Accordingly, federal prosecutors received numerous direct messages from former President Donald Trump sent via his Twitter account, as well as drafts and deleted letters court records Tuesday unsealed.
It’s unclear what information the direct messages might contain or with whom they were exchanged. But first the revelation reported of CNN, adds new details on court documents last week that first showed Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team obtained a search warrant on Trump’s Twitter account in January.
The court documents said federal prosecutors searched “all content, records and other information” related to Trump’s account for the period from October 2020 to January 2021 – when his @realDonaldTrump username was permanently banned – including drafts and all messages who have been liked or retweeted . The dates would range from the run-up to the 2020 election to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The documents come from court hearings in February after Twitter tried to resist the search warrant, claiming a related non-disclosure order would violate the company’s First Amendment rights.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia later fined Twitter $350,000 — now known as The company later turned the information over to Smith’s team.
However, court filings show that US District Judge Beryl Howell slammed Twitter in February, accusing the company of taking “extraordinary” steps to notify Trump of the search warrant. At one point, Howell asked company lawyers if owner Elon Musk “wanted to make Donald Trump feel like a particularly welcome new Twitter user”?
The former president was indicted on August 1 on four federal charges linked to multiple conspiracies related to the January 6, 2021 riot in the Capitol and his efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, in the related.
Trump attacked Smith on Sunday amid reports of the search warrant, calling the special counsel a “lowlife prosecutor” and accusing the man of breaking into his account “without telling me.”
“What could he possibly find out that isn’t already known,” Trump asked on Truth Social, the social media account he set up after being banned from Twitter.