The British Broadcasting Corporation has initiated a formal legal bid to have a multi-billion dollar defamation lawsuit brought by former US President Donald Trump dismissed in its entirety. The broadcaster is seeking a court order to throw out the $10bn claim, which centres on a controversial edit in a 2024 episode of its flagship Panorama investigative series.
The Core of the Legal Dispute
The legal battle stems from a Panorama broadcast that aired in late 2024, which faced significant criticism for its portrayal of events surrounding the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The programme featured edited footage from Trump's speech on that day. The sequence showed him saying, "We're going to walk down to the Capitol... and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell." This specific edit is now the central focus of the defamation claim filed by Trump.
In court filings, the BBC's legal team outlines several key arguments for dismissal. Firstly, the corporation contends it did not create, produce, or transmit the documentary within the state of Florida, where the lawsuit was filed. Secondly, it challenges Trump's assertion that the programme was available to viewers in the United States via the streaming service BritBox.
"Simply clicking on the link that plaintiff cites for this point shows it is not on BritBox," the BBC's representatives stated in legal documents. Furthermore, the broadcaster argues that Trump has not "plausibly alleged" that it acted with "actual malice" – a crucial legal threshold in US defamation law involving public figures.
BBC Seeks to Halt Pre-Trial Discovery Process
In a significant procedural move, the BBC has requested the court to pause all pre-trial discovery until a judge rules on its motion to dismiss the case. Discovery is the phase where both parties gather evidence and information from each other.
The corporation's lawyers have argued that allowing discovery to proceed would be overly burdensome and irrelevant at this stage. They expressed concern that Trump's team would seek "broad, objectionable discovery on the merits, implicating the BBC's entire scope of coverage of Donald J Trump over the past decade or more and claiming injury to his entire business and political profiles."
Potential Timeline and BBC Stance
If the motion to dismiss fails and the case moves forward, a full trial is not anticipated until 2027, according to proposed scheduling. The BBC has maintained a firm public stance on the matter. A spokesperson for the corporation stated, "As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings."
This legal action represents a high-stakes defence for the BBC against one of the largest defamation claims in recent history, with the integrity of its editorial processes and the international reach of its content under scrutiny.
