President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation case against the BBC remains on track, for the moment.
A federal judge in Florida ruled on Tuesday that Trump’s defamation claim could go forward, though he did not rule on the merits. The publicly funded British broadcaster had sought to dismiss the case.
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Judge Jeffrey Kuntz did dismiss part of the case, tossing out a Trump claim that the BBC’s actions violated a Florida law concerning unfair business practices.
Trump filed his lawsuit against the BBC in December. The Republican president accused the BBC of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices related to a documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance?”
The BBC acknowledged that filmmakers spliced together quotes from different sections of the speech Trump delivered to his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, before the storming of the U.S. Capitol, to make it seem that Trump was directly urging violence.
The broadcaster apologized over the editing, and that was something the judge made note of in his ruling Wednesday. The head of the BBC and its top news executive both resigned. The BBC has denied Trump’s claims that it defamed him.
In October, a different judge in Florida ordered Trump to sit for a deposition in the case by Dec. 11. Lawyers for the BBC had complained that Trump was delaying his appearance in his own lawsuit. Charles Tobin, an attorney for the BBC, said that with two months left in the discovery period, “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff.” The deposition deadline could yet be extended.
Trump called Kuntz’s latest ruling a major victory.
“A Huge Victory against Fake News BBC, a terrible abuser of the truth, just handed down by highly respected District Court Judge, Jeffrey T. Kuntz, of the Southern District of Florida,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
“We will continue fighting against, and defeating, all of those who try to deceive the American People!” Trump wrote Tuesday evening.
