BBC to seek dismissal of Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit in Florida court

London — The BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster, will file a motion to dismiss a $10 billion lawsuit brought by President Trump over a 2024 documentary that spliced parts of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech together, according to a document filed with the court on Monday. The BBC argues that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case, and that Mr. Trump’s attorneys are wrong to claim he suffered damages due to the documentary.The suit, filed last month by Mr. Trump’s legal team in the Southern District of Florida, includes one count of defamation and one count of violating a Florida trade practices law. Mr. Trump’s legal team is seeking $5 billion in damages for each count, for a total of $10 billion, court filings reviewed by CBS News show. The December 33-page complaint filed by Mr. Trump’s attorneys accuses the BBC of publishing “a false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction” of him in a documentary for the BBC’s “Panorama” program, which was broadcast in the U.K. a week before the 2024 U.S. election. One portion of the documentary focused on Mr. Trump’s words and actions leading up to the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.The lawsuit claims the BBC “intentionally and maliciously sought to fully mislead its viewers” by “splicing together” two clips of the same speech that Mr. Trump gave to supporters in Washington before the riots began.Mr. Trump’s legal team claims the two clips were 55 minutes apart, and the BBC’s edit omitted “his statement calling for peace” in the same address. The president had directed his supporters to go to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers were soon to vote to confirm election results in favor of former President Joe Biden.In the latest court documents released Monday, the BBC’s legal team said it will argue that the Florida court should dismiss the suit because the “defamation case arises out of a documentary that Defendants the British Broadcasting Corporation (“the BBC”), BBC Studios Distribution Ltd., and BBC Studios Productions Ltd. did not create in Florida, produce in Florida, or air in Florida.”Attorneys for the BBC will also argue that the case did not cause damage to or defame Mr. Trump, noting the fact that he was re-elected after the documentary was broadcast in Britain, and that Mr. Trump won the state of Florida decisively. The BBC’s legal team also argues that a claim made in Mr. Trump’s suit, alleging that the documentary was made available in the U.S. via a streaming service, is inaccurate. “Plaintiff alleges that the Documentary was available in the U.S. on the streaming service BritBox. But simply clicking on the link that Plaintiff cites for this point shows it is not on BritBox. Nor was it ever available on BritBox,” according to the filing submitted by law firm Ballard Spahr, which is representing the BBC. Mr. Trump’s legal team has not provided evidence that the documentary was created, “with actual malice,” Ballard Spahr said Monday.”As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings,” a BBC spokesperson told CBS News on Tuesday when asked about the organization’s move to have the suit dismissed.CBS News has reached out to Mr. Trump’s attorney Alejandro Brito for a response to the BBC’s move to dismiss the lawsuit. The BBC formally apologized to Mr. Trump in November, saying in a statement that the edited soundbite in the Panorama documentary had given, “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.” “While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim,” the BBC’s legal team said at the time, adding that it had “no plans to rebroadcast the documentary ‘Trump: A Second Chance?’ on any BBC platforms.”BBC News is an international partner network of CBS News. 

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