BBC asks Florida court to dismiss Trump’s US$10 billion lawsuit over January 6 speech edit

2026.03.16 17:20 Donald Trump speaks to his supporters at a rally on January 6, 2021 near the White House in Washington before they stormed the US Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. Photo: Abaca Press / TNS The BBC said on Monday it had asked a US federal court in Florida to dismiss a US$10 billion lawsuit brought by US President Donald Trump against the British broadcaster. Trump launched a lawsuit last year over a BBC documentary that edited his 2021 speech ahead of the US Capitol riot. The documentary was “never aired in Florida – or the US” or available to stream there on any platform, a representative for the British Broadcasting Corporation said in a comment sent to Agence France-Presse. It also argued that Trump could not show that it intended to misrepresent him. “We have therefore challenged jurisdiction of the Florida court and filed a motion to dismiss the president’s claim.” The spokesman said the BBC had “said throughout we will robustly defend the case against us”. In a 34-page document, the BBC also argued that Trump failed to “plausibly allege facts showing that defendants knowingly intended to create a false impression”. Trump’s case “falls well short of the high bar of actual malice”, it added. Supporters of Trump clash with police during a riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington. Photo: AFP / Getty Images / TNS The documentary - titled Trump: A Second Chance? - was broadcast days before the 2024 US presidential election. Lawyers for the BBC had already written in documents submitted to the Miami court in January that the broadcaster would “move to dismiss the complaint” over the court’s lack of “personal jurisdiction”. The BBC documentary spliced together two separate sections of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, making it appear that he had explicitly urged supporters to attack the US Capitol in Washington. Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate

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