Prosecutors Gain Access to Trump’s Twitter Account as Part of Investigation into Election Fraud
Prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith, who has brought two indictments against former President Donald J. Trump, obtained a search warrant earlier this year for Mr. Trump’s dormant Twitter account. The warrant was granted in January, shortly after Elon Musk took over the platform, now known as X. This marks the first known instance of prosecutors directly searching the communications of a former president.
The court papers were unsealed on Wednesday as a result of an appeal by Twitter challenging a portion of the judge’s decision to issue the warrant. The documents did not reveal the specific information prosecutors were seeking from Mr. Trump’s Twitter account. However, it is worth noting that Twitter had shut down Mr. Trump’s account just days after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Interestingly, the court papers also indicate that prosecutors were granted permission by the judge to withhold information about the warrant from Mr. Trump for several months. The reason cited was the concern that alerting Trump to the warrant might have jeopardized the ongoing investigation, potentially allowing him to destroy evidence, alter his behavior, or notify accomplices.
While the warrant’s existence was previously reported by Politico, it sheds light on the extent to which the special counsel’s work has taken place away from public scrutiny. Most of the investigations into Trump’s attempts to hold onto power and his handling of classified materials have been conducted by secret federal grand juries.
During the turbulent period between the election and January 6, Mr. Trump’s Twitter account, with its millions of followers, was one of the most prominent social media platforms in the country. The fact that prosecutors sought a warrant to search the account suggests their interest in uncovering nonpublic aspects of it, although the exact nature of their inquiry remains unclear.
In addition to gaining access to Mr. Trump’s Twitter account, prosecutors have seized cellphones and other electronic devices from some of his close aides and lawyers. This includes individuals named as co-conspirators in the recent indictment, such as John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark. Eastman is a lawyer who advised Trump on a plan to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results during the joint session of Congress on January 6. Clark, a loyalist within the Justice Department, was someone Trump attempted to install as acting attorney general.
The charges filed against Trump in relation to the election accuse him of three interconnected conspiracies: defrauding the United States, disrupting the certification of the election on January 6 at the Capitol, and depriving individuals of their right to have their votes counted.
As the investigation continues, it is expected that more details about the search warrant and its findings will emerge, shedding further light on the efforts to hold the former president accountable for his actions surrounding the 2020 election.