US President Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $5 billion for defamation, CNBC reports.
The cause of the lawsuit is an edited speech by Trump on the program "Panorama", delivered on the day his supporters stormed the Capitol in January 2021. As reported by The Telegraph, the documentary "Trump: A Second Chance?", released last year, edited two different parts of his speech together, creating the impression that the Republican directly called for riots at the Capitol. In the original speech from January 6, Trump stated: "We're going to Capitol and applaud our brave senators and members of Congress,” while Panorama edited his words to read: “We will go to Capitol... and I will go with you. And we will fight. We will fight with all our might.”
BBC Chairman Samir Shah apologized for the incident, explaining that the speech had been edited to “convey President Trump’s message so that Panorama’s audience could better understand how it was received by President Trump’s supporters and what was happening at the time.”
Amid the scandal, the CEO of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Tim Davey, and Deborah Turnes, head of BBC News, resigned.