MBABANE:United States(US) President Donald Trump says he would likely sue the British Broadcasting Corporation(BBC) next week for as much as $5billion after the British broadcaster admitted it wrongly edited a video of a speech he gave, but insisted there was no legal basis for his claim, Aljazeera reported on Saturday.
“We will sue them for anywhere between a billion and five billion dollars, probably sometime next week. I think I have to do it. They have even admitted that they cheated,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One late on Friday.
Trump’s lawyers had sent the BBC a letter on Monday, accusing it of defaming the US President with the video of the speech before the 2021 US Capitol riot and giving it until Friday to apologise and pay compensation for what they described as “overwhelming reputational and financial harm”.
The controversy centres on the BBC’s edit of Trump’s remarks from January 6, 2021, the day his supporters stormed the US Capitol. The dispute has pushed the network into its most severe crisis in decades, triggering the resignations of two senior leaders and prompting a wave of political scrutiny.
United States President Donald Trump((Craig Hudson/Politico/Bloomberg/Getty Images).