President Trump’s multibillion dollar lawsuit against the BBC over the editing of one of his speeches has been set for a year’s time.
In a blow to the corporation, the Florida judge has also rejected the BBC’s attempt to put off disclosing internal documents relating to the episode of Panorama that contained the spliced version of Trump’s 2021 address.
Trump made the speech in Washington before supporters stormed the US Capitol. The BBC has apologised for cutting together two parts of the speech without making the edit clear to viewers. However, it denies it defamed the president.
BBC lawyers in the US had argued that the process of disclosing documents relating to the legal action should wait until the judge decided whether the court even had any jurisdiction to rule in the case.
The lawyers said the programme, Trump: A Second Chance?, was never broadcast in Florida and would attempt to have the case dismissed at an early stage.
They said the process of revealing documents, known as discovery, would be an “unusual step” given the questions over whether or not the episode was actually broadcast in the state. It was rejected by the judge.
Court documents from the US district court southern district of Florida confirmed that judge Roy K Altman had set a trial date of 15 February 2027.
The BBC is in the process of trying to find a replacement for its outgoing director general, Tim Davie, whose resignation formed part of the fallout from the row.
The Panorama edit, taken from two sections of Trump’s speech almost an hour apart, suggested he told the crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”
The BBC is due to file a motion to have the case dismissed next month. A BBC spokesperson said: “As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”
The 33-page complaint filed by Trump in December accused the BBC of a “staggering breach of journalistic ethics”.
It states: “This instance of doctoring – in the form of distortion of meaning and splicing of entirely unrelated word sequences – is part of the BBC’s longstanding pattern of manipulating President Trump’s speeches and presenting content in a misleading manner in order to defame him, including fabricating calls for violence that he never made.”
It claimed the documentary was available to viewers in Florida via the BritBox broadcast service, which lawyers for the BBC dispute.
The lawsuit continues a pattern of the president pursuing media outlets in the courts.
Since his re-election last November, Trump has scored several high-profile legal wins against big media firms in the US. ABC, owned by Disney, agreed to pay $15m (£11m) as part of a settlement over a defamation lawsuit he brought following comments made by the anchor George Stephanopoulos.
In July last year, Trump also reached a $16m settlement with Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, over what the US president claimed was false editing of a pre-election interview with the Democratic candidate for president, Kamala Harris.
While many legal experts viewed the case as easily winnable for Paramount, company leadership viewed it as a distraction – particularly as it sought federal government approval for a merger with Skydance Media.
