NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC remains on track for now.
A federal judge in Florida ruled Tuesday evening that Trump’s defamation suit could move forward, but did not rule on the merits. Britain’s state-funded broadcaster had sought to dismiss the case.
Judge Jeffrey Kuntz dismissed part of the lawsuit, rejecting a claim by Trump that the BBC’s actions violated a Florida law regarding unfair trade practices.
Asset filed its complaint against the BBC in December. The Republican president accused the BBC of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair business practices in connection with a documentary titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” The 33-page lawsuit accused the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, misleading, derogatory, inflammatory and malicious portrayal of President Trump,” calling it a “brazen attempt to interfere and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
BBC apologizes for editing Trump footage
The BBC acknowledged that the filmmakers had grouped together quotes from different sections of Trump’s speech to his supporters on January 6, 2021before the storming of the US Capitol, to make it appear that Trump was directly calling for violence.
The broadcaster apologized for editingand that’s something the judge noted in his ruling Wednesday allowing the case to move forward. The head of the BBC and its chief news officer both resigned. But the network denies Trump’s claims that it defamed him.
In October, another Florida judge ordered Trump to appear for a deposition in the case by December 11. The BBC’s lawyers had complained that Trump was delaying his appearance in his own trial. Charles Tobin, lawyer for the BBCsaid that with two months left in the discovery period, “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff.”
The BBC said in a statement after Tuesday’s ruling that it was “surprised by this decision but respected the authority of the court and noted that the case would now move to the next stage.”
“We remain confident in our position and will continue to respond through the appropriate legal process,” the channel said.
Trump called Kuntz’s latest move a major victory.
“A huge victory against fake news from the BBC, a terrible abuser of the truth, just delivered by the highly respected District Court Judge Jeffrey T. Kuntz of the Southern District of Florida,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
“We will continue to fight and defeat all those who attempt to deceive the American people!” » Trump wrote Tuesday evening.
Judge said BBC edit ‘created something different’
In his ruling, Kuntz described the editing done in the documentary, connecting two parts of the speech, as more egregious than just routine editing.
“A review is often necessary,” the judge wrote. “However, given the temporal disparity between the two statements, the distance itself tends towards a plausible conclusion that the BBC knew or should have known that the segment it was creating would not and could not have been a true statement. It was not a matter of trimming the edges but of creating something different from what was stated in the speech. The BBC also had the entire speech for almost three years at the time of the documentary.”
The judge also wrote that Trump might have a plausible case to demonstrate malice — whether or not he could prove it at trial — given the BBC’s previous reporting about him.
“Trump paints a picture that demonstrates that the BBC has a pattern of allowing false statements to be published in its portrayal of Trump,” the ruling said. “The BBC is asking the Court to put blinders on and treat the Panorama team as if they were isolated from the rest of the organisation, ignoring everything that is happening at the BBC.”
The trial is one of several skirmishes between Trump and the media during his second term. Through administrative and executive actions and sometimes through legal action, he has chosen to take a more aggressive approach toward the press and toward coverage he does not like.
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