{"id":21759,"date":"2026-07-27T04:01:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T04:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=21759"},"modified":"2026-07-27T04:01:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T04:01:52","slug":"judge-says-relitigation-of-jan-6-not-at-issue-in-trump-bbc-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=21759","title":{"rendered":"Judge says relitigation of Jan 6 not at issue in Trump-BBC lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"


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BBC called out for ‘bias’ amid Trump legal challenge<\/h4>\n

The Sun editor-at-large Harry Cole joins ‘Fox & Friends’ to discuss UK migration overhauls under Keir Starmer and a BBC internal memo vowing to fight President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over their edited Jan. 6 video.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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NEW<\/span>You can now listen to Fox News articles!\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A federal judge last week drew a sharp line around President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC, ruling the broadcaster can probe how Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech was understood by the public \u2014 but cannot relitigate the riot at the U.S. Capitol itself.<\/p>\n

The ruling was handed down by U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqu\u00e9 Lett as the BBC faces continued scrutiny over a 2024 “Panorama” documentary about Trump\u2019s speech on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n

The documentary \u2014 titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” \u2014 was subsequently labeled as misleading by critics who noticed it omitted Trump\u2019s call for supporters to protest peacefully at the Capitol. The documentary stitched together remarks Trump made nearly an hour apart during his address that made it appear as if he had told his supporters to “fight like hell” down at the Capitol \u2014 the comments were actually out of context \u2014 shortly before the Capitol riot that day. <\/p>\n

“All of the impressions that were received by President Trump\u2019s statements on Jan 6 are at issue,” Lett said at the hearing, according to reports. “The full relitigation of Jan. 6 is not at issue.”<\/p>\n

TRUMP, BBC AGREE ON MEDIATOR FOR $10 BILLION LAWSUIT OVER JAN 6 DOCUMENTARY EDITING CONTROVERSY<\/strong><\/p>\n

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President Donald Trump.<\/span> (AP Photo\/Paul Sancya, File)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A source close to Trump’s legal team, which has accused the BBC of a “fishing expedition,” said the judge’s decision on that specific item was significant.<\/p>\n

“It’s important because this case is about a very limited splicing that consisted of nine seconds of a more than 50-minute speech and, rather than focus just on that, the BBC is trying to distract the judge, ultimately the jurors in this case, from that very limited scenario, and what they’re trying to do is expand the scope of this case to litigate January 6 simply to take the attention off of them for their own wrongful conduct,” the source told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n

“And so when the judge made that determination that that’s not going to happen, that eliminated the primary defense that the BBC was seeking to employ in this case, which was to create a distraction, to make this case into something that was just going to be unmanageable and unnecessary, which is, ‘We’re going to try the whole January 6 case here.’ The BBC has no standing, legal standing or any basis to bring such a defense.”<\/p>\n

Trump filed a lawsuit against the BBC in December in a personal capacity for both defamation and for a violation of Florida\u2019s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act for $5 billion apiece, seeking $10 billion total.<\/p>\n

At Tuesday\u2019s hearing, Trump\u2019s lawyers argued in a Miami courtroom that the president\u2019s intent and third-party interpretations of his remarks were irrelevant because the lawsuit only points to the exact words Trump used in his speech, according to Politico.<\/p>\n

JUDGE DISMISSES TRUMP’S $10B DEFAMATION LAWSUIT AGAINST THE WALL STREET JOURNAL OVER EPSTEIN STORY<\/strong><\/p>\n

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President Donald Trump and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) previously agreed on a mediator to help resolve the president\u2019s $10 billion lawsuit.<\/span> (Patrick van Katwijk\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“What matters is what he said relative to what was broadcast that he said. That\u2019s it. There\u2019s nothing more that needs to be examined,” Trump attorney Alejandro Brito reportedly said.<\/p>\n

Brito cited the written apology penned by BBC Chairman Samir Shah to Trump last year, in which Shah admitted that the documentary “gave the mistaken impression that (Trump) had made a direct call for violent action.”<\/p>\n

“He acknowledged the falsity,” Brito told the judge, according to the outlet.<\/p>\n

However, Sasha Dudding, an attorney for the BBC, noted that Shah had deemed the misleading edit as unintentional, and argued that the intent behind Trump\u2019s speech is fair game for the outlet\u2019s attorneys to investigate, Politico reported.<\/p>\n

Dudding pointed to Trump\u2019s own denial within the lawsuit, in which he asserted that he was not responsible for his supporters carrying out the riot at the Capitol, according to Politico.<\/p>\n

FROM THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP TO KAMALA HARRIS EDITS: THE LONG HISTORY OF ’60 MINUTES’ CONTROVERSIES<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A view of BBC Broadcasting House in London, United Kingdom, on Nov. 12, 2025.<\/span> (Peter Dazeley\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ultimately, Lett ruled that while the BBC can delve into the interpretation of Trump\u2019s speech by his supporters, the trial will not re-examine the cause or legality of the actual riot.<\/p>\n

The judge also determined that the BBC overstepped in some instances regarding requests to examine the findings of several investigations into Jan. 6, the outlet reported.<\/p>\n

The issue surrounding the documentary\u2019s editing integrity comes after a report from The Telegraph revealed excerpts from a whistleblower dossier compiled by Michael Prescott, a communications advisor hired by the BBC to review its editorial standards.<\/p>\n

The whistleblower alleged the network\u2019s documentary spliced two separate comments made by Trump nearly an hour apart on the day of the Capitol riot, which erroneously implied that the president was calling for violence from his supporters.<\/p>\n

LEGAL ANALYST PREDICTS TRUMP COULD WIN ‘CONSIDERABLE’ DAMAGES FROM BBC DOCUMENTARY LAWSUIT<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

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President Donald Trump speaks during the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner in the Presidential Ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C.<\/span> (Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. And I’ll be there with you. And we fight \u2014 we fight like hell,” the documentary showed Trump saying, without noting that the statement had been edited.<\/p>\n

In reality, Trump said, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. And we’re going to 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.”<\/p>\n

Trump called on his supporters 54 minutes later to “fight like hell” for election integrity.<\/p>\n

The controversy ultimately led to the resignations\u00a0of BBC CEO Deborah Turness and Director-General Tim Davie last year.<\/p>\n

What drove the majority of media attention and headlines this week was Lett ordering Trump to hand over financial information as part of the suit, according to Politico.<\/p>\n

“All of President Trump\u2019s brand, properties and businesses are impugned or said to have been impugned. Reputational, economic damages, all of that is now at issue in this case,” Lett reportedly said.<\/p>\n

EX-BBC DIRECTOR GENERAL TELLS NETWORK THEY SHOULDN’T AGREE TO PAY TRUMP ANY MONEY<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Lett reportedly based the ruling on Trump\u2019s argument that his businesses were negatively impacted by the network\u2019s coverage, thus presenting the opportunity for the BBC to delve into the financial records of over 400 companies controlled by a Trump family trust.<\/p>\n

This was widely covered as a significant blow to Trump. Headlines included MS NOW’s “BBC to access Trump\u2019s financial records as his dubious lawsuit starts to backfire,” The Daily Mail’s “Trump suffers humiliating legal blow in $10 billion BBC lawsuit,” and The Guardian’s “Trump must divulge financial details about businesses in $10bn BBC lawsuit.”<\/p>\n

However, a source close to the Trump legal team says the judge’s order is “far more limiting” than what’s been reported, saying she still must enter an order specifying what she’d require as part of the discovery process.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF MEDIA AND CULTURE<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Trump supporters mob the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.<\/span> (Eric Lee\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“The judge made it abundantly clear that although she’s going to require certain financial information to be disclosed relating to the trust and the companies that are operated by the trust, that’s not as broad as the BBC would like,” the source told Fox News Digital. “At the end of the day, the financial information that they’re seeking with regard to the Trump Organization has nothing to do with this case \u2026 We simply are viewing this in a way that’s going to be far more narrowed and tailored than what’s being reported.”<\/p>\n

Trump’s team is now arguing he’s only seeking amends for damage to his reputation rather than to businesses under his umbrella.<\/p>\n

“This case is not going to be about any damage caused to the Trump Organization. It’s always been about the damage caused to President Trump,” the source close to Trump’s team said.<\/p>\n

While Lett reportedly said she does not possess the power to drop the business damages allegations from the suit, Trump can appeal the decision to one of his own appointees, U.S. District Court Judge Roy Altman.<\/p>\n

The BBC, meanwhile, has argued the case should be dismissed on the grounds that a Florida court has no jurisdiction over what the British broadcaster aired across the ocean.<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital reached out to the BBC for comment but did not immediately receive a response. <\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fox News Digital\u2019s Brian Flood contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n

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David Rutz is the deputy managing editor for Fox News Digital, leading a team that covers media and culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC called out for ‘bias’ amid Trump legal challenge The Sun editor-at-large Harry Cole joins…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}