WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Monday filed a lawsuit seeking at least $10 billion from the BBC over a documentary that edited his 2021 speech to supporters ahead of the US Capitol riot.&nbsp;The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, seeks &quot;damages in an amount not less than $5,000,000,000&quot; for each of two counts against the British broadcaster, for alleged defamation and violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.&nbsp;Trump, 79, had said earlier on Monday that the lawsuit was imminent, claiming the BBC had &quot;put words in my mouth,&quot; even positing that &quot;they used AI or something.&quot;&nbsp;The documentary at issue aired last year before the 2024 election, on the BBC&#39;s &quot;Panorama&quot; flagship current affairs program.&nbsp;The video spliced together two separate sections of Trump&#39;s speech on January 6, 2021, in a way that made it appear he explicitly urged supporters to attack the Capitol, where lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden&#39;s 2020 election win.&nbsp;&quot;The formerly respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election,&quot; a spokesperson for Trump&#39;s legal team said in a statement to AFP.&nbsp;&quot;The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda,&quot; the statement added.&nbsp;The British Broadcasting Corporation, whose audience extends well beyond the United Kingdom, faced a period of turmoil last month after a media report brought renewed attention to the edited clip.&nbsp;The scandal led to the resignation of the BBC director-general and the organisation&#39;s top news executive.&nbsp;Trump&#39;s lawsuit accuses the edited speech in the documentary of being &quot;fabricated and aired by the Defendants one week before the 2024 Presidential Election in a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election&#39;s outcome to President Trump&#39;s detriment.&quot;&nbsp;The BBC has denied Trump&#39;s claims of legal defamation, though BBC chairman Samir Shah has sent Trump a letter of apology.&nbsp;Shah also told a UK parliamentary committee last month that the broadcaster should have acted sooner to acknowledge its mistake after the error was disclosed in a memo, which was leaked to The Daily Telegraph newspaper.&nbsp;The BBC lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal actions Trump has taken against media companies in recent years, several of which have led to multi-million-dollar settlements.

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The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, seeks "damages in an amount not less than $5,000,000,000" for each of two counts against the British broadcaster, for alleged defamation and violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Trump sues BBC for $10 billion over documentary speech edit

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump&#39;s second term has seen the United States go all-in to boost Big Oil and block renewables -- yet a wave of state and local climate-damage lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry continues to advance. Now Republicans are moving to shut them down with a two-pronged strategy: pushing for a federal shield law and urging the Supreme Court to intervene. &quot;The issue for the oil companies is that they know they did it,&quot; Richard Wiles, president of the nonprofit Center for Climate Integrity, told AFP. &quot;Their only avenue out of this is to get some kind of a waiver of liability, make the cases go away, bar the courthouse doors, get a &#39;get out of jail free card.&#39;&quot; Dozens of cases modeled on successful actions against the tobacco industry in the 1990s are playing out in state courts nationwide -- including claims of injuries, failure to warn, and even racketeering, meaning acting like a criminal enterprise. Some have been dismissed, and none have yet gone to trial -- though crucially, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to intervene and block them. They have no shameIn June, 16 Republican state attorneys general urged the Trump administration to enact a shield law to end such cases. &quot;Under the banner of &#39;global climate change,&#39; they have effectively declared an all-out war on traditional American energy,&quot; their letter said, calling the lawsuits &quot;lawfare against the energy industry.&quot; It faulted the Supreme Court for not moving the cases to federal court, where companies believe they stand a better chance of winning, and cited a 2005 statute granting gunmakers a similar liability shield. &quot;They have no shame,&quot; said Pat Parenteau, an emeritus professor of environmental law at the University of Vermont, pointing to the epidemic of gun violence. &quot;I mean, come on, that&#39;s your argument?&quot; Congress has yet to act, but observers see worrying signs that it may be edging closer. A recent appropriations bill for the District of Columbia would bar the city from using funds to enforce consumer protection laws &quot;against oil and gas companies for environmental claims.&quot; And just last week, more than 100 House Republicans filed a friend-of-the-court brief in one Colorado case, urging the Supreme Court to &quot;put an end to these unconstitutional attempts to dictate national energy policy.&quot; AFP contacted Nebraska and West Virginia, which led the letter, as well as the Department of Justice, oil majors ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, and BP, and the American Petroleum Institute. None responded. Coordinated campaign&nbsp;The Trump administration, for its part, has escalated attacks on Democrat-led states passing &quot;polluter pays&quot; laws -- suing for example, New York and Vermont to block &quot;Superfunds&quot; that would require companies to pay billions toward climate and extreme weather resilience. The Justice Department has also asked the Supreme Court to weigh in through a friend-of-the-court brief in the Colorado case, where the state&#39;s top court allowed Boulder County to proceed with its lawsuit against Suncor Energy. A constellation of conservative legal scholars has joined what appears to be a coordinated push, including a <a data-fr-linked="true" href="//FoxNews.com">FoxNews.com</a> op-ed by John Yoo -- author of the Bush-era &quot;torture memos&quot; -- urging the Supreme Court to &quot;reaffirm federal authority over national energy.&quot; Results in the cases have so far been mixed: oil firms have won dismissals in some states, while others have allowed cases to advance. &quot;There hasn&#39;t been a big verdict yet. It&#39;s not clear there&#39;s going to be a big verdict. And you&#39;ve always got the Supreme Court lurking in the background,&quot; said Parenteau. That may explain why Congress has hesitated to act, he added -- though &quot;given the craziness that&#39;s going on in America right now, anything&#39;s possible.&quot; Environmental groups have urged Democrats to hold firm, and this summer, the 3,000-member National Association of Counties passed a resolution opposing &quot;any legislation that would limit or preempt counties&#39; access to courts or give companies immunity from lawsuits.&quot; Brigid Shea, commissioner for Texas&#39; Travis County, who helped lead the resolution, told AFP local governments were being &quot;walloped&quot; by extreme weather. &quot;We have to protect our access to the courts,&quot; she said. &quot;This is fundamental to our democratic process.&quot;

Republicans are moving to protect oil giants as climate lawsuits gain traction, pushing for federal immunity and Supreme Court backing. Critics say it’s an effort to dodge accountability as local governments pursue damages for climate-related destruction.

Articles tagged with "Lawsuit"

Trump sues BBC for $10 billion over documentary speech edit

US Republicans seek to shield oil giants as climate lawsuits advance

Trump sues BBC for $10 billion over documentary speech edit