U.S. President Donald Trump reacts at the end of the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 24, 2026. REUTERS KEVIN LAMARQUE
President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against the BBC for claiming he incited violence during his Jan. 6th coup attempt — but that gambit may backfire on him.
“Trump filed the $10 billion lawsuit over ‘Trump: A Second Chance,’ a Panorama documentary, after the BBC admitted it ‘gave the mistaken impression that [he] had made a direct call for violent action’ on Jan. 6 by editing together ‘excerpts from different points’ of Trump's speech from the Ellipse out of sequence,” LawandCrime’s Matt Naham reported on Tuesday. Yet the BBC also issued 47 subpoenas to various third parties to discover whether the “Stop the Steal” rally and Jan. 6th attacks were in some manner violent in their conception or execution.
“A hearing on these issues was pushed back to July 21” by U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, a Trump appointee, according to Naham. “Ahead of that, Trump has lodged his complaints about the BBC's ‘impermissibly broad’ discovery aims and how it will add to the expense of his litigation against the broadcaster.” If Judge Altman accepts the BBC’s filings, the Trump administration could be forced to divulge information they consider sensitive about the events leading up to the 2020-2021 coup attempt.
"Defendants have engaged in excessive and impermissibly broad discovery efforts in such a manner that it distracts from the core issues in dispute in this case," the Trump administration replied in its filings, alleging that the BBC is "attempting to distort the allegations in the Complaint in order to unnecessarily expand the scope of discovery into a sweeping inquiry into January 6th, post-election challenges, government investigations, congressional productions, call logs, calendars, and unrelated litigation, thereby needlessly increasing the cost of litigation."
But the BBC argues that having launched his lawsuit Trump "cannot now prevent Defendants from seeking records that would shed light on his true knowledge, intent, and state of mind in delivering his speech at the Ellipse."
Indeed, far from describing the insurrection as violent, Trump told CNN journalist Kaitlan Collins earlier this month that the Jan. 6ers acted “with love.” He said this to justify creating a $1.8 billion slush fund (which he has since then said is dead) for payouts to individuals who participated in the attempt to overthrow a legitimate election.
“As far as I'm concerned, it was a beautiful thing,” Trump told Collins. “It was something I was — I didn't make it, but I was — I heard that — I thought that was the greatest thing, because people like you have abused our people so badly. The fake news, like CNN, like the New York Times, and like others, have abused our people.”
After telling the other journalists speaking to him to be quiet, Trump said that they “have abused our people so badly, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
Then, speaking to Collins, he said: “You. You used to be a conservative. She was a conservative from Alabama — can you believe it? But CNN in particular — CNN does such false reporting. But now they have new ownership, so maybe it'll straighten it out. I doubt it, but it's hard to straighten garbage out.”
The “new ownership” in questions are David and Larry Ellison, the billionaire Oracle founder and his son, who have reportedly promised to Trump that they will fire CNN journalists he dislikes much as they fired CBS News journalists who Trump opposes. Trump is also reported to have used his power as president to aid the Ellisons in purchasing CNN, despite viable competition from Netflix, in order to help them take over the network and presumably make it into a pro-Trump station.
