Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, earlier this year, according to newly revealed court documents.
Twitter’s initial resistance to complying with the Jan. 17 warrant resulted in a federal judge holding the company, now called X, in contempt and levying a $350,000 fine. A federal court of appeals upheld that fine last month in a sealed opinion. On Wednesday, the court unsealed a redacted version of that opinion, revealing details of the secret court battle for the first time.
“Although Twitter ultimately complied with the warrant, the company did not fully produce the requested information until three days after a court-ordered deadline,” according to the 34-page opinion by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. “The district court thus held Twitter in contempt and imposed a $350,000 sanction for its delay.”
It’s unclear what Smith was seeking from Trump’s account. Trump used the account actively in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, promoting false claims of election fraud, calling his supporters to Washington to “stop the steal” and mounting attacks on his rivals. Obtaining data from Twitter might have revealed patterns about Trump’s use of the account, whether others had access to it and whether there were any draft statements that were unsent.
Smith obtained an indictment of Trump last week on charges related to his efforts to subvert the 2020 election. The document was replete with references to Trump’s tweets, including his Dec. 19, 2020, call for supporters to descend on Washington for a “wild” protest on Jan. 6, 2021, as well as his tweet, amid violence at the Capitol, attacking his vice president, Mike Pence, for refusing to single-handedly upend the election. The indictment suggests Trump, not any surrogate or aide, issued the tweets.
The existence of the warrant shows that prosecutors acquired access to the inner workings of what was once the most powerful megaphone in American politics and perhaps on the world stage. Trump was banned from Twitter just days after Jan. 6, after the company found his tweets to be in violation of its terms. Elon Musk, who took over Twitter last year, restored Trump’s access, but the former president has not yet tweeted from the account since his return.
Twitter’s fight with Smith’s team was rooted in prosecutors’ decision to serve the warrant along with a “non-disclosure order” that prohibited Twitter from notifying Trump, or anyone else, about the warrant’s existence.
Approved ~ FS
Orange of Specious
Article URL : https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/09/special-counsel-obtained-search-warrant-for-donald-trumps-twitter-account-00110484