Special counsel Jack Smith sought to obtain a large amount of data from former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, per newly unsealed transcripts from February court hearings.
Investigators sought access to the former president’s direct messages, draft tweets, and deleted messages from the platform now known as X as part of Smith’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
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The search warrant demanded the social media platform hand over any data from accounts associated with Trump that he could have been using, including all information about devices logged into his account. The warrant asked for privacy settings and history, as well as the search record during the period of October 2020 to January 2021.
Adding to the list, the filing shows Smith demanded all tweets “created, drafted, favorited/liked, or retweeted” by Trump, as well as all messages that were “sent from, received by, stored in draft form in, or otherwise associated with” the current GOP front-runner.
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The platform was fined $350,000 for refusing to comply with the handover of data related to Trump’s account after the Justice Department issued a search warrant, according to court documents released Wednesday. D.C. District Court Judge Beryl Howell held the social media platform in contempt and ordered M. Evan Corcoran, a lawyer for Trump, to submit to a higher court most of the legal documents he had tried to withhold.
Trump was indicted in a fourth case on Monday in the 2020 election subversion case in Georgia. The indictment was handed down the same month the former president was indicted by Smith on accusations of trying to steal the 2020 election and contributing to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
