The BBC is taking legal action to have a multi-billion dollar defamation lawsuit filed by former US President Donald Trump thrown out of court. The case centres on a controversial edit of a Trump speech in a Panorama documentary about the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack.
The Core of the Legal Dispute
Court documents filed on Monday evening reveal the broadcaster will file a motion to dismiss the $10bn (£7.5bn) suit. The legal submission argues the Florida court lacks "personal jurisdiction" over the BBC, that the venue is "improper", and that Trump has "failed to state a claim" upon which relief can be granted.
The dispute originates from a Panorama episode broadcast in 2024, which faced significant criticism in 2025. The programme was accused of giving viewers the impression Trump directly encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol building. The edit in question spliced clips to suggest Trump told the crowd: "We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell." In reality, these statements were taken from sections of his speech delivered almost an hour apart.
Key Arguments for Dismissal
The BBC's legal team is set to argue that the corporation did not create, produce, or broadcast the documentary from Florida. They also contest Trump's claim that the film was available 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 broadcaster's lawyers stated in the court filing.
A critical element of the defence is the claim that Trump, as a public official, has failed to "plausibly allege" the BBC acted with "actual malice". This is a necessary legal threshold for defamation cases brought by public figures in the US. The BBC has requested the court "to stay all other discovery" – the pre-trial evidence-gathering process – until a decision on the dismissal motion is made.
Potential Scope and Timeline
In seeking to delay discovery, the BBC's lawyers warned that Trump would pursue "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."
Should the case proceed past the motion to dismiss, a trial date has been tentatively proposed for 2027. Trump's legal team maintains the edited clip was "false and defamatory" and are seeking up to the colossal $10bn sum in damages. The BBC declined to comment when approached.
