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.
The existence of the January search warrant was disclosed in a decision by a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. affirming a lower court’s decision holding Twitter in contempt of court and sanctioning the company $350,000 for not immediately complying with the warrant.
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.
NBC News has reached out to the company, now called X, for comment.
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