JUST IN: Top News Execs Resign In Disgrace After Getting Caught Red-Handed In Trump Scandal

President Donald Trump is taking a hammer to the BBC and threatening a $1 billion lawsuit, accusing the British broadcaster of trying to tip last year’s presidential election by slicing up his words.

His legal team told NBC News on Monday that Trump plans to sue over an edited segment of a BBC “Panorama” documentary that aired on the eve of the vote, which replayed a portion of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech — but cut out the line where he called for a peaceful protest. The speech itself happened during the Capitol chaos almost five years ago. The explosive edit job, Trump’s camp says, is brand new election meddling.

The threat lands just as the BBC’s leadership collapses. Director General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness both resigned Sunday amid the growing furor, handing Trump an opening to pound a 103-year-old institution already under fire from the right. In the churn, he has muscled his way into the center of the debate over the future of Britain’s most powerful media brand.

The scandal traces back to a memo and a botched edit. On the night before the election, “Panorama” stitched together sections of Trump’s Jan. 6 remarks, airing his call to “fight like hell” while excluding his instruction to demonstrate peacefully. Trump’s team says that was no mistake.

“The BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally and deceitfully editing its documentary in order to try and interfere in the Presidential Election,” a spokesman for the President’s outside legal team told NBC News. “President Trump will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in lies, deception, and fake news.”

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The fallout has been brutal. BBC Chairman Samir Shah on Monday condemned what he called an “error of judgement,” while a BBC spokesperson tried to play it cool, saying, “We will review the letter and respond directly in due course.” Davie, who announced his resignation on Nov. 9, conceded the mess in a statement: “Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility.”

Trump declared victory on Truth Social shortly after.

“The TOP people in the BBC, including TIM DAVIE, the BOSS, are all quitting/FIRED, because they were caught ‘doctoring’ my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th,” he posted. “These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election. On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!”

Turness, a former NBC News president, pushed back as she walked into New Broadcasting House, rejecting Trump’s attacks. She insisted that “of course our journalists aren’t corrupt. Our journalists are hardworking people who strive for impartiality.” She added, “The buck stops with me. But I’d like to make one thing very clear, BBC News is not institutionally biased.”

The saga first detonated in the pages of the Daily Telegraph, which exposed the internal memo on the edited footage and flagged deeper editorial concerns. From there, it roared through Britain’s press, jumped the Atlantic and landed squarely in Washington. Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Telegraph the BBC had been “purposefully dishonest” and branded the segment “100 per cent fake news.”

Now the BBC is facing a credibility crisis, a billion-dollar legal threat and a vindicated Trump framing the whole scheme as proof that actors in the media are exactly what he’s been calling them for years.

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