12th November 2025
Yesterday this blog offered a close reading of the letter Trump’s lawyers had sent to the British Broadcasting Corporation. As a follow-up, this is a letter that the BBC could send in reply.
*
Dear Sirs
We refer to your letter.
As a preliminary point, it is accepted that the edited video in the Panorama programme was an error which should not have been made by the production company or approved by us for broadcast. We apologise for that error both to our viewers generally and to your client in particular. It was a failure of commissioning, journalistic and editorial standards. The programme has been removed from our iPlayer online platform and it will not be broadcast again with the error.
But failures of commissioning, journalistic and editorial standards do not by themselves give rise to a legal claim. We have looked carefully at your client’s claim as set out in your letter, and for the reasons below that claim is denied.
Your letter provides no evidence that your client was aware of the programme when it was broadcast or for at least a year afterwards. If your client maintains this claim please disclose evidence for our pre-action inspection that your client was aware of the broadcast before the press coverage of the last two weeks. Please also inform us when you were first instructed in respect of this complaint. In your letter you are anxious that we retain relevant documents, and so we presume you also have relevant documents about your client’s awareness of the programme. If you do have such evidence, please confirm that is the case.
The programme was not broadcast in the United States generally or Florida in particular. Our programmes on iPlayer are not available in the United States. Please provide any evidence for our pre-action inspection that the programme was watched by any person in your jurisdiction. Again, given the document retention requirements you set out in your letter, you presumably have retained such documents. And again, if you do have such evidence, please confirm this is the case.
You state in your letter three times that your client has suffered “overwhelming financial and reputational harm”. This is presumably on the Beetlejuice principle that if you say something three times it somehow appears. But your letter contains no evidence of either financial or reputational harm, let alone both. And your letter certainly fails to provide evidence of any harm being “overwhelming”. Given that your client was actually re-elected to the presidency within days of this programme being shown (in the United Kingdom but not the United States) there is no obvious harm that was suffered by your client.
If you do have any evidence of the alleged harm, either “overwhelming” or at all , and if your client continues with this claim, please provide that for our pre-action inspection. Please also provide evidence that the programme was “widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums, which have reached tens of millions of people worldwide”.
Talking of “tens of millions” you provided no basis whatsoever for the figure of one billion dollars. Please confirm whether this is a billion in an English or an American sense. As the figure seems arbitrary, please provide your workings out of the quantum. As it stands, the figure has no more meaning than a demand for one trillion dollars, or for one dollar.
Both your client and the BBC believe in the value of freedom of expression. Your client benefits from the constitutional and other legal protections for free speech in the United States. The BBC also should have the benefit of the same protections. We made a mistake for which we have apologised and undertaken not to broadcast again. But this should not be a matter for the courts.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Yours faithfully
[ ]
***
Comments Policy
This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.
Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.
More on the comments policy is here.
As a continental lawyer it is fascinating to read this clash between English law and US showbusiness…
A beautifully crafted letter, but I would follow the Arkell v Pressdram (1971) precedent.
Then you would make a mistake.
Arkell v Pressdram would not work here, as the BBC did muck up. That approach can only really be used if you can stand by your journalism, as Private Eye was able to do then.
Loved this! Thank you. Also, are you going to trademark ”The Beetlejuice Principle” because I am thinking of adopting it for various irritations I face.
Personally, a more appropriate turn of phrase in Britain should be “Bellman’s Rule of Three” which considerably predates Beetlejuice and is more closely to the point.
“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.”
Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark
should it not be “the Bellman’s Rule of Three”?
Love it! I spat tea over the desk at ‘the Beetlejuice principle’.
My only note would be one of missed opportunity, namely:
“Given that your client was actually re-elected to the presidency (of the United States but not the United Kingdom) within days of this programme being shown (in the United Kingdom but not the United States) there is no obvious harm that was suffered by your client.”
Alas, I did not think of that!
The geek response to the Beetlejuice reference…
coffee | mouth | nose | keyboard
Please offer your services to the BBC. This is the very best letter they could send. If they show one hint of weakness or fear he’ll go after them again. This would see him off.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter.” Nice!
The sign off made me chuckle.
Sorry for a bit of geekery here. One of the things that I would want to ask the counsel for President Trump in this instance would be to substantiate that this program was actually seen by a Florida resident, in Florida, during the period of time that the program was hosted. It’s possible that the program was carried by a partner broadcaster, but the most likely scenario would be a Floridian, in the State, claiming that they watched the program, including the edited highlights, and willing to testify that the presentation made a material change in their perception of the President.
But here’s the thing.
The BBC would at the time *absolutely* have been capturing detailed viewing data for every iPlayer program. They do this because it’s an invaluable source of information about what programs are of interest to their audiences.
Armed with information regarding the approximate date and time the program was viewed and the location of the viewing, the BBC should be able to subpoena records from relevant US parties [internet providers] to determine whether or not the witness/claimant did indeed watch the program. That’s because the BBC will have records of everyone who watched even part of that program via iPlayer and the date and time of that viewing.
It is almost a certainty that they will still have that data. I would be very surprised if they did not.
There are approxiately 23.4 million residents in Florida, so it isn’t completely inconceivable that many of them actually watched the program. But a challenge of this nature would put the onus on the President to show that the program was actually seen and therefore enables him to open the door to potential harm. But unless he can actually show that someone witnessed this program, *there can be no harm*.
The “Beetlejuice Principle” should be credited to Charles Dodgson.
You might well reply that Dodgson’s principle involves proving that something is true rather than making something appear, and these are two quite different things. To conflate Dodgson’s principle and the Beetlejuice Principle is an error in speech act theory, although the two are clearly related.
To which I can only reply:
The “Beetlejuice Principle” should be credited to Charles Dodgson.
The “Beetlejuice Principle” should be credited to Charles Dodgson.
The “Beetlejuice Principle” should be credited to Charles Dodgson.
Ben, I know.
I am as much a fan of Carroll as you. But this was a satire/parody, and as such needed familiar reference points to work. It was not an exercise in showing off my erudition.
I guessed as much. In the context of the letter, the Beetlejuice Principle is perfect, and I wouldn’t change a word. But writing a comment on the letter offers an opportunity to engage in a self-indulgent display of erudition and, like Wilde, I find myself encountering the one thing I cannot resist.
Chef’s kiss
Love it. The more I read Trump’s letter, the grumpier I get about it all. Not going to mention the limitation point? Or save that one for a rainy day on the Strand?
See my post yesterday on that point, Mr Grumpy.
I would also like to ask a question on liability.
As DAG confirmed in his coverage, the program was edited by the production company. However, it isn’t clear to me whether there is a legal expectation that a broadcaster is liable for statements of a third party.
In the United States – and I note the claim here is made under Florida Law, the President’s claim is going to fall afoul of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The relevant portion of that section says the following:-
“The key provision, found in 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1), states that: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider”.”
Now we get to the fun part… If BBC iPlayer is only available to Floridians via the internet, then that is a computer service. The computer service in this case – iPlayer – is providing a transmission service, but the publisher of the program – the copyright older – is not the BBC but the production company.
At a fundamental level I object to the President – whose lies are tracked and catalogued by the US press, and who attacks anyone he dislikes with a level of viotriol never before seen for a head of state – claiming that he is somehow injured by an edit to a speech where the sole purpose of the speech at least seemed to be to incite a crowd to become a mob and attach the Capitol. Which is what then happened. So I think we’d also want to ask the question of whether this could possibly have had a material impact, given what actually happen on the day.
Let me clarify that just a bit. Suppose the President gave a speech that was recorded; then suppose that a production company edited the speech and broadcast it; then further suppose that persons watched the broadcast and went off and sacked the Capitol building.
There, the President could argue that there was evidence that the edit of his speech prompted people to behave in a way that impacted his electability.
But that isn’t what happened. The BBC iPlayer broadcast happened *years* after the events in question and footage of the day have become one of the most striking images of recent history – entirely unmistakeable once you have seen them.
So what, exactly, is the harm?
The argument just seems entirely baseless.
Basis, or lack of it, is irrelevant. It’s performative, bullying bluster intended to cow the target and excite the hangers-on.
Excellent letter. Particularly admiring that last sentence, which should appeal to the President – if he doesn’t sue for copyright infringement 😉
As President Trump has just referred to his ‘beautiful calming speech’ or words to that effect, it’s clear that reality has officially been changed by his reelection.
The BBC should (obviously) stand on the merits of the case but if, thanks to some vagaries of Florida law it were to lose, the rational response would be to withdraw totally from the US market (having made sure its US operations were sufficiently diminished to be unable to pay any award) and let that sink in to the land of the free.
A question: the article states, and I had understood, that IPlayer recordings are not available in the US. However, I understand that a BBC contributor has said they are, at least in Florida. Does anybody know which is true?
Has there been any indication in whose jurisdiction this case might go to court?
The threat is Florida – I deal with that in yesterday’s post.
Respectfully, this layman would submit that, wrong thought Panorama’s edited extracts may have been, President Trump’s speech nonetheless a) exhorted his hearers to mass at the Capitol, and b) taken as a whole was forceful to the point of violence.
I dealt with that point in yesterday’s post.
Brilliant letter, one suspects too clever for Mr Trump to appreciate.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, DAG! It would also be helpful to know in what circumstances a Florida court could have any civil jurisdiction at all over a foreign corporate entity unless that entity agreed.
I am not a Florida lawyer, so dunno!
“Our programmes on iPlayer are not available in the United States. ” – well, perhaps not legally but I’m a Brit (with a UK TV licence) who often watches iPlayer content when EX-UK via a VPN.
Made me smile though!
I know about VPN, but even that would require evidence.
Brilliant letter, peels the onion to reveal performative outrage with no substance, typical of the thin-skinned blowhard in question. Please despatch words to BBC board asap. And as per Jo’B on LBC today, please return to the airways…
From my POV, the BBC have suffered more reputational damage than President Trump.
Brilliant letter but I wonder whether it would stop him from putting the squeeze on BBC journalists in the US or blocking BBC transmissions there. And, given his arbitrary approach to conflating tarrifs with unrelated issues (see for example Russian oil sales to India), he might be tempted to tweak the UK’s trade agreement with the US unless he was able to extract some money.
It is so interesting to have an insight into a litigation strategy as implied in the letter. But OMG this letter is totally flexing ! ❤️ . . . though I do think it may invite the President to act less rationally …at the same time the law favours those with resources and he has plenty …
Om a separate note, I was wondering if the BBC is able to respond without consulting its insurance providers (and their counsel’s) – but I don’t really know.
Is there any merit in the suggestion, in a letter to today’s Guardian, that the BBC should counter sue Trump for defaming them by what he has said in relation to this (which sounds like a much more credible claim to my non-expert ear)?
I’m not sure if this is a valid question/observation, but I’ll make it nonetheless. DAG writes,
‘Please also provide evidence that the programme was “widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums, which have reached tens of millions of people worldwide”.’
It may be a moot point, but here it seems that counsel for the President are alleging that because the program was “widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums”, the injury to the president must thus be construed in the maximalist sense that all viewing through all mediums were somehow injurous.
However, the content in question is protected by copyright. Even if we were to assume that the “fair use” doctrine [of limited excerptation] were somehow applicable, it does not seem plausible that a content originator can somehow *also* be held liable when content they create [regardless of what it shows or the circumstances in which it is originally broadcast] is then illegally and without permission rebroadcast by other parties.
Consider the not unrealistic scenario in which a UK author of a book suffers the fate of having their book banned in US schools by a state school board. No consider that the parent of a student in that state gives a copy of the book to their child, who takes it to school and asks a teacher about an aspect of the book.
Is the teacher liable for the child having the book? Is the school? Is the state? If our answer to this question is in the negative, then all references and claims that the President may have to unauthorised reproduction of the content must necessarily fail.
That would introduce an interesting challenge for the President, because it would then strengthen a defense argument that, in order to show “calculable harm”, the President would have to provide objective and verifiable evidence relating to the number of Floridians who actually viewed the material and were therefore influenced by it. And: good luck with that.
Perhaps less confrontationally, one of the challenges I would put were this case to come to trial would be one of verifiable response. The President claims that the broadcast impugned his reputation – but if the broadcast were to be seen sufficiently widely as to cause such measurable harm, then it seems implicit that an approximately equal number of supporters of the President would also have seen it. Given the fervour with which the President’s “base” supports him, it does not seem unreasonable to argue that an ardent supporter, seeing the content, would immediately contact the President, his campaign, his spokesperson, or sympathetic media, in order to call attention to what they would believe to be objectionable broadcasting. So exactly how many Floridians complained? Did they contact the BBC? Do they have evidence of doing so? If they do, why is this not referenced in their letter?
Hmm…
Nice letter and logical.
But if this case is pursued it will be on the Willie Sutton principle, suing the Corporation because they have money.
Brilliant!
You should be payed one billion pounds sterling for this. But you won’t.
Touché
This is all well argued legally but I fear irrelevant. The goal is to intimidate independent media wherever they are. Judging by the various resignations, that has been achieved. Sorry times.
I fear the UK/ US billion distinction is old hat now; see this exchange from the House of Commons in 1974:
And, of course, if there were still a difference maintained, it would probably be unwise of the BBC’s lawyers to draw the Orange Man’s lawyers’ attention to it.
Maybe look at this from Trump’s angle(s), how can this case be exploited to max out the lawyers, cause maximum inconvenience to BBC and maximum advantage to Trump.
He is a devious operator and squeezing 1Bn out of HMG as a bailout for the BBC would be a delicious pleasure and boost his standing among his friends. Perhaps moving the court venues a few times and keeping the BBC lawyers on a runaround for a couple of years would be fun. Don’t dismiss Trump a a fool, nasty, dangerous but not a fool.
Like some of my friends I am confused as to how Trump could have suffered financially given his almost immediately coincidental election as President of the US of A and, as I understand it, upon that he pauses commercial business interests?
The BBC really should use your letter, but being as it is they probably won’t.
Update: Interesting development reported by the BBC at approx 18:30 on Thursday.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5e9erpnzlo
Apparently part of the clip in question was aired on an edition of Newsnight in 2022 and guest Mick Mulvaney – who was President Trump’s Chief of Staff for part of his first term – reportedly said that the video had “spliced together” Trump’s speech.
Utterly wonderful!