The lawsuit against the BBC by President Trump is getting more interesting by the day. Naturally, the left are convinced it will all come to nothing, but their arguments are as ignorant and unconvincing as you’d expect. One that at least deserves a rebuttal, though, is the commonly aired claim that a defamation suit can only succeed if there is reputational damage. Donald Trump, they claim, hasn’t a reputation to damage.
Unfortunately for this argument, as UK barrister Daniel ShenSmith points out, it’s unlikely to wash in court. Central to the argument is that Trump was impeached. Well, says ShenSmith, so what? It’s a common misunderstanding that impeachment itself is a ‘conviction’. It’s not and never has been: what it actually is, is equivalent to a charge. In Trump’s case, he was acquitted of the charges – twice.
Hence, his reputation, as far as a court should be concerned, is fully intact. Especially given that he was overwhelmingly subsequently endorsed by voters. In any case, the president is suing under US law. US law, while a ‘mirror’ of UK law, doesn’t specify ‘serious harm’. Rather, it says that defamatory statements tend to cause hatred, distrust, ridicule, contempt, disgrace, injustice, etc, which, it seems undeniable, the BBC’s actions did.
What the left are ignoring, too, is that, astonishingly, the BBC have all-but admitted their guilt.
Recall that the basis of the president’s suit is that the BBC sought to completely mislead its viewers by splicing together separate parts of his speech to supporters on 6 January, 2021. In a letter from the BBC chair to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Samir Shah writes:
“The editing of President Trump’s speech on January 6th has attracted significant attention. The issue was the subject of discussion at the EGSC in January 25 and again in May 25. There was concern expressed by members of the committee as well as Mr Prescott of the way the program was edited. However, the EGSC also heard from the BBC news that the purpose of the edited clip was to convey the message of the speech made by President Trump so that the Panorama’s audience could better understand how it had been received by President Trump’s supporters and what was happening on the ground at the time.”
The chair’s comments essentially says two things which I think is damaging for the BBC. First of all, it makes a statement as to how they say President Trump’s supporters had received his speech. It makes a statement as to how they received it. Secondly, it makes the admission that the editing of the clip was to convey the message of how they say the supporters received his speech.
Bearing in mind that underpinning all of that would be the underlying message of the full sentence that they edited him to say, which was that they are going to go down to the capital and fight like hell. So it appears at face value to say that he was encouraging people to go down to the capital and essentially to riot, essentially. To give rise to violence.
Except that, as the full and unedited speech shows, the president didn’t say that at all. So, the BBC have not only admitted to editing the speech to push a ‘message’, but that the ‘message’ was indeed a false one.
But the letter gets even more jaw-dropping, in light of the defamation suit. Shah goes right on to concede the basis of the defamation suit:
The conclusion of the deliberation is that we accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression that of a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologize for that error of judgment.
As another eminent UK insurance lawyer, Colin Wynter KC, says, “If the BBC does have defamation insurance, Samir Shah, the chair, hopefully cleared the text of his letter with those insurers.”
After receiving notice of intent to sue, the BBC would be required to clear all statements with their defamation insurers. It would be very odd for the insurers to OK a letter that amounts to an admission of guilt, thereby potentially costing the insurers a lot of money. If, on the other hand, the BBC chair didn’t clear the letter with their insurers, the insurers have strong legal grounds to void their coverage.
