Trump scores legal win against BBC as judge clears path for revised $10B lawsuit
WASHINGTON, DC: A federal court on Monday, August 10, granted a significant legal edge to President Donald Trump in a $10 billion lawsuit against British broadcaster BBC by permitting the president to revise the lawsuit.
The development came days after the court provided an eleventh-hour victory to President Trump, letting him keep his business records hidden from the BBC.
Judge allows Trump to amend his $10 billion lawsuit
President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against the BBC in December last year in his personal capacity, alleging that the network had edited his January 6, 2021, speech in its documentary.
The documentary implied that the president had encouraged the crowd to engage in the January 6 Capitol Hill vandalism.
Trump sued the network for both defamation and for a violation of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act for $5 billion apiece, seeking $10 billion total.
Trump was seeking permission to modify his original lawsuit, but the BBC insisted he missed the deadline and was playing tactical legal games to avoid financial disclosures.
Judge Roy K Altman granted the president leave to file a First Amended Complaint in Trump v British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), allowing the president’s legal team to amend his complaint against the global broadcaster.
Altman also dismissed the BBC's motion to dismiss as "moot."
"Today’s strong and thoughtful ruling is a major win for President Trump’s powerhouse lawsuit against the formerly respected and now disgraced BBC, which defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election," a spokesman for Trump’s legal team told Fox News Digital.
"President Trump is holding the leftist BBC, along with all of its comrades in the mainstream media, accountable for their peddling of Fake News through deception and maliciously defamatory conduct," the spokesman added.
Court lets Trump keep his business documents from BBC
BBC was scheduled to receive a number of documents from Trump’s business on August 6, sought as part of discovery in the case.
However, a federal court has temporarily paused the process as the president’s lawyers maintain their objections to handing over the materials.
Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency motion on August 5, demanding a stay on the document-production order, arguing that the release of details would cause irreparable harm as the outlet would then see the confidential information not meant to be shared.
