Jonathan Turley Dumps Cold Water On Trump’s Chances In BBC Lawsuit — But Says There’s Hope Across The Pond

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley warned on Monday that President Donald Trump’s chances of winning a lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) could be slim, though he argued that success could be found if he sued the network in the United Kingdom.

Trump said on Friday that he will likely sue the British government-funded BBC for up to $5 billion after they admitted to splicing two separate clips of the president’s speech together in a 2024 documentary about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Turley said on Fox News’ “America Reports” that Trump is more likely to prove actual malice against BBC in the United Kingdom due to the U.S.’ protective standards for media organizations.

“Well, there’s no question the president is right that this was misleading. It’s also very difficult to see how anyone editing those tapes could have believed that this represented what the president actually said. He made two points that were deleted,” Turley said. “One is we’re going to go peacefully to Capitol Hill, and second, the purpose was to cheer on our allies.  Those would seem rather material points for any legitimate news organization … The problem is the legal standard. The irony is that the better place to file would be the United Kingdom.”

“It’s easier to bring a defamation case there, but this case is probably a bit too late to file over in London. So they’re likely to file here in the United States, but we have a much more protective standard for the media and for free speech under what’s called the actual malice standard in a case called New York Times v. Sullivan,” Turley continued. 

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The editors for the documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance?,” combined two separate parts of Trump’s speech together which made it appear as if he explicitly encouraged violence ahead of the Capitol riot. The edits were first reported by Telegraph, which released a leaked BBC memo revealing that the edits had been made.

The BBC’s edited version shows Trump saying, “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you and we fight, we fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”

But the original footage shows Trump saying, “We’re gonna walk to the Capitol and we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we’re probably not gonna be cheering so much for some of them.”

Turley said that the case against the BBC would be “challenging” since the network can argue that they admitted to wrongly editing the footage and that the action was not actual malice.

“BBC can argue that ‘look, we messed up. We admitted it, it was bad editing. But this was not actual malice. In fact, what the editor was trying to do was capture what the editor believed was the thrust of his comments and that was to stir up the crowd and frankly get them angry,” Turley continued. “The question is whether the court and the jury will accept that. The court may be very concerned about the constitutional implications here. The Supreme Court said in New York Times v. Sullivan that it wanted to give some breathing room for media organization because of the role they play under the First Amendment. The BBC is going to be relying greatly on that breathing room.”

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The U.S. Supreme Court established the actual malice standard in the 1964 case, New York Times vs. Sullivan, which requires a public official to prove that a news organization knowingly made a false statement about them or published untrue information with reckless disregard for the truth.

BBC Chair Samir Shah sent a letter to Trump on Thursday to apologize for the edits, saying that the edits gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.” The network has argued there is no basis for a defamation lawsuit.

The network has faced other accusations regarding bias in its coverage, including the Arabic-language version of BBC which has been forced to correct more than 100 stories a year about the war in Gaza. The network has also used terms such as “gender affirming care” and “gender identity” in its coverage about transgender issues. It also appeared to favor stories that shed a positive light on trans surgeries and medical procedures and often omitted critical perspectives.

“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,” a BBC spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.