The BBC on Thursday apologised to US President Donald Trump for a Panorama segment that combined parts of his speech from January 6, 2021, but refused to pay compensation.
The corporation said that it will not air the 2024 broadcast again, claiming that the edit had created “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”.
Trump’s attorneys have threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion (£759 million) in damages if it doesn’t retract, apologise, and pay him.
Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, and Deborah Turness, the head of news, resigned on Sunday because of the controversy.
The White House has been contacted by BBC News for comment.
The apology was made just hours after The Telegraph exposed a second film that was similarly doctored and aired on Newsnight in 2022.
The BBC said in its Corrections and Clarifications section, which was published on Thursday that the Panorama programme had been reviewed following complaints over the editing of Trump’s speech.
“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,” it said.
According to a BBC spokesperson, the BBC’s lawyers responded to a letter received on Sunday by writing to Trump’s legal team.
“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,” they stated.
“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.”
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” Trump said in his speech as per the Panorama programme.
“And we fight. We fight like hell,” he said 50 minutes later.
Trump claimed in an interview with Fox News that his speech had been “butchered” and that the way it was shown had “defrauded” viewers.
The US president’s attorneys sent a letter to the BBC on Sunday. It calls for an apology, a “full and fair retraction” of the programme, and that the BBC “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.”
The Corporation was given a deadline of Friday 22:00 GMT (17:00 EST) to reply.
The BBC outlines five key arguments about why it does not believe it has a case to answer in its letter to Trump’s legal team.
First, it claims that the BBC was not authorised to air the Panorama episode on its US channels and did not do so.
The documentary was only accessible to UK viewers when it was on BBC iPlayer.
Second, it claims that Trump was not harmed by the documentary because he was soon re-elected.
Thirdly, it claims that the editing was not done maliciously and that the clip was intended only to shorten a lengthy speech rather than to mislead.
Fourthly, it states that the video was never intended to be viewed in isolation. Instead, it was only 12 seconds in an hour-long broadcast that also featured several pro-Trump voices.
Lastly, political speech and opinions on issues of public concern are strongly protected by US defamation laws.
According to a BBC insider, there is significant internal support for the Corporation’s argument and the case it has made.