Special Counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed and obtained a search warrant related for former President Trump’s Twitter account, according to court filings unsealed Wednesday.
The case, decided in July, ordered Twitter, now known as X, to turn over the documents sought by Smith and also fined the company $350,000 for a three-day delay in complying with a court order of the records.
DOJ, which first sought the records in January of this year, also obtained a nondisclosure order which prohibited Twitter from disclosing the existence or contents of the search warrant to anyone, including Trump himself.
The filing details a months-long battle between Twitter and the special counsel’s office over the efforts to get information tied to Trump’s account, with an appeals court backing a lower court ruling “in all respects.”
“The district court found that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump “would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation” by giving him ‘an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates,’” the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. noted in its ruling.
The lower court also found probable cause to search Trump’s Twitter account “for evidence of criminal offenses.”
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