London — The BBC filed a motion on Monday asking a US court to dismiss a $10 billion lawsuit against President Donald Trump.
The British national broadcaster said the Florida court expected to hear the case did not have jurisdiction over it. It argued that it could not show that it intended to misrepresent Trump.
Trump sued in December over the way a BBC documentary edited a speech he gave on January 6, 2021. The suit seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and another $5 billion for unfair trade practices.
A judge in federal court in the Southern District of Florida last month tentatively set a trial date for February 2027.
The BBC argued that the case should be thrown out because the documentary was never broadcast in Florida or the US.
“We therefore challenged the jurisdiction of the Florida court and filed a motion to dismiss the president’s claim,” the corporation said in a statement.
In the 34-page document, the BBC argued that Trump had failed to “plausibly allege facts which appear to show that the defendants deliberately intended to create a false impression”.
It added that Trump’s case “falls short of a high bar of actual malice.”
Documentary – “Trump: A Second Chance?” – aired a few days before the 2024 US presidential election.
The program pulled together three quotes from two segments of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, including what appeared to be a quote in which Trump apparently encouraged his supporters to attack the Capitol building.
A section of the amputations, Trump said supporters should demonstrate peacefully.
The broadcaster’s president apologized to Trump for editing the speech, admitting it gave the impression of “a direct call to violent action”. But the BBC has rejected its accusation of defamation. The uproar sparked the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news last year.
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