United States (US) president Donald Trump has sent a letter to the British national broadcaster BBC threatening to sue the United Kingdom-based public broadcaster for $1 billion.
His lawyers say the broadcaster must retract a controversial documentary by Friday or face a lawsuit for “no less” than $1 billion.
The letter follows the resignation of BBC director general Tim Davie and chief executive of news Deborah Turness on Sunday, after claims that a documentary aired by the flagship Panorama programme misled viewers.
The programme allegedly spliced two separate excerpts from one of Trump’s speeches, creating the impression that he was inciting the 6 January Capitol riot.
Trump says the BBC defamed him.
A representative for Trump’s legal team confirmed that a letter was sent to the BBC on Sunday, accusing the outlet of “defaming” Trump, but did not provide further details.
“President Trump will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in lies, deception and fake news,” the representative said.
According to BBC News, the letter set a deadline of 14 November to make a “full and fair retraction” of the Panorama documentary.
A BBC statement on Monday says “we will review the letter and respond directly in due course.”
Separately, BBC chairman Samir Shah on Monday apologised for the “error of judgment” in the broadcast titled ‘Trump: A Second Chance?’ which aired days before the 2024 US presidential election.
He said the publicly funded broadcaster accepts “that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action.”
He rejected claims of systemic bias in the broadcaster’s news reporting.
What was wrong with the Trump documentary?
Pressure on BBC executives has mounted since the Daily Telegraph published excerpts from an internal dossier criticizing the edit of Trump’s 6 January 2021, speech, delivered before a crowd of supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington.
The Panorama programme showed Trump telling supporters that “we’re going to walk down to the Capitol” and that they would “fight like hell,” but those lines came from different parts of his speech.
The leaked dossier describes “serious and systemic problems” with the BBC’s impartiality, stating that the Panorama edit was “completely misleading.”
A spokesperson for prime minister Keir Starmer denies that the BBC is institutionally biased or corrupt and says the government supports the corporation.
“Clearly mistakes have been made in this case and the director general and Deborah Turness have taken responsibility for those mistakes,” the spokesperson says.
Trump has previously filed lawsuits against US media outlets, including ABC, CBS,m and The New York Times.
Edited by: Dmytro Hubenko
– Deutsche Welle
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