Prosecutors working for Jack Smith, the particular counsel who has twice introduced indictments in opposition to former President Donald J. Trump, obtained a search warrant early this yr for Mr. Trump’s lengthy dormant Twitter account as a part of their inquiry into his try to overturn the 2020 election, in line with courtroom papers unsealed on Wednesday.
The warrant, which was signed by a federal decide in Washington in January after Elon Musk took over Twitter, which is now known as X, provides a brand new dimension to the scope of the particular counsel’s efforts to research the previous president.
The courtroom papers, which emerged from an attraction by Twitter difficult the decide’s resolution to difficulty the warrant, didn’t reveal what prosecutors have been in search of in Mr. Trump’s Twitter account, which the tech firm shut down simply days after the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
However the papers point out that prosecutors acquired permission from the decide to not inform Mr. Trump for months that they’d obtained the warrant for his account. The prosecutors feared that if Mr. Trump discovered concerning the warrant, it “would severely jeopardize the continuing investigation” by giving him “a chance to destroy proof, change patterns of conduct, [or] notify confederates,” the papers mentioned.
