Breaking: Trump sued the BBC. Now they are making a new request to bring in Jack Smith, and the evidence he collected. Now evidence from the January 6 case that never reached a jury, which was not publicly released, could be aired in court. Trump filed his defamation lawsuit after the BBC aired a documentary that combined separate parts of his January 6 speech. He claimed the edit falsely made him appear to tell supporters to go to the Capitol and fight. The BBC is now seeking testimony from former special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor who charged Trump over his effort to overturn the 2020 election. It also wants records tied to the January 6 investigation. Smith’s federal case accused Trump of using false fraud claims to pressure state officials, assemble fake electors, pressure Vice President Mike Pence, and exploit the January 6 attack to stay in power. Trump was never tried. The case ended after his 2024 election, when Justice Department policy barred prosecuting him as a sitting president. But Trump’s civil lawsuit has opened discovery. The BBC can seek documents, depositions, and testimony relevant to whether its reporting was true and whether Trump can prove actual malice. The BBC’s lawyers have argued that Smith’s evidence goes directly to the heart of Trump’s claim: what Trump was doing on January 6, what he said, what he knew, and whether the documentary conveyed a substantially true account of the day. Trump wanted damages from the BBC. Instead, he may have opened a courtroom door to evidence from the January 6 case that never reached a criminal jury. Thank you to the BBC for using Trump’s case against him to expose the truth about him.