Special Counsel Jack Smith, in a search warrant sent to X, formerly Twitter, requested a vast swathe of information about the account of former President Donald J. Trump, as well as information on the millions of accounts that interacted with it — even those that liked a tweet by Trump in the timeframe of October 2020 to January 2021.
The heavily redacted search warrant requests a list of all users who liked or retweeted posts from Trump between October 2020 and January 2021, including “all associated logs and metadata,” which could cover location data. This extraordinarily expansive request would result in data on millions of American users being turned over to the DOJ.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 11: Former U.S. President Donald Trump is seen during the UFC 295 event at Madison Square Garden on November 11, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks on his latest indictment against former U.S. President Donald Trump on August 1, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
X/Twitter initially delayed complying with the request, per the New York Post, resulting in a $350,000 fine levied against the company.
The warrant also requests all IP addresses associated with Trump’s account, and a list of all devices used to log in to it. This means that any staffer or aide who logged into the account would have the information divulged to the special prosecutor.
All information on Trump’s “connect” and “notification” tabs was requested, as well as all search history, blocks, mutes, and even drafted tweets.
The warrant instructed X/Twitter not to notify Trump of the search order. The company attempted to overcome this in court, but failed.
SpaceX, Twitter and electric car maker Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends an event during the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, on June 16, 2023. (JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)
In counter-arguments that overcame X/Twitter’s objection, Smith argued “there is reason to believe notification to the former president, a sophisticated actor with an expansive platform, would result in a statutorily cognizable harm.”
“The [Non Disclosure Order] was granted based on facts showing that notifying the former president would result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, or other serious jeopardy to an investigation or delaying of trial.”
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.