Aside from venue- and jurisdiction-related concerns, the BBC said that, by the time the documentary was released in October 2024, Trump had received so much negative publicity with respect to his actions on January 6 that a brief sequence in a documentary was unlikely to cause the president any more reputational harm than he has already suffered.
The BBC has asked a federal court to dismiss a $10 billion libel lawsuit filed against the network by President Donald Trump, who claims that the United Kingdom-based broadcaster broke the law when it aired a documentary that allegedly misrepresented remarks made on January 6, 2021.
According to POLITICO, the BBC filed a motion for dismissal last Monday in a Fort Lauderdale federal court. In the filing, attorneys argued that U.S. District Court Judge Roy Altman lacks jurisdiction over the London-based network, which says that it never distributed the at-issue documentary in the United States. The BBC’s lawyers also noted that neither it nor any of its subsidiaries operate in Florida.
Aside from venue- and jurisdiction-related concerns, the BBC said that, by the time the documentary was released in October 2024, Trump had received so much negative publicity with respect to his actions on January 6 that a brief sequence in a documentary was unlikely to cause the president any more reputational harm than he has already suffered.
The motion to dismiss emphasized that, by the end of 2024, Trump had already been charged by a grand jury over his efforts to overturn the results of the election.
“When the Documentary aired, Plaintiff had already been charged by a grand jury on four counts stemming from his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election,” BBC attorney Charles Tobin wrote in the motion to dismiss. “Given the many allegations prior to the Documentary’s release regarding Plaintiff’s January 6 speech — and that shortly after its release, the President won reelection and carried Florida by a wide margin — Plaintiff cannot plausibly claim that the Documentary harmed his reputation.”
POLITICO reports that the BBC’s filing acknowledged, but largely downplayed, the network’s public apology to Trump, which was issued shortly after the president began to threaten legal action. The BBC admitted that the documentary “unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.”
Despite this, the BBC maintains that selectively editing parts of the president’s speech does not provide much basis for a multibillion-dollar lawsuit.
“We have said throughout we will robustly defend the case against us. Put simply — the documentary was never aired in Florida — or the U.S. It wasn’t available to watch in the U.S. on iPlayer, online or any other streaming platforms including BritBox and BBC Select,” a BBC spokesperson said in a Monday statement. “We have therefore challenged jurisdiction of the Florida court and filed a motion to dismiss the president’s claim.”
Attorneys for the president, though, indicated that they aren’t very concerned about the BBC’s motion to dismiss.
“The BBC is liable to President Trump for intentionally and maliciously defaming him by distorting and manipulating his speech. No amount of attempted legal maneuvers can change that fact,” a spokesperson for the president and his legal team said. “President Trump will continue to hold accountable the BBC and all those who traffic in fake news.”
Sources
BBC asks judge to toss Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit
BBC asks US court to throw out Trump’s $10bn lawsuit and avoid ‘chilling effect’
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