President Donald Trump has threatened the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) with a $5 billion lawsuit as he seeks to hold the organization responsible for “false, defamatory, disparaging and inflammatory statements.”

The BBC has come under intense scrutiny over a BBC “Panorama” documentary about Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech delivered before the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Critics claim the documentary was misleading because it omitted Trump’s call for supporters to protest peacefully.

The New York Times referred to the ordeal as “one of the worst crises in its 103-year history” of the BBC. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr is looking into the situation, and a pair of executives have stepped down from the BBC because of the scandal. 

TRUMP PLANNING LAWSUIT OF UP TO $5 BILLION AGAINST BBC OVER EDITED JAN 6 SPEECH DOCUMENTARY

President Trump has threatened a lawsuit against the BBC after the network apologized for altering footage of his January 6 speech in a documentary. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

What’s at the center of the dispute? 

The controversy began with a bombshell report from The Telegraph that featured excerpts from a whistleblower dossier compiled by Michael Prescott, a communications advisor hired by the BBC to review its editorial standards.

The whistleblower alleged that a BBC “Panorama” documentary released last year included a misleading edit of comments Trump made during his Jan. 6, 2021, rally protesting the 2020 presidential election results.

The documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance?,” omitted Trump urging his supporters to protest “peacefully” and instead spliced two separate comments made nearly an hour apart, creating the impression that he was calling for violence.

“We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol. And I’ll be there with you. And we fight — we fight like hell,” the documentary showed Trump saying.

In reality, Trump said, “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol. And we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” It wasn’t until 54 minutes later that Trump called on his supporters to “fight like hell” for election integrity.

BBC APOLOGIZES TO TRUMP AMID $1 BILLION LEGAL THREAT

BBC Director-General Tim Davie stepped down after criticism that a documentary omitted President Trump’s call for peaceful protest on January 6. (AP)

Fallout

The blunder led to the resignations of BBC News CEO Deborah Turness and BBC Director-General Tim Davie.

“I stepped down over the weekend because the buck stops with me. But I’d like to make one thing very clear, BBC News is not institutionally biased,” Turness told reporters outside the BBC headquarters.

Trump’s legal team issued the BBC a legal threat, demanding a full retraction and an apology as well as financial compensation. The broadcaster did issue an apology and said it had “no plans” to re-air the documentary but stopped short of fulfilling Trump’s demands. 

“Lawyers for the BBC have written to President Trump’s legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday,” a BBC spokesperson said earlier this month. “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.”

However, the broadcaster determined there was no basis for the defamation claim. 

“There is a lot being written, said and speculated upon about the possibility of legal action, including potential costs or settlements. In all this we are, of course, acutely aware of the privilege of our funding and the need to protect our licence fee payers, the British public. I want to be very clear with you — our position has not changed,” BBC Chair Samir Shah wrote in a memo to staffers that was obtained by Fox News Digital. 

“There is no basis for a defamation case and we are determined to fight this. Last week I took the opportunity to speak with the Executive team and am reassured of their resolute focus on ensuring the BBC continues to deliver on behalf of audiences and staff,” Shah continued. “I know they plan to spend as much time as possible with their teams over the coming weeks to reinforce the importance of that work and answer your question.”

What will Trump do?

Trump told reporters on Air Force One last Friday that he planned to take legal action. 

“We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion and $5 billion probably sometime next week,” Trump said. 

BBC CHAIR TELLS STAFFERS IT’S DETERMINED TO FIGHT TRUMP LAWSUIT OFF, NO BASIS FOR DEFAMATION CLAIM

President Trump told reporters on Air Force One last Friday that he planned to take legal action against BBC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

What’s next? 

Trump’s multibillion-dollar legal threat against the BBC aligns with a string of recent legal victories over media and tech companies. The former president secured large settlements from CBS, ABC and Meta over the past year.

In July, Paramount Global and CBS agreed to pay a $16 million upfront sum to settle the president’s lawsuit against the network over how “60 Minutes” edited and released an interview with then-Democratic rival Kamala Harris in 2024. Trump’s team, which initially sought $10 billion, claimed the network’s use of edited clips from a single response about Israel constituted “election interference.”

That win came on the heels of ABC’s apology and $16 million settlement with Trump last December after he sued for defamation over “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos’ claims on the air that the president had been held “liable for rape.” The jury in the E. Jean Carroll case to which he was referring had actually ruled he was liable for “sexual abuse.” 

In addition, Trump’s team has won nearly a combined $60 million in settlements from X, Meta and Alphabet-owned YouTube this year over his prior account suspensions by the respective tech giants in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett predicted Trump could be entitled to “considerable” damages from the BBC should he move forward with a lawsuit against the outlet.

“It’s hard to put a value on it at this early juncture, but it’s considerable,” Jarrett said Monday on “Fox & Friends.”

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“Two top executives resigned in disgrace when they removed the slander,” he continued. “[It’s] a clear case of what I think is defamation.”

Jarrett added, “They deleted his caution to act peacefully, and then they spliced together the video to give the opposite impression, almost certainly defamatory.”

Former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss expressed support for Trump’s lawsuit, saying, “They’ve lied, they’ve cheated, they’ve fiddled with footage.”

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Fox News Digital’s David Rutz and Taylor Penley contributed to this report.