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President Donald Trump on Friday said he plans to file a lawsuit against the BBC over an edit of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech cut by investigative documentary series Panorama, the news organization reported.
“We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion and $5 billion probably sometime next week,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One Friday evening.
He added that he plans to talk it over with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the weekend, BBC News reported.
“Lawyers for the BBC have written to President Trump’s legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday,” a BBC spokesperson said Thursday. “BBC chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president’s speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the programme.”
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The spokesperson said it has “no plans” to rebroadcast the documentary at the center of the controversy on any of BBC’s platforms.
“While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim,” the spokesperson added.
The British news organization has been hit with criticism over a BBC Panorama documentary about Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech that he delivered before the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Critics believe the documentary was misleading because it omitted Trump urging supporters to protest “peacefully,” and stitched together remarks the president made nearly an hour apart to make it appear like one long statement.
The BBC said on Friday that the edit gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action” but was unintentional.
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Trump previously threatened to sue if the “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” weren’t retracted immediately.
The controversy led to the resignations of BBC News CEO Deborah Turness and BBC director-general Tim Davie.
“I stepped down over the weekend because the buck stops with me. But I’d like to make one thing very clear, BBC News is not institutionally biased,” Turness told reporters outside the BBC headquarters in London on Monday.
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“Our journalists aren’t corrupt. Our journalists are hardworking people who strive for impartiality, and I will stand by their journalism,” she added. “There is no institutional bias. Mistakes are made.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and the BBC for comment.
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