Donald Trump has dropped part of his $10bn (£7.5bn) lawsuit against the BBC.
Mr Trump is demanding damages from the corporation, claiming a Panorama documentary defamed him because of an allegedly misleading edit of footage of one of his speeches.
The edit – first made public by The Telegraph – harmed “the value of his brand, properties, and businesses”, the US president alleges in court documents.
However, while Mr Trump is pressing on with the case as a whole, he has dismissed defamation claims against BBC Studios Distribution Limited and BBC Studios Productions Limited, the broadcaster’s commercial and production arms.
In November, The Telegraph revealed that Panorama had allegedly spliced separate parts of Mr Trump’s speech on Jan 6, 2021 in a way that wrongly suggested he had urged his supporters to “fight like hell” and storm the Capitol.
In fact, he said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
Court documents revealed that Mr Trump had agreed to drop his case against the BBC’s commercial and production arms
The BBC has issued a formal apology for the “mistaken impression” created by the documentary, broadcast a week before the US election, but has rejected Mr Trump’s demands for compensation.
Lawyers for the BBC argued in February that the case should be thrown out of the Southern District of Florida court because there was no evidence the Panorama special, called Trump: A Second Chance?, had been seen in the US.
On Thursday, court documents revealed Mr Trump had agreed to drop his case against the commercial and production arms of the BBC but would continue his lawsuit against the main public-service broadcaster.
The documents say: “All claims in this action asserted against the Studios Defendants are hereby dismissed with prejudice, with each party to bear its own costs and attorney’s fees. President Trump shall continue prosecuting his causes of action against Defendant British Broadcasting Corporation.”
Mr Trump and the White House have not commented.
Meanwhile, the US government is considering joining the continuing litigation. This raises the prospect that documents the BBC’s lawyers requested – including phone records and diary entries – could be withheld on the grounds of executive privilege or risks to national security.
Tim Davie, who was the BBC’s director-general, and Deborah Turness, the BBC’s head of news, stepped down in the fallout from the revelations about the Panorama programme.
Mr Davie later blamed “enemies” of the BBC for stoking the scandal engulfing the corporation, declaring the broadcaster “the very best of society”.
A trial date has been set for February 2027 in Florida.
