WASHINGTON – On Monday, President Donald Trump launched a legal battle against the BBC, demanding $10 billion in damages. He accused the British media giant of defamation and engaging in deceptive and unfair business practices.

The complaint, spanning 33 pages, contends that the BBC broadcasted a portrayal of Trump that was “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious.” Trump claims this action was a deliberate attempt to meddle with and sway the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The lawsuit further alleges that the BBC manipulated footage from Trump’s January 6, 2021, speech by merging separate segments together, supposedly to distort the intended message of his statements.

Last month, the BBC issued an apology to Trump regarding the edited version of his January 6 speech. However, the network, which operates with public funding, dismissed the notion that it had defamed him, despite Trump’s threats of legal proceedings.

BBC chairman Samir Shah described the editing as an “error of judgment,” an incident that led to the resignation of the BBC’s chief executive and its head of news.

The speech took place before some of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.

The BBC had broadcast the hourlong documentary — titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” — days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.