Special counsel Jack Smith’s team obtained a search warrant in January for records related to former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, and a judge levied a $350,000 fine on the company for a delay in complying, according to court documents released Wednesday.
The details were included in a decision from the federal appeals court in Washington rejecting Twitter’s claim that it should not have been held in contempt or sanctioned., sent an automated reply to a request for comment, saying it would respond soon. The filing says prosecutors got the search warrant directing Twitter to produce information on Trump’s account after a court “found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offences.” The government also obtained a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting Twitter from disclosing the search warrant, the filing says.would “would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation” by giving him “an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behaviour,” the filing says.
Twitter objected to the nondisclosure agreement, saying four days after the compliance deadline that it would not produce any of the account information, according to the ruling. The judges write that Twitter “did not question the validity of the search warrant” but argued that the nondisclosure agreement was a violation of the First Amendment and wanted the court to assess the legality of the agreement before it handed any information over.
Trump says he is innocent and has portrayed the investigation as political motivated. His legal team has indicated it will argue that Trump was relying on the advice of lawyers around him in 2020 and had the right to challenge an election he believed was rigged.A spokesman for the special counsel’s office declined to comment on the warrant or what it sought.