BBC has had ‘no further contact’ from Donald Trump’s lawyers ‘at this point’

The BBC has had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point”, a spokesperson for the corporation said.

They added that the BBC’s “position remains the same” after Donald Trump said he will still sue the corporation following its apology over the editing of a 2021 speech broadcast by Panorama.

Mr Trump told reporters on board Air Force One he would sue the corporation for “anywhere between one billion dollars (£759.8 million) and five billion dollars (£3.79 billion), probably sometime next week”.

His comments followed an apology from the BBC on Thursday in which it said the edit of Mr Trump’s speech on January 6 2021 had given the “mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”.

The broadcaster apologised and said the splicing of the speech was an “error of judgment” but refused to pay financial compensation after the US president’s lawyers threatened to sue for one billion dollars in damages unless a retraction and apology were published.

On Saturday, a BBC spokesperson said: “We have had no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point. Our position remains the same.”

In an interview with GB News broadcast on Saturday, Mr Trump said he had an “obligation ” to sue the BBC, adding: “This was so egregious. If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people.”

Mr Trump also said the lawsuit would be likely to be filed “someplace in the US”.

On Thursday, BBC chairman Samir Shah sent a personal letter to the White House to apologise for the editing, and lawyers for the corporation wrote to the president’s legal team, a BBC spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added: “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.”

Mr Trump has a history of suing news organisations in the US, and settled a legal dispute with CBS News over an interview it broadcast on its 60 Minutes programme with former vice president Kamala Harris.

The Panorama scandal saw the resignations of two of the BBC’s most senior executives: director-general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness.

The programme, broadcast a week before the 2024 US election results, spliced two clips together so that Mr Trump appeared to tell the crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

The BBC has said it will not air the Panorama episode Trump: A Second Chance? again, and published a retraction on the show’s webpage on Thursday.

BBC News reported on Saturday that the broadcaster had set out five main arguments in its letter to Mr Trump’s legal team as to why it did not believe there was a basis for a defamation claim.

It said the BBC did not distribute the Panorama episode on its US channels and it was restricted on iPlayer to viewers in the UK; that the documentary did not cause Mr Trump harm as he was later re-elected; that the edit was not done with malice and was designed to shorten a long speech; that it was not meant to be considered in isolation but as part of an hour-long programme; and that an opinion on a matter of public concern and political speech is heavily protected under defamation laws in the US.

Addressing staff earlier in the week, Mr Davie, who will remain in the position until a successor is appointed, said: “We have to be very clear and stand up for our journalism.

“We are a unique and precious organisation, and I see the free press under pressure, I see the weaponisation.

“I think we’ve got to fight for our journalism. I’m really proud of our work, and the amazing work locally, globally, that we’re doing is utterly precious.”

The process to appoint his successor is under way, the BBC said.

Additionally, Mr Shah has started a review into the EGSC (Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee), with a “focus on improving its processes and the way that it works”, the corporation added.