BBC demands Donald Trump hands over January 6 personal messages in $10bn lawsuit

The BBC has demanded Donald Trump hand over his personal messages from January 6 as its $10billion defamation lawsuit looms over the broadcaster.

In a bid to prove the US President incited the 2020 riots, the corporation has submitted a series of subpoenas calling for the publication of messages sent to and from Mr Trump's closest allies on the fateful day.

Mr Trump lashed out at Broadcasting House over its Panorama edit of his January 6 speech by accusing the corporation of being "corrupt, fraudulent and criminal".

Mr Trump filed a $10billion lawsuit against the BBC after its Panorama programme spliced together two clips in a 12-second segment from the 2021 Capitol riots in its 2024 Trump: A Second Chance? documentary.

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In the clip, Mr Trump supposedly said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”

However, it later emerged that the footage had been "mangled" together with a 50-minute gap separating the two moments.

Part of the evidence the lawyers have now asked for include messages between Mr Trump and his advisers from the three-hour period between his speech and his call for peace from the rioters.

The broadcaster's legal team has asked for evidence from the former special counsel for the US Department of Justice, Jack Smith.

Last year, he said the "violence was foreseeable to Mr Trump, that he caused it, that it was beneficial to his plan to interfere with the certification, and that when it occurred, he made a conscious choice not to stop it and instead to leverage it for more delay".

Mr Trump has repeatedly hit out at the broadcaster, claiming the corporation had caused damage to his reputation.

He was acquitted of inciting the mob that launched an attack on the US Capitol.

In new legal documents, the BBC said: "In [his] lawsuit, President Trump claims that the BBC defamed him by editing his speech at the White House Ellipse on January 6, 2021 in a manner that he claims conveyed the allegedly false implication that he fomented the violence that followed at the Capitol.

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"Thus, as the BBC explained and the Government does not dispute, President Trump cannot prevail in his case if he cannot establish the falsity of that alleged implication."

The BBC has already asked Mr Trump to hand over his diary and phone logs as well as his financial records around the January 6 riots over the same $10billion lawsuit.

And, on top of diary and phone records, the BBC's lawyers are telling Mr Trump's team to identify all individuals with whom the President had communicated with regarding the Stop the Steal rally.

The demand includes the planning of the event, the speech itself and any discussions that took place in its aftermath.

The President's lawyers had previously opposed requests for the financial documents, insisting they amounted to a "fishing expedition".

Mr Trump has said he feels an "obligation" to see the lawsuit through, with the case now set for trial in Florida in February 2027.

BBC Director-General Tim Davie and Head of News Deborah Turness both stepped down in the wake of the scandal.

Mr Davie subsequently blamed "enemies" of the BBC for stoking the controversy surrounding the corporation, but declared the broadcaster "the very best of society".

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