This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A plan inserted by senators into the hotly contested short-term funding for the U.S. government, which would have allowed them to sue over the actions by Joe Biden's Department of Justice to confiscate their telephone records, has hit a dead end.
The DOJ, as part of its lawfare under Biden and against President Donald Trump, schemed with telephone companies to access records of the senators' telephone calling records.
Online commentators have suggested the records were obtained because special counsel Jack Smith, running some of the lawfare against Trump, was planning to use the records in further cases against Trump had he not been elected, and possibly include the senators in some of the cases.
Smith's cases disintegrated when Trump was elected.
But some senators had inserted into the recently adopted short-term funding plan a provision allowing them to sue, "for a whopping $500,000 each," over the snooping on their records.
The provision was buried in the legislation and actually allowed senators to sue "if law enforcement seizes or subpoenas their data without proper notification."
House Speaker Mike Johnson said the House would work immediately to repeal the plan.
Johnson said, of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, "He's a principled leader; I've enjoyed working with him. We've got a great working relationship and a good friendship. He's a trustworthy, honest broker. And that's why I was so surprised when we found out about that provision. It was put in our clean CR at the last moment. I'm—just to be honest, I'm very transparent with you all—I was very angry about it."
He said House members didn't appreciate the move.
He said Thune likely "regretted the way it was done, and we had an honest conversation about that. I didn't ask him for any commitment at that time because I had a lot on my plate today, and I've been busy ever since that conversation we had early this morning."
He said he's confident of a House repeal and expects the Senate to follow.
Some of the Senate Republicans already have said they do not intend to try to make their case under the provision.
CBS reported there were eight senators whose records were demanded: Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
And already at least three, Hagerty, Johnson and Blackburn, have said they have no plans to seek compensation.
"I am for accountability for Jack Smith and everyone complicit in this abuse of power. I do not want and I am not seeking damages for myself paid for with taxpayer dollars," Hagerty said.
Blackburn added, "This fight is not about the money; it is about holding the left accountable for the worst weaponization of government in our nation's history. If leftist politicians can go after President Trump and sitting members of Congress, they will not hesitate to go after American citizens."
She said she has no plans to seek payment.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Yet again, a high profile politician who joined the Democrats' years-long lawfare against President Donald Trump has been referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution.
This time it's California Democrat Eric Swalwall, who schemed with others in a failed impeach-and-remove campaign against Trump. He's facing alleged tax and mortgage fraud charges,
Already, there have been cases filed against multiple politicians who attacked Trump through that lawfare, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned for office on a promise to "get" Trump. She then accused him of mis-valuing his properties in a case in which the "victims" were happy with the results and wanted to do more business with Trump. An appeals court tossed the resulting unconstitutional penalty.
Also a defendant is fired FBI chief James Comey, whose charges stem from his alleged lies to Congress about leaking secret information to the media. He also prominently posted – just weeks ago – an "86-47" message online, claiming he found seashells in that configuration. The "86" designation was understood to mean end, or get rid of, and "47" is because Trump is the 47th president, after being 45 as well, of course.
The claims against Swalwell come from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, who brought allegations against James as well other Trump detractors, California Democrat Adam Schiff as well as Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
The allegations often stem from the individuals' own claims on federal paperwork, such as designating a home as a primary residence, when it's not, in order to get getter mortgage terms.
James had been indicted on one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution last month and pleaded not guilty. James' attorneys have argued the case is politically motivated, saying the administration is targeting her for her role in bringing civil fraud charges against President Trump in New York.
Pulte accused Cook of making misrepresentations on mortgage documents.
Swalwell immediately claimed to have been the "most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade."
He claimed he would not stop speaking.
Swalwell, in fact, has repeatedly been the aggressor against Trump, suing him in 2021 over the Capitol riot that year.
He claimed then that the president incited the violence, an allegation that has failed in other forums.
It was only a day earlier that WND had reported on a columnist's conclusion that Swalwell apparently has no residence in California, which he represents, possibly running afoul of legal requirements.
It is columnist Joel Gilbert who charged that Swalwell, who has been criticized in recent years for his "alleged ties to the Chinese spy 'Fang Fang,'" and his "removal from the House Intelligence Committee over national security concerns," might be in serious trouble.
It's because Swalwell, on legal documents, formally has declared that his Washington, D.C., property is his "principal residence." That affirmation comes on his public Deed of Trust for his home.
He made that statement as a condition for a loan on the property.
He apparently has no residence listed, either as owned or rented by him, in California, the report said.
"Under Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, members of Congress must be 'inhabitants' of the state they represent at the time of their election," Gilbert wrote. "In California, maintaining this inhabitancy means holding tangible, verifiable ties to the state, such as owning or renting a residence, registering to vote, paying state income taxes, and possessing a California driver's license."
In fact, the California Elections Code insists a domicile is "the place in which his or her habitation is fixed" and "the place where a person intends to return and remain."
The report explained, "If Swalwell's true domicile is in Washington, DC, the city where he has declared his principal residence, he may no longer meet the basic requirement of being a California 'inhabitant.' Public records searches have not revealed any home ownership or lease under Eric Swalwell's name in California."
The report noted, "Failure to maintain a legitimate residence in California could expose Swalwell to legal, ethical, and electoral repercussions. A false declaration of residency risks tax violations, misrepresentation to lenders, and challenges to his eligibility for re-election."
Sen. John Fetterman said it is "absolutely troubling" after new emails surfaced where the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein mentioned President Donald Trump by name, The Hill reported. The Pennsylvania Democrat has defended Trump on other issues but is now toeing the party line that the president was somehow involved in the disgraced financier's troubling behavior.
Fetterman has been surprisingly moderate, including at times defending Trump and other Republicans. However, during a CNN interview with Dana Bash on Wednesday, Fetterman took the familiar leftist position of associating Trump with Epstein and his perverse proclivities.
Bash asked Fetterman about emails that were supposedly sent from Epstein that mentioned Trump as the "dog that hasn't barked" as his alleged crimes were coming to light. Epstein also mentioned that Trump spent "hours" with one of the women who would later be identified as one of his victims. Fetterman took the bait and ran with his criticism of Trump.
Fetterman had strong words about the new revelations found in these unearthed emails as the senator appeared in his signature black hoodie. "I have followed it, of course," the 56-year-old lawmaker.
"Yeah, it’s absolutely troubling, you know, to see that. And I think we probably need more," Fetterman said.
Fetterman pointed out that the Epstein files need to be released through the FBI and Justice Department, and that Democrats and Republicans agree on this. They have gone so far as to initiate a discharge petition that would bring the issue to the floor of the House of Representatives.
"My understanding is that now that the House is back now, they have enough to activate that discharge petition — I think that’s the technical term — and then I think everything should come out. I think, you know, enough people agree that it should just come out and just see where this goes and follow … the evidence," Fetterman continued.
Unfortunately, Epstein killed himself while in prison in 2019, so he cannot confirm these suspicious claims one way or the other. Still, his alleged accomplice and romantic partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, is serving 20 years in prison for her part in the conspiracy that facilitated his abuse of minors. She is in the process of requesting that her sentence be commuted.
The White House attempted to dismiss the claims in the emails, stating that Democrats were "selectively" releasing the documents to cause the most damage and "create a fake narrative" against Trump. "These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, according to NBC News.
However, some of the emails released Wednesday from the House Oversight Committee are damning to Trump, former President Bill Clinton, and others. Trump's name is mentioned in the emails from Epstein, including his claim that he was not thrown out of Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, as the president so often said.
"Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever," Epstein purportedly wrote. Other claims included that Clinton "never" went to Epstein's private island despite Trump's insistence that he had been.
Ironically, the sleezy financier also claimed that Trump's business practices were "dirty" and his methods underhanded. "He has no money when he buys the house. His biz model is putting his name on a real estate development and gets a fee for using his name. The hotel biz is just that," Epstein wrote in a February 2019 email.
The entire Epstein affair, including his island, has many layers, with many prominent individuals likely entangled in it. If Trump was doing something wrong, he deserves to be punished; however, it is suspect that this is only coming to light now despite years of legal pursuit from the left.
Hold onto your hats, folks—a Utah judge just dropped a bombshell that could shake up the battle for House control in 2026.
In a stunning decision, Utah District Judge Dianna Gibson tossed out a congressional map drawn by the state’s Republican-led legislature and opted for an alternative that tilts a district toward Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, Fox News reported.
This saga kicked off when civic groups, including the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government, filed a lawsuit challenging the GOP’s map.
Following a 2018 voter-approved measure aimed at curbing gerrymandering, Judge Gibson ruled late Monday that the Republican-drawn map unfairly favored their party while sidelining Democratic voices.
Last month, the legislature submitted a revised map as ordered, but Gibson rejected it, instead greenlighting a plaintiff-submitted version that keeps most of Democratic-heavy Salt Lake County in one district.
Contrast that with the old map, which carved up Salt Lake County across all four districts, diluting its voting power—a move many saw as strategic for GOP dominance.
The court-approved map could be a game-changer, crafting a Democratic-leaning district in a state where Republicans currently hold all four congressional seats.
Democrats haven’t snagged a Utah congressional seat since the current map was implemented at the decade’s start, making this ruling a potential lifeline for their hopes in 2026.
Yet, Utah Republican Party chair Robert Axson isn’t taking this lying down, arguing, “Judge Gibson has once again exceeded the constitutional authority granted to Utah's judiciary.” (Robert Axson, Utah Republican Party chair)
Axson’s frustration is clear as he further charged, “This is not interpretation. It is the arrogance of a judge playing King from the bench.” (Robert Axson, Utah Republican Party chair)
Republicans contend that Gibson overstepped by imposing a map not sanctioned by the legislature, raising thorny questions about judicial versus legislative power in redistricting.
On the flip side, Democrats are cheering, with DNC Chair Ken Martin praising the ruling as a victory for fairness, though one wonders if “impartial” is just code for “we got what we wanted.”
This Utah dust-up is just one skirmish in a nationwide war over redistricting, with states like Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and even blue strongholds like Illinois and Maryland redrawing lines as the 2026 midterms loom.
With President Donald Trump and the GOP fighting to protect their slim House majority, and Democrats hungry to avoid another 2018-style loss, every district counts—making Utah’s new map a potential pebble in the Republican shoe.
While California’s recent vote to shift redistricting power back to its Democrat-led legislature might offset GOP gains in Texas, Utah’s ruling adds another wildcard to an already tense national chessboard.
Hold onto your hats, folks—newly released emails from the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, drop a bombshell about Donald Trump’s alleged involvement in curbing predatory behavior at Mar-a-Lago.
These emails, unveiled by House Democrats, claim Trump directly told Ghislaine Maxwell to halt recruiting young girls from the Mar-a-Lago spa for abuse, reigniting fierce debate over his past ties to Epstein, the New York Post reported.
Let’s rewind to the 1990s and early 2000s, when Trump and Epstein were known to be chummy in Palm Beach, Florida, before a real estate spat reportedly soured their friendship.
Fast forward to the mid-2000s, and Trump has long maintained he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago for inappropriate conduct, including poaching female employees from the club’s renowned spa.
Trump has been vocal about this, explaining to reporters on a past July 29 that Epstein “took people that worked for me,” which he deemed unacceptable, leading to a swift expulsion.
That’s a strong stance, but the progressive crowd seems eager to paint a different picture, conveniently ignoring Trump’s proactive steps while focusing on old associations.
Now, enter the bombshell correspondence: an email from Epstein to author Michael Wolff on January 31, 2019, claims, “[O]f course he knew about the girls as he asked [G]hislaine to stop.”
That line raises eyebrows, suggesting Trump was aware of the issue and intervened—hardly the narrative of complicity that some on the left are desperate to spin.
Another email from April 2, 2011, shows Epstein referencing Trump to Maxwell as “that dog that hasn’t barked,” hinting at an unnamed victim who spent time with Trump but never implicated him.
House Democrats dropped these emails like a hot potato on a recent Wednesday, but the White House, through Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, fired back, calling it a calculated smear job against Trump.
Leavitt argued the unnamed victim is Virginia Giuffre, who has publicly stated Trump wasn’t involved in any wrongdoing—a detail Democrats seem to gloss over in their rush to score political points.
House Oversight Committee Republicans echoed this, questioning why Democrats redacted Giuffre’s name when she’s already cleared Trump, smelling a rat in this selective storytelling.
Trump himself hasn’t minced words, branding this Epstein focus a “hoax” and a desperate Democratic ploy to tarnish his reputation, especially since official probes ruled Epstein’s 2019 jail cell death a suicide with no mysterious “client list” to uncover.
While the left pushes for drama, a bipartisan House petition, awaiting a key signature from Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva for a potential vote, demands the Justice Department release all Epstein files—a move that still needs Republican Senate approval and Trump’s signature to become law.
At the end of the day, this saga reeks of political theater, but the core fact remains: Trump took action to distance himself from Epstein’s creepy orbit, and no amount of email leaks can rewrite that history.
Hold onto your hats, folks—the U.S. Supreme Court just sidestepped a cultural lightning rod by refusing to hear a challenge from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky clerk who dug in her heels against issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
According to NCR Online, on November 10, the justices turned down Davis’s appeal, leaving intact the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that cemented same-sex marriage as a constitutional right across the nation.
Let’s rewind to 2015, when Davis, then a county clerk in Kentucky, made headlines by flat-out refusing to grant a marriage license to a same-sex couple, citing her personal beliefs.
That decision landed her in hot water, with a federal jury later ordering her to pay a hefty $100,000 in damages and $260,000 in attorneys’ fees to the couple she denied.
Davis’s appeal wasn’t just about the money—it was a bold push to get the Supreme Court to reconsider Obergefell, the landmark 5-4 decision that tossed out state laws restricting marriage to one man and one woman.
This was the first major attempt to unravel that ruling, but the justices, perhaps wary of reopening a settled cultural debate, said “no thanks” to taking up the case.
Many legal minds saw this coming, questioning whether Davis’s case had the chops to challenge such a significant precedent as Obergefell.
Robert George, a Princeton legal scholar, noted, “One question undoubtedly in the minds of some justices is whether, despite its being wrongly decided — and a usurpation by the judiciary of democratic legislative authority — the doctrine of 'stare decisis' counsels leaving the decision in place.”
Translation: Even if some justices think Obergefell was a judicial overreach, the principle of sticking to past rulings might keep them from touching it—especially in a case as messy as this one.
Mathew Staver, Davis’s attorney from Liberty Counsel, didn’t mince words, stating, “[Kim Davis] was jailed, hauled before a jury, and now faces crippling monetary damages based on nothing more than purported hurt feelings.”
While one can sympathize with Davis’s conviction, the law isn’t a feelings-based system, and Staver’s promise to keep fighting Obergefell feels like tilting at windmills when the Court won’t even hear the case.
Justice Clarence Thomas has hinted in past writings, like his concurrence in the Dobbs decision, that Obergefell and other due process precedents deserve a second look, a point Davis’s team leaned on heavily in their petition.
Yet, as Notre Dame’s Rick Garnett pointed out, this case never seemed like the right vehicle for such a monumental reversal, predicting the justices would pass on it due to its narrow, fact-specific nature.
On the flip side, voices like William Powell from Georgetown Law celebrated the outcome as a victory for same-sex couples, affirming their right to marry without fear of local officials playing gatekeeper.
While the Respect for Marriage Act of 2022 offers a federal safety net for existing same-sex and interracial unions, the broader cultural clash over marriage’s definition—echoed by groups like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops who opposed Obergefell—shows this debate is far from over, even if the Court stays on the sidelines for now.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
President Donald Trump has blasted Democrats for using the "Jeffrey Epstein Hoax" to try to distract Americans from their campaign of "viciously closing our Country," through their weeks-long refusal to approve continuing resolution funding for federal employees and programs.
Democrats repeatedly have tried to smear Trump with an association with the late, convicted sex offender.
Trump knew Epstein, but they had a falling out years ago, long before many of the antics that have been ascribed to Epstein developed.
At the same time, Democrats have more or less ignored Democrat names, like Bill Clinton, whose friendship with Epstein is well documented.
In fact, one of Epstein's victims, the late Virginia Guiffre, said in a sworn statement that she never saw Trump involved in anything inappropriate.
The Democrats' latest barrage is the release of emails purporting to discuss Trump and Epstein.
Trump's response was immediate.
"The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they'll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they've done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects. Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap. The Democrats cost our Country $1.5 Trillion Dollars with their recent antics of viciously closing our Country, while at the same time putting many at risk — and they should pay a fair price. There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!
"In other words, the Democrats are using the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax to try and deflect from their massive failures, in particular, their most recent one — THE SHUTDOWN!" he said.
The White House response also appeared immediately:
A column at the Federalist explained what is developing.
That would be "just another misleading Democrat info op."
"For the last several months, Democrats have been trying furiously to tie Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein. Aside from the fact that this media campaign is obviously not organic, it's utterly bizarre and disingenuous. Democrats simply don't care about ties to Epstein, and never have. They only care that these allegations can be used to possibly harm Trump," the analysis confirmed.
"For instance, the evidence tying Bill Clinton to Jeffrey Epstein is far stronger than that involving Donald Trump, and Clinton spoke in primetime at the Democratic National Convention last year and is hardly persona non grata. Similarly, LinkedIn's billionaire founder Reid Hoffman is a Democrat megadonor who was actively involved in funding the lawfare efforts against Trump and other deeply unethical efforts to help Democrats — including overt attempts to deploy Russian disinformation tactics in Senate races. Hoffman has been to Epstein's island and had close ties to Epstein, years after his terrible behavior was public knowledge. No one in the party felt the need to distance himself from Hoffman…"
The latest claims, in the New York Times, said, "Epstein alleged in emails that Trump knew of his conduct."
The publication got emails from House Democrats, and they originated with Epstein's 2008 plea deal on sex charges.
But the report noted, "In a 2016 deposition for a civil case, Ms. Giuffre was asked if she believed Mr. Trump had witnessed the sexual abuse of minors in Mr. Epstein's home. 'I don't think Donald Trump participated in anything,' she said. 'I never saw or witnessed Donald Trump participate in those acts…"
The report noted, "It's fairly well-established that Trump and Epstein had a big falling out years before Epstein started facing legal consequences and his predatory behavior became public. It's also been reported that Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for making moves on a teenage girl who was the daughter of a club member."
"Democrats are essentially asking you to give Epstein credibility he does not deserve. After he was publicly outed for his behavior, who knows what Epstein's motives might have been to smear Trump? He's clearly thinking about ways to protect himself in these emails, and not entirely reliable," the report explained.
"All of these obvious issues should make these emails a nonstory, especially given the sources and their demonstrable willingness to obscure exculpatory information for Trump."
The report further noted that the Biden administration "had full access to the Epstein files for the previous four years, and despite raiding Trump's home, launching abusive criminal investigations against anyone in his orbit, and coordinating lawfare efforts against him across multiple jurisdictions — they just didn't bother combing through all the Epstein files and releasing all the damning information Democrats suddenly assure us is being hidden now that Trump is president again?"
FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi have released new files to Congress showing how the Clinton Foundation, run by Bill and Hillary Clinton, collected foreign and domestic donations from those seeking influence over the U.S. government, but were never investigated fully for influence peddling schemes.
The files are being called the "Clinton Corruption Files," and Patel and Bondi plan to make them public in the next week or two once some information related to the whistleblowers is removed.
The evidence will show that there was an effort “to obstruct legitimate inquiries into the Foundation by blocking real investigation by line-level FBI agents and DOJ field prosecutors and keeping them from following the money,” an official who has seen the files said.
The Clinton Foundation was started after Bill left office in 2000, but some of the contributions were received while Hillary served as Secretary of State under Barack Obama.
Whistleblowers in 2015 said that some of the documents and evidence was kept from investigators in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the pair lived before Bill Clinton became president.
The investigation was soon shut down by order of Obama Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, but if the evidence bears out, it appears that former President Joe Biden wasn't the first powerful executive branch figure to run a pay-to-play scheme out of the White House.
In fact, there were three separate investigations into the Clintons that were all shut down by Yates.
According to Trump officials, the documents show that lower-level FBI agents and prosecutors prevented evidence from getting to decision makers in the multiple investigations of the Clinton Foundation.
It's not at all surprising that damning evidence about the Clintons was buried so deeply that it never came to light.
Anyone familiar with the speculation surrounding the Clinton Foundation for years will not be surprised by the revelations by Patel and Bondi.
Republicans long thought that the foundation was a corrupt vehicle for influence peddling, but they never had any hard evidence until now.
Unfortunately, the statute of limitations on influence peddling is five years, so unless there is evidence of a crime without a statute of limitations, the Clintons will once again get off scot-free.
Other than propping up their legacies, I don't even know why they care anymore whether people know what they did.
Maybe it would give away the Democrat playbook, although it seems like maybe it skipped a generation with Barack Obama.
Hold onto your hats, folks—the Supreme Court just slammed the door on a decade-long saga involving a Kentucky clerk who stood her ground against issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple, Breitbart reported.
The high court’s rejection of Kim Davis’s appeal marks the end of a contentious battle that began in 2015, when the former Rowan County clerk refused to grant a license to David Moore and David Ermold, citing her deeply held religious convictions, only to face lawsuits, jail time, and damages as a result.
Back in 2015, Davis made headlines for her refusal to issue the license, a decision rooted in her personal faith.
Her office in Rowan County turned away Moore and Ermold, prompting the couple to file a civil rights lawsuit against her.
A court ordered Davis to comply, but she dug in her heels, landing herself in jail for contempt of court.
It’s a classic clash of personal belief versus public duty, and while some cheer her conviction, others see a public servant overstepping her role.
Eventually, Moore and Ermold did secure their marriage license, but they weren’t done fighting, pushing for damages over the initial denial.
A jury agreed, hitting Davis with a $100,000 penalty for the emotional toll her refusal caused.
She appealed that ruling, lost, and took her case all the way to the Supreme Court, hoping for a lifeline that never came.
The case drew fresh attention recently, with some worrying it could threaten the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
As NBC News noted, “Her latest appeal in the case, brought a decade later, had attracted considerable attention amid fears that the court could overturn the 2015 same-sex marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, in the aftermath of the 2022 ruling that overturned the landmark abortion rights decision, Roe v. Wade.”
But let’s be real—while progressive agendas often cry wolf over settled law, the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear this appeal suggests Obergefell isn’t on the chopping block just yet.
Breitbart News framed Davis’s argument sharply: “Davis is not merely claiming a First Amendment right not to participate in same-sex marriages by issuing a marriage certificate.”
They added, “But as Breitbart News previously reported, Davis is claiming the right to use her governmental power to order all of her deputy clerks and other subordinates that they shall not issue marriage licenses, either.”
Here’s the rub—while her personal objection might deserve accommodation, using public office to enforce private beliefs on others feels like a bridge too far, even for those of us skeptical of woke overreach.
The head of the BBC has resigned over a deceptively edited clip of President Trump that the left-wing British broadcaster called an "error of judgment."
The doctored footage appeared in a BBC documentary that aired in October 2024, one week before the U.S. presidential election.
The BBC came under significant pressure after the leak of an internal memo that said the broadcaster "completely misled" viewers by splicing two different clips together. Trump is now threatening to file a $1 billion lawsuit for attributing "false, defamatory" statements to him in his famous speech prior to the Capitol protest on January 6th, 2021.
The clip stitches different parts of Trump's speech to make it appear that he urged his supporters to violently storm the Capitol, when in fact he urged them to "peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
In Trump's actual speech, he said, "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women."
But in the BBC's version, Trump was heard to say, "We're going to walk down to the Capitol... and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell."
The "fight like hell" quote has often been cited by Trump's opponents to falsely suggest he was calling for violence, but the full context makes it clear he was using a common figure of speech.
Michael Prescott, who had been hired to advise the BBC on standards, had flagged its Trump edit along with the broadcaster's coverage of the transgender issue and other topics in a leaked memo that was first reported by the Daily Telegraph.
As the scandal over the Trump edit snowballed, BBC head Tim Davie said he would step aside.
“Like all public organisations, the BBC is not perfect, and we must always be open, transparent and accountable. While not being the only reason, the current debate around BBC News has understandably contributed to my decision,” Davie said in the statement.
“Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as Director-General I have to take ultimate responsibility,” he added.
The CEO of BBC News, Deborah Turness, also resigned, a development Trump welcomed as he thanked the Daily Telegraph for "exposing these corrupt ‘journalists’."
BBC chair Samir Shah conceded to an "error of judgement," but Trump's lawyers accused the broadcaster of a "reckless disregard for the truth" in a letter threatening legal action unless the BBC issues a full apology and retraction.