Judge Declines To Dismiss Donald Trump’s Defamation Claim Against BBC

A federal judge on Tuesday declined to dismiss Donald Trump‘s defamation claim against the BBC over edits made to a documentary about January 6th that aired in advance of the 2024 election.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz rejected the BBC’s efforts to toss the case by contending that Trump lacked personal jurisdiction, as the Panorama documentary did not air in Florida, where the case was filed.

In his ruling, Kuntz wrote that the BBC confirmed “it had edited a video to make it appear as though President Trump made a statement he never made. And it acknowledged it chose to release the video in a documentary only a week before the 2024 Presidential Election, at the time it would have the most impact. To make sure it was seen in Florida, BBC even emailed U.S. and Florida based commenters with instructions to on how to view the documentary.”

He added, “Whether President Trump can prove these claims and establish he sustained
damages at summary judgment or trial is left for another day.”

The judge kept alive Trump’s defamation claim but dismissed his claim of violation of Florida’s
Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Trump sued the BBC for $10 billion.

In the documentary, Trump: A Second Chance?, a clip is shown from his January 6 speech, in which he says, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol … and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” In fact, the remark was an edit of different portions of the speech.

Trump claims that the documentary — which was produced by October Films — was streamed on iPlayer by “hundreds of individuals” using a VPN in the U.S., despite it being geoblocked in America. His lawyers have accused the BBC of a “brazen” attempt to interfere in the 2024 U.S. election, which the corporation denies.

In the fallout from edited speech, BBC director general Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, who led the news division, stepped down. The BBC apologized, calling it an “error of judgment,” but they did not offer to pay any damages.

The judge wrote of the editing, “Trump properly alleges that BBC spliced and edited together a twelve-second segment that resulted in reputational harm based off ‘deceptive and defamatory distortion.'”

“On its face, a twelve-second clip seems insignificant, but in the context of the complaint, these twelve seconds are the result of splicing two segments that are separated by nearly fifty-five minutes in the speech from which the segment is sourced.”