President Donald Trump said Monday he plans to soon file a lawsuit against Britain’s BBC over what he described as a misleading and damaging report about his comments ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol unrest, according to remarks he made to reporters that were carried by Reuters.
Trump said the lawsuit could be filed as soon as Monday or Tuesday, underscoring what he characterized as an urgent effort to hold a major foreign broadcaster accountable for what he called false reporting, Reuters reported in a dispatch by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw.
The president did not identify the specific BBC report at issue but said it involved coverage of statements he made before Jan. 6, 2021, a period that Trump and his supporters argue has been consistently misrepresented by legacy media outlets.
Trump has repeatedly maintained that he urged supporters to act peacefully and lawfully, pointing to transcripts and video of his remarks that call for protest “peacefully and patriotically,” language he says is routinely ignored in coverage of the events.
According to Reuters, Trump told reporters the BBC’s reporting crossed from biased interpretation into factual falsehoods, suggesting the network exposed itself to legal liability by advancing claims he says are untrue.
The BBC had not responded publicly to Trump’s comments or confirmed whether it had received any formal legal notice as of Monday.
Trump has long accused major media organizations, both domestic and foreign, of promoting narratives hostile to his presidency while dismissing or minimizing information that supports his version of events.
Supporters of the president argue that coverage of Jan. 6 has become a political weapon, used to discredit Trump and his voters rather than to examine broader failures in security and decision-making inside the Capitol.
Reuters noted that Trump has either filed or threatened lawsuits against multiple media outlets in recent years, reflecting a broader strategy to challenge what he describes as an entrenched and unaccountable press culture.
Trump has argued that modern media operations, driven by speed and ideology, should not enjoy blanket legal protections when reporting is demonstrably inaccurate.
Legal analysts often point out that defamation claims by public figures face a high legal threshold in American courts, though Trump has said those standards were created in a different media era and deserve reconsideration.
Because the BBC is headquartered in the United Kingdom, the potential lawsuit could involve complex jurisdictional questions depending on where the case is filed and how the allegedly false statements were published and distributed.
Trump has frequently criticized foreign media outlets for amplifying narratives about American politics that he says align with progressive activism rather than factual reporting.
Reuters reported that Trump did not say whether the lawsuit would be filed in American or British courts and did not disclose whether legal filings had already been prepared.
The BBC, which is funded primarily through a mandatory license fee paid by U.K. households, has often defended its coverage as impartial, though critics argue its reporting reflects an institutional bias against conservative leaders.
Jan. 6 remains a deeply contested issue in American politics, with Democrats insisting Trump bears responsibility for the violence and Trump maintaining that responsibility lies with individuals who broke the law and with officials who failed to secure the building.
Trump has repeatedly pointed to evidence he says contradicts claims of incitement, including his explicit calls for calm and the rapid deletion of context from many media summaries of his speech.
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