It is British households that fund the BBC. Now they may also foot the bill for the broadcaster’s editing of Donald Trump’s speech.
A federal judge in Florida has given Trump the green light to proceed with his defamation lawsuit seeking at least 10 billion dollars, reports NTB.
On Tuesday, Judge Jeffrey Kuntz rejected the BBC’s attempt to have the case dismissed. He believes that Trump has credibly demonstrated that the BBC damaged his reputation, and that the broadcaster knew or ought to have known that the clip was misleading. A spliced clip “which creates a statement Trump never made” is, according to the judge, precisely the kind of false claim that can form the basis for damages.
Trump called the decision a huge victory.
The BBC is funded by a licence fee that all households watching live television or BBC content are required to pay. Just as we have in Norway with NRK. When Trump sued the broadcaster last December, the British licence fee stood at £174.50 a year. Legal experts have estimated that the legal fees alone could run to between 50 and 100 million dollars.
The BBC will not say how much licence fee money has already been spent.
The White House has consistently maintained that the British are paying for more disinformation than just that clip.
“British taxpayers are being forced to foot the bill for a leftist propaganda machine” said press spokesperson Karoline Leavitt when the story broke last year.
Nor was it the Trump camp that exposed the clip. It was revealed in an internal memo from Michael Prescott, who had served as an external adviser to the BBC’s own editorial guidelines committee. He believed that the documentary ‘Trump: A Second Chance?’, which was broadcast a few days before the 2024 presidential election, came across as clearly anti-Trump, and that his critics far outnumbered his supporters. The Telegraph has since uncovered a similar clip from the same speech on Newsnight in 2022.
The judge also points out that Trump has painted a picture of a broadcaster that has repeatedly allowed false claims about him to be aired. And that the BBC’s own chairman has admitted that the clip was misleading.
The scandal has already cost the BBC both its chief executive, Tim Davie, and its director of news, Deborah Turness, who stepped down last November. The broadcaster has apologised for the clip but refuses to pay Trump any compensation.
The BBC has also argued that Trump cannot have suffered any harm as a result of the clip, as he won the election.
The decision does not mean that Trump has won the case, only that it will now be heard in court.
The trial is scheduled for 2027.
