🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith’s office executed a search warrant on former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account earlier this year, searching for “evidence of criminal offenses,” according to a court ruling made public on Wednesday.
Elon Musk, who has been a critic of the government’s relationship with Twitter, took over the company in 2022.
The company had objected to a nondisclosure order that accompanied the search warrant barring them from informing Trump about the search, contending it “violated the company’s First Amendment right to communicate with its subscriber, former President Trump.”
The lower court and the appeals court noted the Stored Communications Act allows for nondisclosure orders in specific circumstances, and said the special counsel’s office had met that bar here.
"Based on ex parte affidavits, the district court found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses.
Moreover, 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 ruling said.
GREAT bot!
The government told Trump’s team about the warrant in June, according to the decision.
In a post Wednesday on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said he’d “Just found out that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ secretly attacked my Twitter account, making it a point not to let me know about this major ‘hit’ on my civil rights.”
“Just found out” my ass. This is proof that he can keep his mouth shut when he chooses to, which implies that he spews his nonsense with full intention and not (only) from some mental defect.
Pretty rich listening to Trump whine about his civil rights. All those kids in cages on the Mexican border didn’t have shit for civil rights, did they.
Alternative link with more info https://www.axios.com/2023/08/09/twitter-x-trump-account-search-warrant Special counsel served Twitter search warrant for Trump account
Special counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant in January for data from former President Trump’s Twitter account as part of his investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Twitter was recently found in contempt for delaying compliance with the warrant and ordered to pay a $350,000 fine. The existence of the warrant and Twitter’s noncompliance had not been previously disclosed due to a nondisclosure order. Twitter initially objected to the order before providing the requested information past a court deadline. The special counsel is investigating Trump’s actions surrounding the transfer of power after the 2020 election. Last week, Trump was indicted on several charges including conspiracy related to interfering with the election certification.
