The author of the leaked ‘BBC bias’ memo, seized on by President Donald Trump to threaten a billion-dollar lawsuit against the broadcaster, is a right-wing lobbyist whose firm is being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by US tech and media giants with close ties to Trump, to whom they have donated millions.

One of them, Oracle, is owned by a Republican Party mega-donor who in November 2020 spoke with Trump aides about delegitimising the US elections – and who is actively seeking to reshape the US media landscape to benefit the President.

The lobbyist, Michael Prescott, was reportedly appointed to the BBC advisory position under the influence of BBC Board member Sir Robbie Gibb, a co-founder and early fundraiser of the pro-Trump TV news station GB News co-owned by hedge fund multimillionaire Paul Marshall. Earlier this year, Marshall called for the BBC to be dismantled.

The revelations raise questions about whether a network of Trump-aligned interests helped engineer the BBC’s worst governance crisis in a decade.

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