBC for $10 billion, accusing it of defamation over editing of president’s Jan. 6 speech

WASHINGTON AP President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday seeking billion in damages from the BBC accusing the British broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair agreement practices The -page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting a false defamatory deceptive disparaging inflammatory and malicious depiction of President Trump calling it a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the U S presidential voting process It accused the BBC of splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump s speech on January in order to intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump commented The lawsuit filed in a Florida court seeks billion in damages for defamation and billion for unfair bargain practices The BBC did not this instant respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press The broadcaster apologized last month to Trump over the edit of the Jan speech But the publicly funded BBC rejected asserts it had defamed him after Trump threatened legal action BBC chairman Samir Shah had called it an error of judgment which triggered the resignations of the BBC s top executive and its head of news The speech took place before certain of Trump s supporters stormed the U S Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden s accomplishment in the polling that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him The BBC had broadcast the hourlong documentary titled Trump A Second Chance days before the U S presidential ballot It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the speech delivered almost an hour apart into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and fight like hell Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump reported he required supporters to demonstrate peacefully Trump commented earlier Monday that he was suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth They genuinely put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan that I didn t say and they re beautiful words that I mentioned right the president explained unprompted during an appearance in the Oval Office They re beautiful words talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I mentioned They didn t say that but they put terrible words The president s lawsuit was filed in Florida Deadlines to bring the occurrence in British courts expired more than a year ago Legal experts have brought up likely challenges to a development in the U S given that the documentary was not shown in the country The lawsuit alleges that people in the U S can watch the BBC s original content including the Panorama series which included the documentary by using the subscription streaming platform BritBox or a virtual private architecture organization The -year-old BBC is a national institution funded through an annual license fee of pounds paid by every household that watches live TV or BBC content Bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial it typically faces especially intense scrutiny and criticism from both conservatives and liberals