BBC says Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit should be dismissed

LONDON, March 16 (Reuters) - The BBC has asked a U.S. judge to throw out President Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit over its editing of a 2021 speech in a documentary, arguing his subsequent re-election showed it did not harm his reputation, court documents showed on Monday.

Trump has accused Britain's publicly-funded broadcaster of defaming him by splicing together parts of a January 6, 2021, speech to make it appear he directed supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol.

The documentary, first broadcast in 2024 shortly before a presidential election Trump won, included one section where he told supporters to march on the Capitol and another, from nearly an hour later, where he said "fight like hell".

The BBC has apologised to Trump for the edit, but argued in a motion to dismiss that the lawsuit should be thrown out, including because he was re-elected after it aired.

The broadcaster also said the documentary had not been made available to viewers in Florida where Trump has brought his lawsuit.

As Trump won the election after the documentary's release, he "cannot plausibly claim that the documentary harmed his reputation", the BBC's lawyers said in their court submissions.