US President Donald Trump sued the British broadcaster BBC on Monday, seeking $10 billion in damages on charges of defamation and deceptive and unfair trade practices, the AP agency reports.
The 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting "false, defamatory, misleading, disparaging, inflammatory and malicious content about President Trump," calling it a "brazen attempt to interfere and influence" the 2024 US presidential election.
The BBC is accused of combining two separate parts of Trump's January 6, 2021, speech during the unrest in Congress. The lawsuit says the intent was "to intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said."
The BBC has not yet issued a response to the lawsuit. The British broadcaster apologized to Trump last month for interfering in a Jan. 6 speech. But the public broadcaster has denied the defamation claims.
The head of the BBC, Samir Shah, called it an "error of judgment." The cause of that error in the Panorama program was followed by the resignations of the editor-in-chief and also the director of news.
Trump had given the speech before some of his supporters stormed the US Capitol, as Congress was about to certify Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election. Trump had claimed that his victory had been stolen.
The BBC had broadcast the one-hour documentary titled "Trump: A Second Chance?", a few days before the 2024 US presidential election. The documentary combined three quotes from two different parts of the 2021 speech, a speech that had lasted nearly an hour.
A quote was created in the documentary that gave the impression that Trump was calling on supporters to march and “fight.” Between the two cut parts of the speech was a part where Trump told the protesters that he wanted them to protest peacefully.
Trump had said earlier on Monday that he was suing the BBC for defamation.
