“As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case,” the BBC said in a statement. “We are not going to make further legal comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”
A federal judge has dismissed the BBC’s application to stay discovery in a $10 billion defamation lawsuit filed against the United Kingdom-based media company by President Donald Trump.
According to Reuters, Trump has accused the BBC of “defaming” him by splicing together parts of a speech delivered by the president on January 6, 2021, including a section wherein he called on his supporters to march on the Capitol and another in which he encouraged them to “fight like hell.”
The segment, notes Reuters, omitted a segment in which Trump called for strictly peaceful protest.
Attorneys for the president say that the BBC defamed him and violated a Florida state law that bars deceptive and unfair trade practices. He is seeking $5 billion in damages for each of the lawsuit’s two counts.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Roy Altman denied the BBC’s application to stay the merit-based discovery phase of the lawsuit, during which both sides can obtain evidence from all other parties involved in the case. In his decision, Altman said the BBC’s request appeared premature; he also noted that the broadcaster failed to sufficiently establish that prejudice in the event that a stay wasn’t granted.
The BBC has not commented on Altman’s decision.
“As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case,” the BBC said in a statement. “We are not going to make further legal comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”
Trump’s lawsuit was filed in a Florida-based federal court inn December. In its introduction, attorneys for the president claim that edits to the Panorama documentary constitute a “brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the [2024] election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”
The BBC has rejected Trump’s demands for compensation on multiple grounds. In an BBC-published article detailing the network’s position, the broadcaster said that, among other things, it never distributed the documentary anywhere in the United States. Instead, it was provided solely to viewers geographically located in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the BBC said that the documentary could not possibly have caused Trump harm, as he was re-elected in spite of its airing.
Chris Ruddy, a Trump supporter and the founder of conservative media outlet Newsmax, told BBC Radio Four’s “Today” that winning a defamation lawsuit in the United States is a difficult undertaking because the bar for proving defamation “is very high.” Nevertheless, Ruddy said that the claim could be damaging for the BBC, potentially costing anywhere between $50 million and $100 million to resolve.
Former BBC Radio controller Mark Damazer, though, emphasized that it would be “extremely damaging to the BBC’s reputation not to fight the case,” as submission, negotiation, or overt cooperation could reflect poorly on “the BBC’s independence.”
Sources
Trial date set for Trump’s legal case against BBC
U.S. judge rejects BBC’s stay application in Trump defamation case
Join the conversation!