Donald Trump’s lawyers have threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn unless it provides a “full and fair” retraction of the Panorama documentary at the centre of the recent resignations by BBC DG Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness.
The letter, sent to BBC Chair, Samir Shah, was written by one of Trump’s Florida lawyers, Alejandro Brito, who demanded the retraction of the documentary and that the BBC should “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.”
The documentary, Trump: A Second Chance, was broadcast in 2024 and edited together sections of a long Trump speech to his supporters ahead of the riots at The Capitol building in 2021.
The storm arose after a memo, written by external BBC advisor, Michael Prescott, a former Sunday Times political editor, was leaked to right wing newspaper, The Telegraph.
The memo accused the BBC of misleading audiences with the edit of the Trump speech. The memo also accused the BBC of bias on stories across topics including racism, transgender issues, asylum seekers and Gaza.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said: “Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt ‘Journalists.’ These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election. On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!,”
Staff Reporter
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