Plausible

The BBC's expensive US law team got a fair old kicking from Judge Jeffrey T Kuntz, a Trump appointee, yesterday, in his first major intervention since taking over the case in August. 

Whilst dismissing "Count II" against the BBC (because it relies on fair trade legislation, and the BBC, in this matter, doesn't really 'do business' in Florida), the Judge found many of the arguments of Trump's lawyers 'plausible' in support of the main case. 

Here's some bits from the Judge's 40 pages: 

"The news entity created the story. BBC admitted as much by confirming it had edited a video
to make it appear as though President Trump made a statement he never made. And it acknowledged it chose to release the video in a documentary only a week before the 2024 Presidential Election, at the time it would have the most impact. To make sure it was seen in Florida, BBC even emailed U.S. and Florida based commenters with instructions to on how to view the documentary. Whether President Trump can prove these claims and establish he sustained damages at summary judgment or trial is left for another day."

"Trump paints a picture that demonstrates the BBC has a record of allowing the publication of false statements in their portrayal of Trump. BBC asks the Court to put on blinders and treat the Panorama team as if they were blocked off from the rest of the organization, ignorant of everything else going on at BBC. At this procedural stage, the Court simply cannot ignore the circumstantial evidence"

On the splicing together itself: "Editing is often required. However, given the time disparity between the two statements, the distance itself tends toward a plausible inference that BBC knew or should have known that the segment they were creating would not and could not have been a truthful statement. This was not trimming around the edges but creating something different than what was stated in the speech. BBC also had the entire speech available to them for nearly three years by the time of the Documentary."

"The BBC now appears to disagree with the apology issued by the Chairman. BBC’s Chairman admitted that the documentary gave a misleading and mistaken impression that Trump made a direct call for violent action. Strangely enough, BBC strays from that position in the Motion to Dismiss, referring to statements made by January 6 defendants as evidence that the speech may be interpreted as a call to violent action"

"BBC’s own words use “Documentary” in place of the twelve-second segment. BBC routinely conflates the two things. The Documentary can have protected expressions of opinion, but what is relevant to our inquiry is the spliced segment. That is what is the subject of the litigation, the Documentary being the vessel for the alleged false statement"