FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on Wednesday sent a letter to chief executives at the BBC, NPR, and PBS announcing that the regulatory agency has launched an investigation into the British broadcasting giant’s recent admission to deceptively editing a clip of President Donald Trump’s speech ahead of the presidential electoral certification on January 6, 2021.

Carr addressed the letter to Tim Davie, the director general of BBC, Katherine Maher, the CEO of NPR, and Paula Kerger, the president and CEO of PBS, after the BBC was “caught intentionally distorting a speech that President Trump gave in January of 2021,” Breitbart News reported. NPR and PBS were included in the letter because both outlets distribute BBC content in the United States.

The FCC chairman noted that the BBC spliced “together one portion of the speech with an entirely separate portion of the speech that came 54 minutes later.”

He added, “In doing so, the BBC program depicts President Trump voicing a sentence that, in fact, he never uttered. That would appear to meet the very definition of publishing a materially false and damaging statement.”

The outlet has already admitted to deceptively editing the president’s remarks ahead of the January 6 Capitol protests in order to make it seem like he was inciting violence. BBC has apologized and issued a lawsuit, though President Trump filed a lawsuit seeking $5 million in damages due to the effect of the story.

As a result of the scandal, Davie announced that he would be offering his resignation, as did BBC CEO of News Deborah Turness. Ofcom, the United Kingdom’s telecom regulator, has also called on the BBC to investigate the matter.

Still, Carr noted that the FCC will be conducting its own investigation into the edits.

“The BBC has stated that it has a number of partnerships with U.S. broadcasters, including PBS and NPR, to distribute BBC programming here in America. I am therefore writing to each of you to determine whether the BBC provided either the video or audio of the spliced speech to NPR, PBS, or any other broadcaster regulated by the FCC for airing in the U.S. If so, please provide the FCC with transcripts and video of any such broadcasts of the relevant program,” he wrote.

“As you may know, broadcasters regulated by the FCC have a legal obligation to operate in the public interest. Those public interest requirements include prohibitions on news distortion and broadcast hoax. After all, the FCC has stated that “rigging or slanting the news is a most heinous act against the public interest.” [Emphasis added]

Carr concluded by stating that the FCC is committed to “holding broadcasters accountable to their public interest obligations, and your prompt response will help aid me in that effort.”

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