By Jonathan Stempel
Feb 18 (Reuters) – Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC, said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump had failed to establish that it defamed him in a documentary broadcast shortly before he won a second White House term.
In a filing in Miami federal court, the BBC said it intends to argue that Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit should be dismissed because he failed to state successful claims for defamation and for a violation of a Florida unfair trade practices law.
The BBC said it also intends to argue that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear Trump’s case under Florida law, federal rules governing civil cases, and the U.S. Constitution’s “due process” clause. It has apologized to Trump for the edit.
Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The BBC has until March 17 to respond formally to Trump’s complaint, which he filed on December 15. A trial is scheduled for February 15, 2027.
Trump accused the BBC of splicing together footage of parts of a speech he gave on January 6, 2021, to make it appear that he had directed supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol later that day, when lawmakers planned to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
The edit, for the documentary “Trump: A Second Chance?”, spliced together a section where Trump said supporters would march on the Capitol with another, recorded nearly an hour later, where he exhorted them to “fight like hell.”
Trump, a Republican, is seeking at least $5 billion of damages on each claim against the BBC, which is publicly funded.
Fallout from the documentary, including allegations of bias, led to the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news in November.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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