Prosecutors working for Jack Smith, the special counsel who twice served as former President Donald J. Trump, obtained a search warrant earlier this year for Mr. Trump’s long-defunct Twitter account as part of an investigation into his effort to overturn the 2020 election. , according to court papers unsealed Wednesday.
The warrant, which was signed by a federal judge in Washington in January after Elon Musk took over Twitter, now called X, is one example of prosecutors searching Mr Trump’s communications and asking them to investigate. Adds a new dimension to the scope of the Special Counsel’s efforts. former President.
Court papers, which emerged from Twitter’s appeal challenging a judge’s decision to issue the warrant, did not say what prosecutors were looking for in Mr Trump’s Twitter account, which the tech company hacked shortly after the attack on the Capitol. It was closed after a few days. January 6, 2021.
But documents indicate prosecutors got permission from a judge not to tell Mr Trump for months that they had obtained a warrant for his account. Prosecutors feared that if Mr Trump became aware of the warrant, it would “seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation” allowing him to “destroy evidence, change patterns of behaviour, (or) conspire to”. Will get an opportunity to inform”, the paper said.
