Prosecutor wins fight for Trump Twitter messages
Federal prosecutors have secured a significant victory in their legal battle with Donald Trump, securing access to his Twitter direct messages and drafts.
Federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election have won a legal fight against Twitter for access to his direct messages and drafts, which they hope will prove he intended to deceive American voters.
According to court papers unsealed on Tuesday, they obtained a search warrant in February for “all content, records, and other information relating to communications sent from or received” on Trump’s account between October 2020 and January 2021.
That period spans the buildup to the 2020 election and the wide-ranging campaign by Trump and his associates to reverse the defeat, culminating in the riot on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the US Capitol. The former president was banned from Twitter after the attack, and his account has since lain dormant.
Trump is an avid social media user and his account on Twitter, now known as X, became an instrument of government policy during his four years in the White House. His tweets, often posted late at night, set the media agenda for the next day and left his staff scrambling to catch up or make amends.
The unsealed transcripts from court hearings in February offer new insight into what prosecutors with Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating Trump, were searching for. One prosecutor told Judge Beryl Howell, of the District of Columbia district court, that the account held “communications between the president and senior advisers that were vital to presidential decision-making”.
Trump was indicted this month by a federal grand jury on four charges relating to his alleged attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat. He has pleaded not guilty.
He was indicted again in Georgia on Monday, accused of overseeing a sprawling “criminal enterprise” to overturn his narrow defeat by Joe Biden in the battleground state.
The unsealed transcripts show that prosecutors sought a warrant to access “all tweets created, drafted, favourited/liked, or retweeted” by Trump’s account between October 2020 and January 2021. It remains unclear what information was gathered, but it is hoped that deleted messages and draft ones will reveal his intentions during the election and during the Capitol Hill riot.
The warrant was revealed last week when an appeals court in Washington released papers showing that Twitter/X had challenged elements of the search order and refused to hand over certain information. It was fined dollars 350,000 for not immediately complying with the order.
Trump’s Twitter account was reinstated by Elon Musk in November last year, but Trump has refused to return to the platform, preferring his own social media platform.
On Sunday he used Truth Social to respond to news of the warrant, saying: “How dare lowlife prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, break into my former Twitter account without informing me. What could he possibly find out that is not already known.”
Trump’s steady stream of tweets during his presidency veered between raging at enemies, real and imagined, gloating at his victories and indulging in petty gossip and point-scoring.
His tweets disputing his 2020 defeat, spreading false claims of election fraud and whipping up his supporters before the January 6 riot have been cited as evidence by prosecutors in both the federal and Georgia indictments.
The four criminal indictments facing him may go to trial next year, even as he fights to take back the White House in a potential rematch with Biden. On Wednesday night prosecutors in the Georgia case suggested a trial date next March.
The Times
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