The BBC issued an apology to President Donald Trump on Thursday over the network’s alleged deceptive editing of Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021, while contesting Trump’s basis for a defamation claim over the matter.
Trump threatened to file a $1 billion lawsuit against the network over the edit of his speech, with his lawyers giving BBC counsel a deadline of Friday at 5 p.m. to retract “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” about the president.
BBC counsel responded to the letter from Trump’s lawyer on Thursday, while Chairman Samir Shah also wrote a personal apology letter to Trump over the edit, a spokesperson for the network told the Washington Examiner.
“BBC Chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the Corporation are sorry for the edit of the President’s speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the programme,” the BBC spokesperson said.
The BBC stated that it “has no plans” to re-air the documentary “Trump: A Second Chance?” in which the edited speech was featured, but it also challenged Trump’s assertion that a lawsuit for damages is necessary.
“While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim,” the BBC spokesperson said.
The White House referred the Washington Examiner to Trump’s outside legal counsel, who did not respond to requests for comment.
TRUMP TO SUE BBC FOR $1 BILLION OVER JAN. 6 SPEECH EDIT
“We accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” the BBC wrote in a public apology statement.
Two BBC executives resigned this week after a leak showed that the company edited the video in a misleading way to make it appear as though Trump called for violence in his speech on Jan. 6 ahead of the Capitol riot. One of the outgoing executives, Tim Davie, told BBC staff to continue to “fight for our journalism” in a staff call.
