Special counsel executed a search warrant of Trump’s Twitter account in 2020 election probe

WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith's office executed a search warrant on former President Donald Trump's Twitter accountearlier this year, searching for "evidence of criminal offenses," according to a court ruling made public Wednesday.

The existence of the January search warrant was disclosed in a decision by a federal appeals court in Washington 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.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna99050

Ooh boy that could be juicy! Could they have him admitting his plans for the angry mob he sent After Congress? Admit he lost and doesn’t care? Say what he really thinks of his supporters?
Kinda bummed nothing leaked yet; maybe they didn’t get nothing?

 

Far too little leaks out of these investigations. They need to step it up.

 

You may have noticed nothing seems to leak out of the investigations. Information only leaks once it is handed over to the defense team.

 

Smith is a POS. In order to prevent Trump from knowing about warrant, he said if Trump found out about it he could be a flight risk. So the judge sealed it.

Is this the democracy the left constantly says is threatened, or is this the actual threat the left was talking about?

 

I hope they got something and this wasn't just a witch hunt.

 

If Trump Tweeted something that's evidence of a criminal offense, don't you think action would have been taken a long time ago? If not by the DoJ, them eternally blabbed about by CNN and MSNBC.

 

This is absolutely absurd that a search warrant was granted for a Twitter account.

(Although to be fair, very likely Twitter would have been more than happy to hand over any information they had if there was the tiniest possibility it might be used against Trump. But still raises some internet privacy issues, of course. I'm guessing this would have been before Musk bought the platform. Why did Twitter object? Was it just a charade, they wanted to put on the appearance like they cared about user privacy and were not biased?)

 

I think the real concern was destruction of evidence, which Trump is known for, and that's why what you showed says that the "flight risk" part actually didn't play into the decision (meaning the judge disagreed with and discounted it, but still allowed it to be secret due to risk of destruction of evidence).

I would guess they wanted to see if he admitted anything in direct messages, and was concerned that if he knew they had access to his twitter account, the direct messages could have been deleted (and harder to retrieve).

 

I don’t have a Twitter account so I didn’t know about direct messaging. Why would Trump use Twitter to communicate with someone and leave a paper trail behind?

 

I think they were trying to find dirt in his private messages.

 

Executing a warrant and not finding anything means it’s a witch hunt?

 

I wondered about that too, since Twitter is mostly a public tool...

Well, if the private messages are anything like the tripe he puts out publicly, it could be a very fruitful avenue of investigation...

Good luck, Jackie boy...

 

It's just Twitter's version of private messages. It would be dumb, but possible. He may be more honest in private messages than public statements, so it would be a way to get incontrovertible incriminating statements, e.g. if he admitted privately to anybody he knew he lost the election, and a private electronic message of any kind would be harder to defend against than a witness. He would do it because he would believe his messages were private and not to be seen by anybody except the trusted person he is messaging. It's of course better to not say incriminating things at all, or to speak in code in person, but Smith wouldn't know if Trump made such a mistake unless he looked.

 

It would appear that way.

 

The ruling was about much more than flight risk, they were concerned he’d destroy evidence.

 

Why would he show people documents he admits are classified? Why would he cheat on his wife with a porn star?
He’s a moron and a narcissist.

 

If they got a warrant, it would indicate they had some probable cause to think they’d find evidence of crimes.

 

I think the first question that should be asked is does Twitter archive all Tweets, even deleted ones?

 

Not sure, I think it’s more about his direct messages, but that’s just a guess.

 

I think you’re exactly right. When Trump knows what they have, I wonder if we’ll see a change in his public comments. Something to watch for.