(Background) The BBC logo is seen at BBC Broadcasting House on January 17, 2022, in London, England. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images) / (C) President Donald Trump speaks at the “Stop The Steal” Rally on January 06, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
OAN Staff Katherine Mosack 3:55 PM – Monday, November 3, 2025
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is accused of splicing together clips for a documentary to make President Donald Trump seem like he incited a riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Michael Prescott, who worked as an independent external adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee (EGSC) for three years before leaving in June, wrote a 19-page dossier reporting the biased editing.
The Telegraph reported that Prescott wrote a cover letter to the company alongside the dossier, saying that he was moved to action due to his “despair at inaction by the BBC Executive when issues come to light.”
The offending clip was also included in an October 2024 Panorama special called “Trump: A Second Chance?” — released only a week before the 2024 presidential election.
The dossier states that the program made Trump “’say’ things [he] never actually said” by cutting together three different clips of footage, one portion having been pulled from an hour after the other two.
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Trump said in the original speech, “We’re going to walk down — and I’ll be there with you. … We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women.”
He added, about 30 seconds later, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
However, in the edited version, Trump seemingly says, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”
🚨 BREAKING: The BBC was just exposed for DOCTORING President Trump’s Jan 6 speech to make it seem he ENDORSED rioting, per whistleblower
In his report, Prescott stated, “It was completely misleading to edit the clip in the way Panorama aired it. The fact that [Trump] did not explicitly exhort supporters to go down and fight at Capitol Hill was one of the reasons there were no federal charges for incitement to riot.”
Additionally, The Telegraph’s associate editor Gordon Rayner, who first reported Prescott’s letter and dossier, told GB News’ host Martin Daubney that the White House is looking into the edited footage. Rayner also affirmed that the edit “didn’t happen by accident.”
“I think the important thing to get across to people is that people seeing this for the first time, there is nothing to let the viewers know that this is edited. It’s very, very slick, and it looks like a seamless soundbite,” Rayner said. “After they’ve effectively created a quote that Trump didn’t say, they then show footage of the Proud Boys marching on the Capitol as if that happened in reaction to Trump speaking.”
He pointed out that right after airing the selectively edited clip, it switched to raw footage of hundreds of Proud Boys marching in formation straight to the Capitol — deliberately sequenced to give the impression they were acting on Trump’s direct orders and that he was their personal champion.
“That video of the Proud Boys marching on the Capitol actually happened an hour before Trump started speaking. And again, there is nothing to tell the viewers that that was the correct sequence,” Rayner explained.
“I know that it is already being looked at by the White House. We’re in contact with the White House, and they are reviewing it at the moment,” the editor added. “I would be surprised if they don’t say anything about it fairly soon, frankly. You can’t just make it look as though somebody has said something that they didn’t, and that is exactly what the BBC’s own internal memo says, written by somebody who had served on their editorial guidelines and standards committee. They were very unhappy about this.”
Rayner quoted the report, saying, “Why would anybody trust the BBC?”
The journalist acknowledged that few Americans ever watch Panorama specials, yet cautioned that the slick editing alone could carry grave consequences.
“We don’t want to overplay this, but certainly in the worst-case scenario, it does appear to be an attempt to influence the election. When you see it, you’ll understand,” he said. “There’s no way that this happened by accident. It was clearly a deliberate decision to put these clips together to make it look as though he says one thing, and then the riots happen.”
A BBC spokesperson said in relation to the dossier, “While we don’t comment on leaked documents, when the BBC receives feedback it takes it seriously and considers it carefully. Michael Prescott is a former adviser to a board committee where differing views and opinions of our coverage are routinely discussed and debated.”
FACT: President Trump condemned violence and called for peace on January 6th.
