Trump Wins Major Ruling In Defamation Lawsuit Against BBC

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Trump Wins Major Ruling In Defamation Lawsuit Against BBC Authored by Jonathan Turley via Jonathan Turley,President Donald Trump's lawsuit against the BBC for defamation just…

President Donald Trump's lawsuit against the BBC for defamation just received a green light from a federal judge to go forward to trial. Judge Jeffrey Kuntz (S.D. Fla.) ruled in Trump v. BBC that the media outlet must stand trial for splicing together lines from Trump's January 6th speech to make it seem more violence-inducing before the riot at the Capitol. Judge Kuntz, however, rejected a claim under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. The biggest challenge for the court may be whether it can seat jurors who can overcome the case's underlying political elements.

Judge Kuntz, a Trump nominee, notes prior cases brought by the President that federal courts dismissed as not actionable. See Trump v. CNN (S.D. Fla. 2023), aff'd (11th Cir. 2025); Trump v. Dow Jones & Co., Inc. (S.D. Fla. 2026). As a torts professor, I was critical of some past filings by the President that pursued overbroad or flawed defamation claims.

BBC was different. It involved an act that is anathema to ethical journalists - cutting lines from different parts of a tape and then joining them as if they were stated together. Even BBC's own journalists admitted that what they did in the segment violated the most basic ethical standards taught in journalism schools.

The case stems from a documentary denounced as a BBC "hit piece" that aired just a week before the 2024 election, on October 28, 2024. Titled "Trump: A Second Chance," BBC showed a twelve-second segment from Trump's January 6, 2021 speech:

Those two lines actually were stated fifty-five minutes apart. Moreover, Trump also expressly told his followers to go to the Hill "peacefully" to let their voices be heard - words routinely edited out by many in the media and, most notoriously, by the Democratic J6 Committee,

However, the BBC effectively created a new statement by splicing together two lines. What was actually said was very different from what aired. First, Trump declared:

Notably, less than a minute later, Trump told his…

Jud…

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