LONDON (AP) — The BBC asked a U.S. court for help in getting documents and testimony from members of U.S. President Donald Trump 's family in connection with his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster, a court document showed.
Lawyers for the BBC argued that Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr. have “personal knowledge" and likely have records relevant to elements of Trump's claims against the broadcaster, according to a filing Friday in federal court in Florida.
The broadcaster has been unable to serve subpoenas because the three have Secret Service protection and other security personnel around them, the filing says.
Trump filed the lawsuit in December seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing it of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices.
The allegations center on the way a 2024 documentary edited a speech Trump gave on Jan. 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington. The lawsuit accuses the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech” to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”
It added that the editing was "a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
The BBC has apologized to Trump for the misleading edit, but said it had not defamed him.
The latest court filing said that Trump's family members had knowledge of issues that were relevant to Trump's argument “that it would be materially false to imply that he incited violence" on Jan. 6, 2021.
It cited that Donald Trump, Jr. and Ivanka Trump were both present in the Oval Office when Trump was still revising his speech, adding that Donald Trump, Jr. spoke directly with his father after violence had broken out at the Capitol.
The filing says the BBC asked Trump to accept the subpoenas on his daughter and son-in-law's behalf or to direct the Secret Service to allow the subpoenas to be served, but he refused. The broadcaster asked the court to allow the subpoenas to be served by email and certified mail.
The judge has given Trump's legal team until Friday to respond to the BBC's request.
Trump's legal team said that “the BBC is simply trying to distract away from their own obvious liability.”
“The BBC intentionally defamed President Donald J. Trump, and now the BBC is seeking to harass him, his family, and supporters by abusing the deposition process," according to the team.
A trial has been provisionally set for February in the case.
Last week, a federal judge in Florida granted Trump a temporary reprieve from an order that he provide details of his business empire’s financial performance as part of the lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Roy Altman agreed to put that order on hold while he considers an amended complaint from Trump that would narrow his claim that he suffered damage to both business and reputation.
Associated Press journalists Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.
FILE - Pedestrians walk outside the BBC Headquarters in London, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, file)
MILAN (AP) — Thieves stole four works attributed to Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina worth millions of euros from the regional museum in the city of Messina in Sicily while crowds gathered across town for the traditional Assumption holiday celebrations, cultural officials and Italian media said Sunday.
The thieves bypassed alarm and security systems on Saturday evening at the MuMe museum, making off with three of the five surviving panels of the San Gregorio Polyptych, dated to 1473, as well as the double-sided panel depicting the Virgin Mary and the dead Christ in Pietà, which was removed from an armored display case, the news agency LaPresse reported.
They removed all five panels of the San Gregorio Polyptych from their frame, but abandoned two behind a wall while fleeing.
Art expert Alberto Fiz estimated the value of the stolen works at 70 million euros ($81 million) to 80 million euros ($92 million).
“We are devastated by what happened. They were two of Antonello da Messina’s most important and best-known works. It is a tremendous loss for the museum, the city, the community and the art world,” MuMe director Marisa Mercurio told the ANSA news agency.
Mercurio said the theft occurred just before 10 p.m., and that the alarms were working and the guards were on site. She described the works as central to the region's heritage.
“These are not merely works by Antonello da Messina,” she told Sky TG24. “They are works that hold considerable significance in terms of our identity, as well as, of course, their artistic and cultural value, because they are works by our very own Antonello da Messina.”
Messina’s top culture official, Enzo Caruso, called the theft “more than a loss” and “a disaster.”
“Messina without Antonello is deprived of the very essence of the greatest artist of the European Renaissance,” Caruso told Sky, calling for the swift recovery of the stolen works.
Caruso noted that international interest in the artist had intensified since Italy’s Culture Ministry acquired Antonello’s devotional painting “Ecce Homo” for $14.9 million through negotiations with Sotheby’s in New York earlier this year.
Lynda Albertson, an art-crime analyst, said the works are instantly recognizable, impeding any effort to sell them through reputable channels.
“Stealing an Antonello may be far easier than selling one. If these are ordinary thieves, they will soon discover that — to their cost,” Albertson, who is the chief executive of the ARCA art crimes research association, told the Italian daily La Repubblica. She said such famous artworks often pass from one criminal to another, serving as collateral for other illicit activity.
The museum was closed Sunday while investigators gathered evidence. Neither museum officials nor the Carabinieri could immediately be reached for comment.
The Ferragosto holiday, which marks the feast of the Assumption of Mary, marks the height of the Italian summer holiday season, and was being celebrated in Messina with a procession that culminated in prayers and a blessing in the main Piazza Duomo around the time of the heist.
The theft comes just days after police in the northern Italian city of Parma announced that they had recovered three stolen artworks by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse worth about 10 million euros ($11.5 million). Five people have been detained in the March 22-23 theft from the Magnani Rocca Foundation in Parma province.
A journalist browses the Messina museum website showing a picture of the Early Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina's artwork where three of the five panels belonging to the Polyptych of San Gregorio and the double-sided panel with the Madonna and the Christ in Pietà, stolen from the Sicilian museum on Aug. 15, in Rome, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
