The BBC apologized to President Trump Thursday after he threatened the British broadcaster with a massive lawsuit for deceptively editing his Jan. 6, 2021 — but the network is refusing to pay out any money.
“Lawyers for the BBC have written to President Trump’s legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday,” a BBC spokesperson said, according to the outlet.
“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.
“The BBC has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary Trump: A Second Chance? on any BBC platforms.”
The documentary aired on the BBC’s current events program, “Panorama,” last October and “materially misled viewers” by splicing together clips of Trump’s White House Ellipse speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally to make it seem like he incited the riot at the US Capitol, The Telegraph reported last week, citing a whistleblower.
Trump’s attorney threatened the BBC with a $1 billion lawsuit Monday if it did not retract the deceptively edited documentary and “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.”
The demand letter noted the BBC had until Friday to respond.
The BBC argued that it shouldn’t have to compensate Trump.
“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 BBC spokesperson said.
The White House referred The Post to Trump’s outside legal counsel, attorney Alejandro Brito, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The BBC documentary showed footage of Trump appearing to tell rally-goers: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell you’re not gonna have a country any more.”
The clip was spliced together from three separate parts of the president’s speech – with a nearly hour-long gap edited out to make it seem like one fluent sentence.
The BBC edited out the president saying, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
The program also made it appear as if members of the Proud Boys, an extremist right-wing group, were inspired to march toward the Capitol after Trump’s speech.
The footage of the Proud Boys heading toward the Capitol, however, was taken before Trump’s address.
Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham earlier this week that he felt he had no choice but to sue.
“Well, I guess I have to,” Trump said on “The Ingraham Angle” Tuesday. “Why not? Because they defrauded the public, and they’ve admitted it.”
The scandal over the edits has resulted in the resignations of two top executives at the British broadcaster.
An apology to Trump was also added on the BBC website’s “corrections and clarifications” section.
“This programme was reviewed after criticism of how President Donald Trump’s 6th January 2021 speech was edited,” the correction reads. “During that sequence, we showed excerpts taken from different parts of the speech.
“However, we accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.
“The BBC would like to apologise to President Trump for that error of judgement.”
Credit:BBC
