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While I am on my summer travels, I am updating pieces that have a fresh relevance today. This morning we learn that Donald Trump is outraged that the BBC is daring to defy him.
He expected the BBC to roll over and pay him off – as so many US institutions have paid him off. It had made an editing mistake that implied he had incited a mob of his supporters to storm Congress in January 2021. He sued for the extraordinary sum of $10 billion – and expected payment.
Instead of begging for mercy, the BBC is fighting back.
It is now clear that one of the defences the BBC will use in the libel trial, is the simple assertion that Trump did indeed incite violence.
Drawing on evidence gathered by a US congressional committee, it wants to subpoena Trump’s children, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump. They were present in the White House, and the BBC wants to know what they know about Trump’s unwillingness to stop the riot.
It also wants to hear from Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who drafted a statement condemning the use of violence, which was never delivered.
Trump’s legal team is outraged. The BBC had “intentionally defamed” the president, it said. Its subpoena request was now “seeking to harass him, his family, and supporters by abusing the deposition process”.
Trump’s lawyers may be outraged, but they should not be surprised.
As I explain below, despite his mild-mannered appearance, Samir Shah, the BBC’s chair, is not a man to mess with.
No one looks less like a tough guy than Dr Samir Shah CBE. The BBC’s chair is short, slight, dapper and charming. He abhors strength training in all its forms. Indeed, he once gave me a long lecture on how indifference to sport and an aversion to physical activity were prized parts of his Indian heritage.
I pointed that India produced the world’s greatest cricketers. He brushed my objections aside.
Let me put it like this. I find it easier to imagine Samir leading the first space mission to the frozen moons of Saturn than visiting a gym.
Yet all of us who worked for him when he was an editor knew that he could turn ferocious when malign interests threatened independent journalism.
As Donald Trump is learning the hard way.
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